Liberals/Conservatives Differently Wired

In the past two weeks, I have received two emails, forwarded not only to me but also to countless others. One had to do with Obamacare threatening home values, or some such nonsense. The other was a scurrilous attack on our First Lady, Michelle Obama. These and other emails like them have floated around the Internet for years, but for some reason it seems that they have recently - since the election of a mixed-blood President - become much more vicious.

This latter email consisted of a smiling First Lady.. The subject line: Fw: A sincere thank-you note! It's the usual vilification of her and her family, cloaked in humor, in sarcasm, in irony. This particular brand of humor coming from the right wing seems to be reserved for any First Family who happens to be black. I for one am sick and tired of seeing this vile, disgusting trash masquerading as political statement. It would have been easy to spend five minutes checking withsnopes.com, factcheck.org, or urbanlegends.com before forwarding this garbage. But some people would rather make up their own alternate reality than face real reality. I'm tired of the smears. Let me explain why.

Not long ago, research indicated that conservatives and liberals are "wired" differently. Their brains respond differently to outside stimuli. Many people have thought that this was so, and research seems to bear the theory out. Take a look at these websites:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/07/brain-structure-differs-in-liberals-conservatives-study/

http://psychcentral.com/news/2007/09/10/brains-of-liberals-conservatives-may-work-differently/1691.html

It would seem that conservatives respond readily to authority, and have a world view that is somewhat inflexible. For example, Christian conservatives believe that the Bible is the final authority on all things, since it is literally the word of God. Orthodox Jews feel the same way, Muslim fundamentalists believe the Koran and Hadith are the absolute word of God, and on and on through all the holy writings of all the religions on Earth. I have heard Christians say, "God wrote it in the Bible, I believe it, and that's that!" That says it all.

Liberals, on the other hand, tend to be more flexible in their thinking. They might be Presbyterian or Episcopalian (Pissy-Wissy) in their religious orientation, or Reform or Conservative Jews, or atheists or agnostics, Wiccans or Unitarian-Universalists, humanists or ethical culture folks.

Then there is the fear factor. Conservatives tend to fear the other, the people speaking strange, ungodly tongues, refusing to blend in with the crowd, with Real Americans, True Christians, or Real Africans, or True Communists. And they are really, really scared of and annoyed by people whose skin color and facial features are just plain wrong.

A black familty in the White House is a slap in the face to such people. They want their country back, not a country with people in the White House with weird names: Barack Obama, Sasha, Malia. What kind of names are these for an American President and his children? What has happened to our country? A President who grew up in Indonesia, who even speaks a few words of Bhasa Indonesia? Whose father was a Kenyan? Whose mother was an atheist? A President who is the product of miscegenation. Wikipedia says "In 1967, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Loving v. Virginia that anti-miscegenation laws are unconstitutional. With this ruling, these laws were no longer in effect in the remaining 16 states that still had them." 

But to a liberal, all this is gravy, icing on the cake. Not only is this guy something of a liberal, but a black liberal on top of it. Sure, he says he's a Christian, although lots of Tea Partiers think this pork-eating, beer-swilling man is a Muslim (!), but he could well be a closet atheist, tryng to appease the righties, just like in the middle of the presidential campaign a shiny new American flag lapel pin sprouted on his suit jacket.

Then there's the matter of science and reason. Remember when Bush II was asked whether he believed in evolution, and he drawled, "Well, the jury is still out on that?"
Well, the jury of scientists has made a decision: evolution is correct. Scientists are 99% in agreement that over billions of years, life began as one-celled beings and evolved into the variety of life forms that we see around us now.

Conservative Christians and Orthodox Jews believe that five thousand years ago, God created the universe in six days, and that work tired him out so much that he needed a seventh day to rest up. Some God.

Scientists believe that climate change is a reality, and that it's caused largely by human activity. Liberals tend to agree. Conservatives believe that all this climate-change talk is part of some vast, tree-hugger, atheist, Jewish, Communist, gay conspiracy to take over the world.

Liberals, psychiatrists and scientists believe that homosexuality is a matter of how one is "wired," (see above) that it's not a life-style choice, not any kind of choice at all, it's just that one is born that way. And it's certainly not a sin, whatever that is. Conservatives tend to disagree. Although people like Dick Cheney, whose daughter is a lesbian, think differently, for some reason.

On abortion, liberals usually think that a woman has a right to decide what's going to happen with her own body. Conservatives would bring in Big Govenment to intercede between a woman and her health-care provider. Of course, government should be able to decide matters of childbearing, shouldn't it?

So please - I can do without any more emails telling me:

That if I vote for Obama again, he's going to come into our houses, take away our guns, kill our dog, and rape our wives and daughters. He's a Mau-Mau, a Muslim, who wasn't even born in the USA.

That asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes is an attack on the job-creating class. After all, you can see how many jobs this policy has created...haven't you?

That teaching Intelligent Design/Creationism alongside Evolution makes absolute sense, since they're all scientific theories, aren't they? And the Earth is flat, and the sun revolves around the Earth, does it not?

That tax breaks for the wealthy and for Big Oil are in fact for the benefit of the middle class and the poor.

That Obamacare is socialism, and just plain evil. After all, health care that includes people with pre-existing conditions and people who are poor and unemployed....what kind of health care is that?

That Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance (the social safety net stuff), all initiatives of the Democratic Party, should be privatized or eliminated, 'cause they're bad for ya. After all, isn't that why we have charity?

I could go on and on, but I think you get my drift.