Great article, thanks for posting it.
Sometimes I can take the shorthand the liberalism is a mental disorder, but that groups a lot of people in who probably shouldn’t be. A lot of liberals haven’t thought very deeply about their positions, but is seems to be nearly a passive outlook of “Who would be against the government helping poor people? That sounds like a good thing to me...” or “I don’t know...why can’t healthcare be free? Shouldn’t everyone get free healthcare?”
It is the committed liberals, the ones who have labored hard and long to build their own “logical underpinnings” to their viewpoints. They never stop to check their intial premises, and build a huge castle on the foundation of a flawed premise.
Cognitive dissonance is a common malady amongst committed liberals, and I have always thought it is because many of them ARE indeed intelligent, and there is still a part of their primitive hindbrain that operates below their subconscious, constantly and continually sending subtle signals to their conscious brain that they are wrong. Their filters to their conscious brains are set up to ward those warning messages off, but I think it is like a continuous, erosive Chinese water torture that gives them ulcers, bilious personalities and a constant state of unhappiness.
I also notice this -— YOUNG KIDS, those who are most susceptible to influence, tend to be liberal from high school to a few years after graduating from college ( I’d say a majority ).
I would attribute this to the overwhelmingly left-wing mindset of their high school teachers ( most of them union members ) and their college professors ( most of whom vote Democrat ).
The moment they start holding down a job, have a family and then take on the responsibility of having to raise their kids and pay taxes... they begin to realize the burdensome encroachment of the government....they also begin to realize that without the church, the traditional morality that they themselves repudiated when they were in college, they cannot discipline their kids.
Slowly, but surely, the sensible ones become more conservative.
Your entire post is a brilliant summation. Regarding the above part, I don't have the research, but would be willing to bet that the majority of substance abusers are "liberals."