Not that we'd want to. But many Americans, perplexingly, have taken that path in the last ten years. Not that we'd want to. But many Americans, perplexingly, have taken that path in the last ten years, as 27 percent of those polled now consider themselves 'mostly' or 'consistently' conservative, up from 18 percent in 2004. (Conservatives were at 30 percent in 1994. Liberals increased from 21 to over 30 percent in the 1990s and have remained approximately the same since then.) The language of true conservatives often turns to denial, dismissal, and/or belligerence, without verifiable facts of any substance. There is also evidence for delusional thinking and a lack of empathy. Here are four ways to be just like them. 1. Ignore Facts Research shows that conservatives tend to modify facts to accommodate their beliefs and convictions, while liberals are more willing to deal with the complexity of multiple sources of information that help determine the true facts. In simpler terms, numerous studies (here, here, here, and here) conclude that conservatives are not very smart. Perhaps the best example of fact-aversion is climate change. Incredibly, even though 97 percentof climate scientists agree that climate warming is very likely due to human activities, 66 percent of Republicans say they do not believe in global warming. It's even more incredible that the Chair of the Committee on the Environment, James Inhofe, brought a snowball to the Senate floor to back up his earlier suggestion that manmade global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." If there is even a chance that humans are damaging the environment, a thinking person would consider the potential effect on his or her children and grandchildren. But the exact opposite has happened. Half of all carbon emissions have been dumped into the air in approximately the last 25 years. Even the Pentagon, much trusted by right-wingers, has warned that "the danger from climate change is real, urgent, and severe." more . . .
So why did this man become a conservative? Why did he turn against Marxism? He's not alone. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Thomas_Sowell.aspx "Sowell finished high school at night and enrolled at Howard University after a stint in the Marines. He transferred to Harvard University, where he wrote his senior honors thesis on the theories of left-wing German political philosopher Karl Marx and graduated magna cum laude in 1958. A committed Marxist when he left Harvard, Sowell gradually shifted his beliefs to the right during graduate studies at Columbia University and later at the University of Chicago."