[supercat]

Not a bad article, though I think leftism vs. conservatism may be perhaps most simply summed up by dividing people into three groups:

1. Those who want others to take care of them.
2. Those who want to take care of (and control) themselves.
3. Those who want to "take care of" and control others.

Types #1 and #3 vote leftist, for opposite reasons; both groups hate #2, which tends to vote conservative.

BTW, while Republicans are portrayed as "the party of Big Business and the Rich", the media ignore two dirty little secrets:

• The very-wealthy are often Democrats (since they belong to group #3).
• Big business often favors Democrats (since Democrats' regulations tend to hurt small businesses more than big ones, thus offering big businesses a competitive advantage that for them more than makes up for the regulations' cost).

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Now that I can understand!

Thanks!

[Yardstick]

I like the crispness and simplicity of that explanation, supercat.

It's interesting how the care-givers and dependees, who are in a sicko codependant embrace, perceive the conservative #2 types, with their desire for independence and healthy boundaries, to be the ones with the problem.

[SauronOfMordor]

Not a bad article, though I think leftism vs. conservatism may be perhaps most simply summed up by dividing people into three groups:

1. Those who want others to take care of them.
2. Those who want to take care of (and control) themselves.
3. Those who want to "take care of" and control others.

Types #1 and #3 vote leftist, for opposite reasons; both groups hate #2, which tends to vote conservative.

One additional difference, which may explain why Leftists are attracted to academia, government, and the press: Leftists tend to be very articulate and adept at intrigue and organizational politics. They are very "verbally-oriented". They thus prefer a system wherein success is determined by articulateness and the ability to manipulate people (government, large corporate environments) than by the ability to actually produce things (engineering & software), and where decisions may have to rely on inarticulable hunches (small business)