Smart people both respect and fear life itself

Compared with staunch liberals, people with strongly conservative views were three times more fearful after factoring out the effects of gender, age, income and education, which can all affect political attitudes.

Kevin B. Smith, a professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a study author, said conservatives were more vigilant to environmental threats, and he speculated that this innate tendency led them to support policies that protect the social order.

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The study is the latest to challenge the long-standing dogma that upbringing and environmental factors determine political attitudes. Recent studies have found that identical twins – who share the same genetic inheritance – think alike on political issues more often than nonidentical siblings.

L.A. Times

They don't offer up the obvious: liberals are people who are biologically designed to follow orders, not make them.

To be aware of life is to respect it and fear it, especially environmental threats. Conservatives know this. Liberals don't -- and it takes centuries to see the damage they do.

Studies suggest liberals and conservatives are similar in intelligence, but different in temperment. My suggestion here is that conservatives are practical leaders, and liberals are socializers -- people who specialize in pleasing others because their ancestors were predominantly writers, marketers, salespeople, merchants, laborers or religious workers.