Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Fear and Tactics

The Ideological Animal

Twenty years later, they decided to compare the subjects' childhood personalities with their political preferences as adults. They found arresting patterns. As kids, liberals had developed close relationships with peers and were rated by their teachers as self-reliant, energetic, impulsive, and resilient. People who were conservative at age 23 had been described by their teachers as easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3. The reason for the difference, the Blocks hypothesized, was that insecure kids most needed the reassurance of tradition and authority, and they found it in conservative politics.

So, I think this is pretty clear why the politics and tactics of fear work so well on conservatives. They're already afraid.

I know how difficult it is to deal with change. No one likes change. Change is scary. Do you think I like change? Of course not. I'm a primate like everyone. So what makes me different from a conservative? I think it may be this: I believe in my ability to survive change. I'm a primate with a superiority complex.

And I have no reason to trust a man who lies to take care of me. You know who I'm talking about.

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