As I researched, studied and wrote about where we are in politics in America today one thing kept coming back up in my thought process. It was how Liberals could be so irrational and unreasonable in their beliefs and their position on issues. I actually had a lengthy discussion about this with some of the other “old guys” at my gym one morning, including a very liberal psychology professor. The consensus of opinion was that the reasoning portion of the brain simply does not work in people who are liberal.
The more I thought about this the more I began to believe that the “left brain, right brain” explanation that I wrote about earlier this year is too simplistic. There are too many different people who hold liberal views for this simple explanation to be valid. There are people from all races, backgrounds and professions who are Liberal. Many are very intelligent, highly educated and very successful in their chosen profession.
As I studied this subject and tried to figure out how to understand and interact with people who are Liberals, I noticed that they usually fall into one of five different groups:
- Liberals who are totally uninformed about facts regarding issues and do not have any interest in being informed.
- Liberals who think that they are informed when they are actually misinformed. This is because the people they usually associate with have deeply held liberal views which they constantly share with their friends.
- Liberals who acknowledge that Liberalism is not perfect but openly say that they prefer it over Conservatism. These people are different from the people in group “4”. They are much less demanding and personal agenda driven. Their mindset is more attuned to a “live and let live” lifestyle.
4.Liberals who simply want things to be the way they want it to be even if it is not logical or ethical. Unfortunately, too many of the young people in America today are in this group. There is no other way to explain how so many of them supported a professed Socialist for President or organized protests groups like Occupy or BLM.
- Liberals who are so agenda driven that they are deliberately working to make America be a Socialist/Communist country.
As I thought about how different Liberals can be in some ways, I also noticed that they do have some things in common:
Many of these Liberals had a bad life experience that shaped their views. Something like a failed business or personal relationship that they refuse to acknowledge was their fault.
Almost all Liberals are Fox News haters. They cannot tolerate any opinion about anything other their own.
Trying to reason with most Liberals can be challenging. Some will politely ignore you, some will question you and some will become angry and absolutely nasty in their responses to you.
I have actually tried to understand how some of these Liberals have the views that they do, and even tried to have a rational exchange of ideas/facts with some of them, with limited success
During some of my attempts to interact with various Liberals I noticed that some had to suspend all semblances of reason, ethics, and honesty to profess such strongly held liberal views. I cannot understand people who can do this and will simply avoid those that do in the future.
I do still believe that there are some people with liberal views that can be positively influenced, but based on my experiences in recent years I will “pick my battles” more carefully in the future. I ask all of my fellow conservatives and Libertarians to do the same. We cannot just give up and allow the Liberal base in America to continue to grow!