# Thinking Like a Conservative **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 30, 2015, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338 "2015-01-30T16:37:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/1 "2015-01-30T16:37:14Z")
This explains a **lot** about how RW Americans and the rest just seem to talk past each other in different languages. It’s a series of blog posts at _The Nation_ by Rick Perlstein, who is also the author of [\*Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus,](http://www.amazon.com/Before-Storm-Goldwater-Unmaking-Consensus/dp/1568584121) [Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of a Nation,\*](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/074324303X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=1944687722&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1568584121&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=18MBMEX835F2G14QWT5B) and [_The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan,_](http://www.amazon.com/The-Invisible-Bridge-Nixon-Reagan/dp/1476782415/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z) all of which I highly recommend, doorstoppers though they are. Pay extra special attention to Part Five, it sums it all up. [Thinking Like a Conservative (Part One): Mass Shootings and Gun Control](http://www.thenation.com/blog/176343/thinking-conservative-part-one-mass-shootings-and-gun-control) [(Part Two): Biding Time on Voting Rights](http://www.thenation.com/blog/176361/thinking-conservative-part-two-biding-time-voting-rights) [(Part Three): On Shutting Down Government](http://www.thenation.com/blog/176426/thinking-conservative-part-three-shutting-down-government) (dated 09/30/13) [(Part Four): Goalpost-Moving](http://www.thenation.com/blog/176585/thinking-conservative-part-four-goalpost-moving) [(Part Five): Epistemology and Empathy](http://www.thenation.com/blog/177025/thinking-conservative-part-five-epistemology-and-empathy): > [@](#): > > A friend pointed me to a letter to the editor published in the _Badger Herald,_ an independent newspaper published at the University of Wisconsin , widely tweeted with such comments as “Motherfucker, what the fuck” and “how do people like this actually exist?” It argues that rape culture is, in the writer’s words, “non-existent.” I provide the link for documentation purposes only; you should most decidedly not click on it, especially if you are a woman vulnerable to rape-trauma triggers, or a woman, or, actually, if you are a human being. The letter, from a junior majoring in political science, goes on to say that the term “rape culture” merely “aggressively paints men as dangerous and as the root of evil,” and complains “women feel the need to exploit anything that may be rape for publicity.” > > I’ll say no more about this “argument.” I bring it up to make a broader point about right-wing rhetoric. It is this: Have you ever noticed how conservatives who say the most controversial things imaginable consistently frame such utterances as self-evident, as simple “truth,” explaining with unshakable confidence that anyone who disagrees with them… no, scratch that. Start over: > > **Have you ever noticed how conservatives who say the most controversial things imaginable think _no one_ actually disagrees with them?** > > They will admit that, yes, people might _claim_ to disagree. But they will explain, if pressed, that those who do so are lying, or nuts, or utter the non-truths they utter out of a totalitarian will to power, or are poor benighted folks cowed or confused by those aforementioned totalitarians. (Which, of course, makes the person “finally” telling “the truth” a hero of bottomless courage.) Or the people who disagree are simply stupid as a tree stump. This is why “agree to disagree” is not a acceptable trope in the conservative lexicon. **A genuine right-winger will be so lacking in intellectual imagination—in _cognitive empathy_—that imagining how anyone could sincerely reason differently from them is virtually impossible.** > > Here’s what that kid from Wisconsin, whom I won’t even dignify with more publicity by typing his name, writes of what he’s about to argue: “I know that people are out there on the fringe of reality who are going to criticize me for what I’m about to explain—but somebody has to explain this.” He also says, “if you put a spotlight on rape, you don’t understand the real issue.” > > You could disagree. But that would place you _on the fringe of reality._ Someone who _doesn’t understand the real issue._ > > \ > > How characteristic is this of the right-wing mind? Consider that it was the entire point of Barry Goldwater’s election slogan “In your heart you know he’s right.” And consider a 1956 circular for Human Events: it read, “conservatives are already in the majority—in your state, in almost every state.” The third-party candidate Human Events backed that year, T. Coleman Andrews, who was campaigning to ban the federal income tax, got only 6.1 percent in his best state. But that must have been because the liberals were just that perfidious. Such was the argument, in 1964, of Phyllis Schlafly’s _A Choice, Not An Echo,_ about why a conservative had never won Republican presidential nominations. In their heart, everyone knew conservatism was right. If Gallup polls said otherwise, that was only because, Schlafly wrote, Gallup “asked a lot of questions of a very few people” in order to “come up with answers that pleased the New York kingmakers.” (Her insight has proven an imperishable one on the right, as Mitt Romney learned to his detriment.) > > I witnessed the radicalism of conservatives’ lack of cognitive empathy firsthand in, of all places, William F. Buckley’s dining room. Not from Buckley himself, he of relatively blessed memory, considering the conservative competition these days—he was one of the few conservative thought leaders with a history of treating liberals, including me, with intellectual respect. From another of Buckley’s guests, a _National Review_ donor who honestly looked a little bit like this guy. I had been invited to dine (I was served by a butler!) at one of Buckley’s fortnightly “stag” dinner parties, and hold forth on my book about Barry Goldwater. Old Moneybags buttonholed me on the way out. The dialogue honestly went like this: > > “So—you’ve read Barry Goldwater’s _Conscience of a Conservative?”