Ahh, there were two assertions I made in that comment and I guess I picked the wrong one.
I base it on observations. For example, I forget who, but there are a few congress people and senators which love to hand out ayn rand books to freshmen. Also there was the chair of the fed, appointed by conservatives who was an ayn rand desciple. Several people on this forum idolize her and her ideology, generally they are on the more libertarian side of conservatism. lots of little observations like that, granted the more I think about it, the more examples I will be able to dredge out of my brain.
Ah, ok, thanks. I've never met two conservatives alike. Seriously, I mean that. There are common ideologies from both sides of the spectrum; liberals, conservatives, all seem to be fluid to some degree depending on the static issue. Let's take a glaring example of an issue people generally think has one ideological tag assigned to it. Legalizing weed. As a conservative, one might think that conservatives are diametrically opposed to legalizing pot, however, I'm a conservative and I am not against it. Conversely, almost all, if not all liberals I know are not against it either. Does it make me liberal? The answer is no. It makes me a conservative who is for legalizing marijuana.
If I could nail down a single phrase that describes liberals, and conservatives, IMO, I would say something like this. Conservatives tend to think in absolutes, meaning, something is either good, or it's bad, whereas Liberals tend to think in potentialities; something could be good, or it could be bad. Now, when you look at this, and really take a close look, they're not that far off are they? Conservatives tend to throw out exceptions when reasoning, and liberals actively look for the exception to influence their reasoning. Example, the death penalty. Conservatives, place no rational value to the exception that some innocent people will be executed, and favor the death penalty. Liberals, place rational value to the exception of innocent life lost, and reason to themselves that because innocent life can be lost, that the death penalty should be abolished.
What I'm trying to illustrate is that because of the above, I am coming to realize that political ideologies, and socio-ideologies are more flexible than most people think. Further, an ideology can be diagnosed without any indication of political, or sociological philosophy from the subject. It is my contention that ideology is a combination of one's genes and their environment, and is more about how we reason, and react to
everything, than simply how we view a political, or sociological issue.
For instance, I think a test can be devised that proves my point, if one assumes that the above notion that conservatives think in black and white, and liberals in grey. Without any questions on any specific political, or sociological issues, one could tell by how the participants respond whether they are liberal, or conservative, simply by how they reason what is good, or what is bad. I think that with a great deal of accuracy, a double blind study could show that simply by their answers to non political, or sociological questions we could predict a subjects political ideology.
Before the test, the interviewers would determine the subjects ideology, and record the data. Now the testing begins, and the test scorers would not know the results of the prior interviews, and would score the tests based on multiple choice questions to various questions that relate to a black and white answering style to one that allows for grey. My guess is that conservatives will mostly choose black and white answers, and liberals will mostly choose grey. The tricky part is devising testing questions that can have multiple choice answers that are correct but appear as though only one is correct to the test taker..
Tim-