Oh Look! A Herd of Rugged Individualists!

(Editor's Note:  This goes back to 2012 and the original title was The Herd of Independent Minds, which I changed, as this change seems more appropriate now.  As for our Trekkie friends out there.  Here you thought the Borg Collective was science fiction!  RK) 

By Victor Volsky August 22, 2012

Just about any gregarious conservative can register the same complaint: his friends of a liberal persuasion firmly believe in evolution, the hydrocarbon menace, technogenic global warming, and the virtues of green energy; they are convinced that racism is still rampant in America, that all the ills of inner-city schools can be cured by throwing more money at them, that criminals are actually victims of society, that voter fraud is a myth concocted by evil conservatives, that cheating at the polls is a sacred right of minorities, that illegal immigrants have committed no crime even though the word "illegal" is self-explanatory, that George Bush attacked Iraq at the behest of Halliburton to grab Iraqi oil...

In short, it is always the same mantra, demonstrably stupid and illogical, yet fervently espoused by all ardent liberals, irrespective of their social status or educational attainments.

How to account for it? And why are liberals totally impervious to any counter-arguments -- on those rare occasions, that is, when they actually deign to listen to the contrary views? The easiest explanation, of course, would be that those who persevere in beliefs glaringly devoid of any meaning or logic are just plain dumb. But no, there are a lot of highly intelligent people -- in fact, almost the entirety of academia -- among the most vocal proponents of that idiocy. So there must be some other explanation.

And as a matter of fact, there is.... the power of the shaming............ Conservatives are usually reluctant ideological warriors.  For the most part, they want only to be left alone, to live and let live............ the vicious hatred of the left for its conservative opponents, belied by the liberals' constant protestations of their high-mindedness and tolerance............ Today's left is every bit a tribe with its unthinking, fanatical devotion to the tribal code and animal fear of being ostracized............... Liberal intellectuals like to pose as bearers of the culture of reason, as fiercely independent thinkers.  But they are kidding themselves.  They have traded their intellectual primogeniture for the mess of pottage of group identity.  They are fully integrated into the socially and politically dominant tribe, sharing the same visceral likes and dislikes, the same shaming code.  Rather than being autonomous rational actors, they are merely an assemblage of cipher units marching in lock step to the tribal drumbeat. .........To Read More....