I’ve noticed something interesting, which has puzzled me greatly. I think I’ve finally found an answer. The question is simply: how it is that so many seemingly otherwise intelligent people can be liberal? In fact, some of the smartest people I know are wildly liberal. Then how can they believe in such a flawed philosophy?

            The first idea that came to mind is that perhaps they actually know their policies are flawed. Maybe they really do understand socialism. Maybe they really do understand that taxation hurts the economy. Maybe they really do want race divisions to never vanish. Maybe they really like policies that prevent babies from being born. Maybe they really don’t think the environment will collapse in 10 years. Maybe they really do like making citizens dependent on the government. Maybe when they say that terrorist regimes can be appeased, they really understand that it has always been like that in recorded history, and the evil people will still be evil despite the fact that we really really really just want to get along. Maybe the reason that they hold such logically, historically, and wrongful positions is that they simply want power. But while I assume that there are politicians who truly desire power that badly, it just didn’t explain the liberals I met in my day to day activities.

Then I assumed that perhaps they think they are smarter than the rest of us and therefore entitled to impose their policies on us, and the hurtful consequences are simply a necessary evil to get others to see the light. That one was closer to reality, but while I again assume there are indeed such people out there, it just doesn’t fit. I’ve met my share of idealistic young college kids who will defend socialism to the death. Democrats tell me they’d rather drink motor oil than vote republican. And the likes of Ward Churchill who too often grace the headlines let me know that there must be something else going on.

            Permit me to speak in liberal generalizations for a minute. Liberals tend to be supported by the poor, undertrodden people in society. They also tend to have a pretty strong following amongst college intelligentsia, whether professor or student. In other words, they are supported by the underdogs they represent, and those who are smart enough to truly understand.

            Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to be supported by working Americans who were too dumb to ever go to college, misguided Christians, and corrupted rich people and business owners who only think of their own greed and neglect those in life who weren’t so lucky out of selfishness.

            Here’s what I think is really going on. When exposed to college indoctrination and daily liberal media, its easy to see the inequality and suffering in the world. No decent person can see suffering and feel very comfortable. It’s easy to see an “unmet need” or suffering in the world and say “gee, that just ain’t a good thing.” Because the liberal-in-training is motivated to reduce suffering and promote equality, they gain a moral sense of fulfillment. This is where the accusation that liberals care more about good intentions than good results originates. (This may go hand in hand with the common fact that liberals tend to be less religious… as mankind is considered the highest intelligence in the universe, its easier to imagine that a perfect society is achievable solely through man’s intelligence, rather than relying on the humility that goes along with a belief in God. But that is speculation for another day…)

            The fact that the world is indeed a complex place doesn’t seem to impress them. The recent minimum wage bill is a prime example. Sure, nobody should have to support a family on $5.15 per hour… but how is $7 any better? Wouldn’t $500 per hour be even better? But somewhere along the line, attempting to help one person (the minimum wage employee) would harm another (the business owner, and pretty much everyone the economy affects.) This world of trade-offs and compromise is the world conservatives live in.

            Perhaps the reason liberals don’t need to be bothered by such facts is that they have obtained their belief first, and subsequent failure of that vision in the real world would undermine that belief. Rather than sacrifice their belief as wrong, it is easier to find quasi-intellectual arguments supporting them, and attribute all failures to those who oppose their vision, rather than the liberal vision itself. Thus, the belief comes first, those who are impressionable get persuaded, then intellectualism breeds justifications for beliefs, not re-examination of those beliefs.

            The idea therefore in converting those from liberalism is to constantly show the failure of their policies, undermine their faith and cause a re-examination of the world around them. This would leave them ripe for understanding conservatism.

I say this because paradoxically, conservatism is harder to comprehend. Sure, the Laffer Curve can be explained on a paper napkin over lunch. But the idea is counter-intuitive. How can cutting taxes grow the economy? To understand how that works, one needs to understand the dynamics of the economy in the fact that today’s decisions will impact behavior and therefore tax receipts to be collected years from now, etc. That’s not as simple as thinking that poor exist because rich people have exploited them. Similarities exist on almost all conservative positions. Understanding social security privatization, health care reform, environmental issues, war on terror, etc. Its easier to simply see problems that need to be solved rather than complex interactions of billions of humans that no one person could ever hope to begin to grasp the meaning of. Thus the lure of liberalism to the intellectually lazy and the morally weak.

The fact that conservatism is inherently more difficult to comprehend, but through virtue of being the correct philosophy, tends to be more logical and convincing when fully understood is probably the reason why more impressionable young college students are so easily swayed by the lure of liberalism. The daily news media confirms their beliefs. They in turn become the professors in academia and the journalism students become journalists and the cycle continues. 

Meanwhile, those who study to work in the real world tend to experience that world. Real world experience tends to make one a conservative. Thus, perhaps the way to sway the liberals is to undermine their assumptions:

“You think we should spend more money on social programs? Well, that’s a great idea! Let me show you an idea President Kennedy came up with that shows how the government can collect more revenue… that means more money to spend. Here, hand me your napkin. Have you ever heard of the Laffer Curve?”