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It’s anguishing to listen to liberals and conservatives discuss important issues. The mindsets are so radically different, it’s almost impossible to characterize the absolute incompatibility of the two thought processes.
Take the recent highly charged arguments concerning gun control and, to advance hidden political motives, add the left’s “sympathy” gambit about helping the poor.
Even though guns are the highest-quality personal protection, the popular liberal solution to the criminal use of guns is to eliminate them. If they can’t do that, they want to force background checks on all law-abiding citizens who want to own guns.
Bullets hurt people just as cars, knives, hammers, 2-by-4’s and many other items are used to hurt, maim and kill. These atrocities torment both liberals and conservatives. Yet conclusions and solutions are diametrically opposed. Liberals attempt to force emotionally driven and, thus, impractical solutions. Rational thinking drives conservatives.
Before I introduce a fundamental cause of dysfunctional liberal thinking, an elemental axiom of human mental and emotional behavior needs to be examined — i.e., the inverse relationship between thinking and emotion. As emotion increases, either negative or positive, the quality of rational thought decreases.
This process may operate below the threshold of conscious awareness, creating a chronic undercurrent of emotional interference with rational thinking that may last a lifetime. Thus, the reason for liberal thinking often cannot be rationally explained. “I don’t know. That’s just the way I’ve always been.”
Driven by these hidden feelings transformed to thoughts, liberals develop emotion actuated routines that prevent them from understanding their own dysfunctional behaviors. Yet they defend themselves with strong belief systems not possible for rational people to understand but otherwise necessary to explain and justify their conduct. Chronic and emotionally entrenched values and beliefs become impenetrable and impossible to assuage. As a former liberal, I have “been there, done that.”
Of course, to understand another’s judgments and conclusions, we must consider motives. Can we identify another person’s intent by gathering external information, analyzing their behavior and listening to their beliefs? Possibly. However, motive and truth are internal; content is inferential. Only the individual knows their true motives, and liberals won’t tell.
For example, were sympathy and a desire to help the “poor” behind Obamacare? Or was the true motive to transfer wealth and class equalization, thereby focusing government power and authority at a higher and broader level?
After some 50 years of observation, and as a former liberal, it appears that many are not honest about their motives, that they are unaware of them, or that their real motives are unacceptable to themselves. In trying to divert attention from their unawareness, explanations become incomprehensible with obvious flaws when viewed from a rational, natural, logical and unintended consequence perspective.
In spite of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of gun ownership, and even though the debate is fraught with incoherent complexities characteristic of confused liberal “thought,” the liberal mind continues to fashion ideas about how to undermine the Constitution and the Supreme Court. They are determined to decimate the centuries old right of American citizens to “keep and bear arms.” You can bet on it; they will not stop.
Fortunately, Nevada has a governor who adheres to the laws of the land and thinks without emotional interference. Despite extreme pressure from out-of-state and in-state big-money liberals, his veto of Senate Bill 221 (background checks for gun transfers, et al.) required extreme political courage.
Dan Mooney, a 40-year Carson City resident, may be reached at Nevada4@aol.com.