_ > > “Yes. I have a whole chapter about it in my book.” > > He looked at me searchingly. The sincerity, really, was aching. “And it didn’t make you a conservative?” He honestly couldn’t believe it could be so. It was beyond his poor powers of epistemological empathy to comprehend. “The Communist and the Catholic are alike in believing that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.” – George Orwell RWs too, apparently. [(Part Six): Government Dependency](http://www.thenation.com/blog/177510/thinking-conservative-part-six-government-dependency) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/2 "2015-01-30T16:58:57Z")
“The only reason you disagree with me is because you do not understand me” is not an argument limited to Conservatives, I’m afraid. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/3 "2015-01-30T17:19:08Z")
There is certainly a strong element of _“Everyone knows what I’m saying is true but I’m the only one brave enough to say it”_ in some conservatives. And, as Czarcasm pointed out, in some liberals as well. You can’t argue with that kind of narcissism. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/4 "2015-01-30T17:35:15Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There is certainly a strong element of _“Everyone knows what I’m saying is true but I’m the only one brave enough to say it”_ in some conservatives. And, as Czarcasm pointed out, in some liberals as well. You can’t argue with that kind of narcissism. Well, it ain’t a symmetrical picture, is it? Conservatives and liberals seem to **think** differently – and it might even be a biological/neurological difference. See [here](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/chris-mooney-republican-brain-science-denial), [here](http://www.salon.com/2014/07/29/secrets_of_the_right_wing_brain_new_study_proves_it_conservatives_see_a_different_hostile_world/), [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientation), [here,](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/09/07/your-brain-on-politics-the-cognitive-neuroscience-of-liberals-and-conservatives/) [here](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/brain-difference-democrats-republicans), and [here](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121101105003.htm). Still, I’m sure a person’s cultural background (class, ethnic, religious, regional, and generational) is a much more important factor in his or her political views than anything genetic or neurological. And . . . there might be a much simpler and much uglier explanation. See [_The Reactionary Mind_](http://www.amazon.com/The-Reactionary-Mind-Conservatism-Edmund/dp/0199793743), by Corey Robin. > [@](#): > > Late in life, William F. Buckley made a confession to Corey Robin. Capitalism is “boring,” said the founding father of the American right. “Devoting your life to it,” as conservatives do, “is horrifying if only because it’s so repetitious. It’s like sex.” With this unlikely conversation began Robin’s decade-long foray into the conservative mind. What is conservatism, and what’s truly at stake for its proponents? If capitalism bores them, what excites them? > > Tracing conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution, Robin argues that the right is fundamentally inspired by a hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market, others oppose it. Some criticize the state, others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality. > > Despite their opposition to these movements, conservatives favor a dynamic conception of politics and society–one that involves self-transformation, violence, and war. They are also highly adaptive to new challenges and circumstances. This partiality to violence and capacity for reinvention has been critical to their success. > > Written by a keen, highly regarded observer of the contemporary political scene, _The Reactionary Mind_ ranges widely, from Edmund Burke to Antonin Scalia, from John C. Calhoun to Ayn Rand. It advances the notion that all rightwing ideologies, from the eighteenth century through today, are historical improvisations on a theme: the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/5 "2015-01-30T17:41:57Z")
I think Conservatives are likely to only listen to other Conservatives and thus come to their incorrect conclusions from a lack of information. Liberals on the other hand will take a much broader view of an issue before coming to their incorrect conclusions. Or maybe it’s the other way round, but it doesn’t matter, ideology is the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/6 "2015-01-30T17:47:40Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Or maybe it’s the other way round, but it doesn’t matter, ideology is the problem. No-Ideology is the _other_ side’s problem. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/7 "2015-01-30T17:49:03Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I think Conservatives are likely to only listen to other Conservatives and thus come to their incorrect conclusions from a lack of information. Liberals on the other hand will take a much broader view of an issue before coming to their incorrect conclusions. Really? I post and debate on this board. Where do you post and debate? ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/8 "2015-01-30T18:13:36Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Really? > > I post and debate on this board. > > Where do you post and debate? Exactly. Openly liberal boards such as DU don’t even allow conservative posters. They are banned without apology simply for expressing a conservative thought. On the net, in Liberal strongholds like San Fran or DC and in Academia it’s the same: Liberals deliberately insulating themselves from any conservative opinions, and pushing them out like cancer when they show up. Of course, conservatives do this sometimes too. I don’t run into many liberals at my gun club, for instance. But to claim that this is a uniquely Conservative trait is silly. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/9 "2015-01-30T18:19:13Z")
