http://chocolatesyrupywaffles.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/1259077528819.jpg

+1 PE,

(but in reality, I'm just trying to see what comes out of the woodwork with this one.)

I don't get what you're getting at here, Leif. Is conservatism requiring low level thought supposed to be an argument in its favor?

I'm contending an alternate interpretation for the results of the study.

We're suggesting we shouldn't overcome our natural instincts to be neanderthals. Got it.

Are you equating conservative thought with neanderthal-ish behavior?

That's what this study has discovered, has it not?

I don't see the appeal of gloating about conservatism being more basic or natural. That seems to be a flaw, not an advantage.

If by "that" you mean neanderthal-ish behavior, explain to me how this study has uncovered a link between conservatism and neanderthalism.

The gloating you refer to must be my questioning the validity of the apparent assumption that "normal" thought requires "correction".

Ahh. And it is worth it too, I must tell you. The effort put into liberalism, with the goal to help every human have the opportunity to succeed in life. To help your fellow human is the best way to happiness. Unnatural is a negative way to view it. I would call it human. So then a conservative liberal would be a natural human.

The paper defines a core part of conservative thought as "an emphasis
on personal responsibility." Then the paper states that being drunk made people more conservative, "....BAC was correlated with endorsement of
politically conservative attitudes...." So according to Study 1 you emphasis personal responsibility the drunker you get?! No doubt beer and liquour companies that advocate lowering the drinking age will cite this study!

Funny, it seems natural, conservatism nature of the Neanderthal brought him from the caves to civilization....but now the same thinking that made humans successful as a species is bad?

Leave it to a liberal to twist everything into something demented...You guys *love* survival of the fittest, evolution, naturalism, etc....until it bites you on the ass. Then you are all for Man perverting the natural order of things....lol.

@ Krellin not every ''liberal'' is someone who holds to the tenet that ''survival of the fittest'' can explain the complexity of human behaviour/human nature you know.
Just as, for example, not every atheist is pro-choice. All encompassing labels, on the whole, are too simplistic.

Haaa ha hah a!! Good god, that's hilarious, ful! Because it seems that all the good Liberals around here have NO PROBLEM applying very specific pre-judgements on anyone they consider Conservative.

Ahhh...keep up the good work - your efforts keep Double Standards alive and well are OUTSTANDING my boy! Bravo!

FOR EXAMPLE....this, of course, is a counter-thread to the Conservatives-are-all-dimwitted-fools-all-of-them-because-a-study-said-so thread. I wonder,,,fulham....did you go in to that thread and offer up the same suggestion about not generalizing?

@ krellin, you and I seem to have an intrinsic dislike of labels, on that much we can agree.

Conservatives-are-all-dimwitted-fools-all-of-them-because-a-study-said-so

@fulham -- I don't dislike labels - I find them to have a purpose. what I dislike is the rampant hypocrisy on WebDip, wherein "Liberals" are free to use labels and generics and making scatching hate-filled comments about "Conservatives" and if you disagree with them, you will be sure to bear the brunt of another on-slought of hatred...but when you use the same tactics against Liberals and generalize...well, that isn't fair, individuals are individuals, blah blah blah...and then you get another boatload of generic hate-filled blather.

For example, if you were to say "Which political party *in general* believe in Evolution more often than not"....the answer is pretty clear. But to make this suggestion, I am an idiot and generalizing. Which is odd, because in the other thread, of course, it is proclaimed (with NO denunciation by any intellectually honest Liberal) the "Conservative Scientists" only study the Biblical flood and other Biblical issues. Oh yes...that was hyperbole, they say...ha ha....but if you make the same comments towars Libs, you are an idiots. Amazing.

I would be interested to see what the author defined as conservative policies.

The other question is the tests was when asked under pressure or when the guy was hammered, his responses were typically more conservative then liberal, when under pressure or hammered your also more likely to tell the truth.

Could this mean that many liberals are actually closet conservatives and when hammered their inner conservative gets the best of them?

@Fasces, I have *long* held that *most* "Liberals" are closet conservatives. If you examine how they lead their lives, as compared to how they want the country run, you often see bi-polar behavior...

Libs are capable of running a tight budget at home....but think deficiet spending...oh, sorry..."Stimulus"...is great for the country. they think taxing from one to give to another is great....but studies show Liberal contributions to charity do not match that of conservatives. can't tell you how many people I have heard say "I could never have an abortion....but you go ahead..." It's anything goes for everyone else....but as for my life, these are my boundaries....which tend to be conservative. Is this all anecdotal...of course...but examine yourself and your "liberal" friends and tell me what you see...

When he was hammered he was more personally responsible!

"Liberal" and "conservative" don't mean what they used to. I'm still a conservative, but I'm no longer right-wing, so I think I at least have a basis for comparison.

