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I have similar friends, and am now in an email discussion with one who also is a Lawyer. One who was a Captain in Vietnam, and lost most of his Company, but who now wouldn't hurt a rattle snake. My partner is a Liberal in thinking too, though mostly votes republican.

I have done years of mangement testing, and have isolated the Liberal pattern. Very strong ego, usually the predominate trait, coupled with inattention to detail. This pattern finds it's way into all the places you find the soft sciences. You know Hollywood, Journalism, and Politics. In acedemia you find them in Political Science, Liberal Arts, and all the "verbal" subjects.

I have concluded that most Liberals(not all) have a defective gene. They are ruled by emotion, not rational thought(but you knew that). It's maddening dealing with them, but do not give up. A converted Liberal is like a converted smoker.

Use the Aristotelian(sp?)method to talk with them. Short simple questions that lead to obvious conclusions(like you did)and sometimes the light will go on. Most of the time they see where you are going and stop, and refuse to answer, the pain is to great.

it sounds strange, but the one good treatment i found of the psychological roots of liberalism came from the unibomber's manifesto. i haven't been able to find one elsewhere (equivalent to the "Authoritarian Personality" written about conservatives in the 50s). According to the manifesto, the roots lay in the deep-seated feelings of inferiority of the liberal, in addition to a lack of realistic thinking on cause/effect (as I recall--that second part could be off a little). I'd be interested in further scholarship. It kind of explains why many of my debates with liberals degenerate into someone (not me) getting hurt, mad, inflamed, etc., and why the liberal almost always sticks up for the weaker of two interests, even to the liberal's own detriment.

I have done years of mangement testing, and have isolated the Liberal pattern. Very strong ego, usually the predominate trait, coupled with inattention to detail. This pattern finds it's way into all the places you find the soft sciences. You know Hollywood, Journalism, and Politics. In acedemia you find them in Political Science, Liberal Arts, and all the "verbal" subjects.

You need to expand on this in a post of your own...please ping me when you do.

Blaming it on a 'defective gene' is going a bit too far. I would substitute the conclusion that many liberals often make decisions based on emotions instead of logic, which is personality driven.

The Meyers-Briggs concept of personality classification explains this quite well, would be worth a little research if you are not yet familiar with it.