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I think it is somehow related to that saying about having to buy into all of the small premises (lies) before you can swallow the big premises (lies).

In the case of Leftists and Liberals, two sets of people who demonstrate an inability to think for themselves (never mind to think critically for themselves) they don't have the same kind of subdivisions that we do.

We buy into the large premises first. This is the foundation we build our house (beliefs) upon.

If the foundation is strong, the house can (possibly) be strong.

So we accept the big premises first to build upon, using them as our foundation. These "big" premises that we buy into are:

That our RIGHTS come from God, not from other men, and therefore, cannot be legally taken by other men.

That the Individual is the focus and should be protected and nurtured, not the Collective.

That wealth can be created out of an idea. Stealing wealth and creating wealth are not the same thing.

That responsibility for actions resides within and is accepted and owned by an individual person.

Things like that.

Leftists and Liberals do not operate on the same principles, and most importantly, they do not have foundational principles save one:

Everything ranging from the size of government to the amount of taxes is governed by what "feels right". The Constitution is subordinate to that dynamic.

That is what has made The Constitution such a remarkable document on which to base our Republic. The Constitution was designed to take into account the shifting, changing, malleable forms of human emotions and desires and put them into a well thought out framework so that it was harder to collectively take rash, stupid, or deliberately destructive actions.

But the Left has found that to deliberately bypass those safeguards to obtain objectives (such as attaining power) has no negative ramifications to doing so.

So, on the Left, if you buy into one of the small premises (lies) you are all in, morally speaking, on all of their lies. In for a penny, in for a pound.

It is the same dynamic that allows Leftists and Liberals to fully embrace someone like Ted Kennedy, who, while being responsible for the death of a young woman who worked for him, was fully into supporting abortion rights or Affirmative Action, all while ignoring the glaring inconsistencies. And people who clamor for Abortion or Affirmative Action must do so fully, or become a victim to the inevitable cognitive dissonance that becomes more destructive and disturbing the closer the person gets to maintaining a consistent principled foundation.

Therefore, the Left discourages that level of introspection on behalf of its adherents or acolytes, and beliefs are not built like a house with a foundation, but as a package that you buy all of or none of. There is little to no room for dissent, especially on issues that cannot survive a critical analysis.

Conservatives don't have that kind of dogmatic obedience to the smaller issues, but we often do to our larger foundational issues. In that fashion, we are, in some ways, more susceptible to dissension and division (as is easily seen here on Free Republic) but if our beliefs involving smaller issues are damaged or destroyed, our whole ideological house generally will not collapse.

That is not always true of the Left.

When one of their "smaller" issues is wiped out, they convince their disciples that the specific destroyed issue is not important (even if it was for any individual) and immediately try to indoctrinate them that some other issue is now the most important one for them, and that they should buy into it.

And in this modern, fire-hose shaped world, those issues can change from day-to-day, and it is up to the Left, with the avid and considerable help from Media, Education, Corporate World, and Entertainment, they have been able to successfully do just that.

Bottom Line: Our individual houses with their solid ideological underpinnings are based in rationality, longer-lasting, and more durable, but prone to division. Their houses are less like houses built on solid, principled, foundations, but more like forts which have no foundation at all to erode, but live behind walls built on a dynamic basis about what they deem to be important at a given time, tying all those people in as "one people" living inside those walls, which they change on a daily basis.

One could be forgiven for looking at their model and thinking it preferable, but it isn't.