The entire time I was over on the right, the thing that held me in place was my near-religious faith in the free market. I didn't believe in God, but I figured that believing in business was both not that different and the next best thing. When it was clear that the GOP establishment had lost that faith, the Tea Party formed, and I almost joined them (until I noticed that they were being hijacked by a bunch of social conservatives, whom I have never regarded more charitably than as a necessary evil of big-tent politics).

What eventually pushed me out of the right completely was, first, the realization that free markets don't exist. The market ALWAYS wants government's help to get it to move faster, whether it's slow and needs a push, moving but wants to move more, or overheating and in danger of crashing. Markets don't want to be "free." Trying to "free" them is to build a bridge to the Nineteenth Century.

Businesses do not always operate in the best interests of those around them. Everyone knows this, and the right has always done the best it can to shrug its shoulders at the fact. I wouldn't say that this is a result of "higher" or "lower" level thinking. I used to believe that my superior understanding of economics put me on a higher level of thinking than the leftists I argued with; turns out that I hadn't been paying enough attention to all the assumptions the discipline of economics makes in modeling human behavior, and it falls apart quite frequently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics#Criticism_of_assumptions

It's really just a question of what you choose to ignore and when.

"explain to me how this study has uncovered a link between conservatism and neanderthalism."

The basic instincts of humans are vile, tribal, nasty, and brutish. Why would we celebrate this? We should celebrate that we can evolve past our primal nature.

"The gloating you refer to must be my questioning the validity of the apparent assumption that "normal" thought requires "correction"."

War and slavery were 'normal'. I think it's good that we've largely corrected those things.

Well said Average White Boy.

you might be me 10 years from now, lol. Because everything up until the "What eventually pushed me" applies to me today and "I used to believe that my superior understanding of economics put me on a higher level of thinking than the leftists I argued with" still applies to me.

Give me an argument and I can generally argue both sides.

I am currently in a debate with some jews where I am pro-palestine, while with some commies at my school I am pro-Isreal. I have constantly argued both in favour and against gay rights and abortions, the Arab Spring even taken both sides in the evolution vs creationism debate (this was more of a challenge, and by the end I was just trolling cause I ran out of material).

However the one area I have never been able to come up with a good supporting argument for socialism.

So yeah, my faith in the free market trumps all else.

That being said its not like I am an absolute right-wing pro-free market nut. I have argued in favour of state capitalism, and do agree that some regulation is needed, as well as taxes. I get the needed for a regulatory banking system, and for contractionary and expansionary fiscal and monetary policies.

However I still support fair tax, a decentralized small government, very little regulation etc.

There is a basic misunderstanding in this thread that the theory of natural selection by inheritance or ''evolution'' means that as a species we must change or ''evolve'' into something ''better''. I am really not sure where it comes from, except perhaps a large dollop of wishful thinking. The interaction of random mutation with an essentially random environment must, of itself, be random. There is no room for value judgements here, be they for the ''better'' or for the ''worse''.

@fulhamish:
Evolve
e·volve/iˈvälv/
Verb:
Develop gradually, esp. from a simple to a more complex form.
Develop over successive generations, esp. as a result of natural selection.

I think this is where the misunderstanding comes from, you know, the fact that evolve generally means improvement...

and besides the concept of evolution is that mutations generally improve not weaken the mutated species because, if the mutation was successful, as in either made it easier to reproduced, or greater longevity causing more chances for reproduction, then the mutated species will have a larger gene pool then the old species and 'natural selection' will cause it to continue on.

Meanwhile a mutation that makes it impossible to reproduce, that mutation wont have any chances to enter the gene pool and the 'new' species will die out.

Hence the evolution will lead to a 'better' species. And by better I mean one which can reproduce more easily in its environment.

crap I forgot to include synonyms:
develop - expand - unfold - grow- progress - advance - change

@ Fasces, I agree as far as you go, but the one thing you assume is a constant environment. Given that the environment is subject to change, today's successful adaptation might well be tomorrow's handicap. (today and tomorrow to be read figuratively).

@Fasc: Yep, you sound like me ten years ago, including adjusting my opinions in order to get into more arguments. Here's what's standing in between where you are and where I am:

1. Winning an argument doesn't make you right. "Thus lifting an autumn hare cannot be considered great strength; seeing the sun and moon cannot be considered acute vision; hearing the sound of thunder cannot be considered having sensitive ears. Those that the ancients referred to as excelling at warfare conquered those who were easy to conquer." -Sun Tzu

2. There's no such thing as a "liberal." This is one of the hardest things to understand growing up on the right: "conservatism" is a cohesive ideology (even though that's the exact opposite of what it's supposed to be and claims to be). "Liberalism" can't even be considered a category of ideologies, in the sense that we understand the word. It's just what conservatives call everyone else.

3. "Socialism" isn't always "socialism." It's usually just an attempt to control some externalities with some marginal policy changes, to which the knee-jerk reaction is to scream "socialism."

4. Being a conservative means that your primary political goal is to prevent the sky from falling. Conservatives are NOT revolutionaries, EVER. But right-wingers occasionally are, and they like to call themselves conservatives anyway.