Some general commentary since I’m not seeing anything debate worthy. I’m wondering if there is any actual original thoughts being put forward from the OP. I see cut and paste link heavy text without much substance. The gist of what is there, that ideological folks think they are right and others are wrong being somehow unique to conservatives is laughable. The ideologies can be substituted in the passages and it would sound just about the same. The links are generally worthless without a summary. Not sure if you’ve picked up on that yet. I especially enjoy the explanation that conservatives just like violence and war. Like, duh, of course! Let me try: \*Have you ever noticed how liberals who say the most controversial things imaginable think no one actually disagrees with them? They will admit that, yes, people might claim to disagree. But they will explain, if pressed, that those who do so are lying, or nuts, or utter the non-truths they utter out of a totalitarian will to power, or are poor benighted folks cowed or confused by those aforementioned totalitarians. (Which, of course, makes the person “finally” telling “the truth” a hero of bottomless courage.) Or the people who disagree are simply stupid as a tree stump. \* ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/10 "2015-01-30T18:20:33Z")
I do find article like the OP’s article fairly ironic: it seems to demonstrate exactly the sort of “my enemies can’t think honestly” thinking it criticizes in conservatives. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/11 "2015-01-30T18:21:23Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > No-Ideology is the _other_ side’s problem. > > 😃 It’s like with religion – other denominations have their “interpretations” of the Bible, but ours just reads it for its plain meaning. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/12 "2015-01-30T18:25:01Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I do find article like the OP’s article fairly ironic: it seems to demonstrate exactly the sort of “my enemies can’t think honestly” thinking it criticizes in conservatives. You’re missing the point, which Perlstein hammers home in every one of these posts: Liberals need to understand that conservatives think **differently** than they do. [Thinking Like a Conservative (Part One): Mass Shootings and Gun Control](http://www.thenation.com/blog/176343/thinking-conservative-part-one-mass-shootings-and-gun-control): > [@](#): > > Allow me to remove this rhetorical club I keep in a sheath alongside my waist and beat some of my liberal friends with it, because I’m getting frustrated, frustrated, frustrated, and I can’t hardly take it no more. Despite a continuous flow of examples to the contrary this spring, summer and, now, autumn, our side keeps on wishfully, willfully and rather ignorantly denying the plain evidence in front of their faces about how conservative politics works. Namely, I keep seeing predictions that this, that or the other signal from polls or the political establishment or a traumatized public will “finally” “break the spell” of right-wing extremism on a certain issue, or even on all issues—and then we see that prediction spectacularly fail. > > We can’t keep on going this way, my friend. You have to finally come to terms with how conservatism works. Now, that guy in the White House, Obama—I’ve given up hope that he’ll ever get it. I still have faith in you, though. Stop judging conservative by the logic of “normal” politics, or by the epistemology of the world as you, a liberal, understand it. Or as Poli Sci 101 understands it. Every time you do that, you denude us of strength for the fight. Grasp the right on its own terms. Stop trying to make it make sense on your own. > > Here’s one example of what I mean. More tomorrow and Friday. > > Consider the tragedy at Sandy Hook, the twenty dead children and six dead teachers and staffers, and the subsequent call for “common-sense” gun legislation that might ban assault weapons and extended magazine clips and strengthen background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the insane. Common sense for us, but for them? I remember a loved one asking me how many dead children it would take for conservatives to finally see reason on the subject—fifty children, 500, 5,000 children? I reiterated my response to her when I appeared on Up With Steve Kornacki on MSNBC on Father’s Day, and Kornacki presented the heart-rending campaign of the anti-gun group [NoFathersDay.org](http://NoFathersDay.org), which had volunteers send “Father’s Day” cards to members of Congress depicting families whose dads have been claimed by gun violence. Due respect to Kornacki and his outstanding production team, but when this was presented as a frightfully clever campaign to change the hearts of conservative legislators, I fingered my rhetorical beat-down stick. I explained my frustration thus (edited for continuity): “It’s really important to understand that Republican voters and Republican politicians are not necessarily persuadable on this issue by these kinds of arguments…. The mindset is completely different. I mean, a liberal looks at a card like this and says, ‘Isn’t it awful, these school shootings that keep on happenings? Let’s bring those to the forefront, because that helps us, and makes more people want gun control.’ But if you think like a conservative, and you think in terms of good people and evil people, the predominance of evil people makes you want less gun control, and more guns. And if the bad guys have a machine gun, you need a bazooka.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/13 "2015-01-30T18:28:52Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Some general commentary since I’m not seeing anything debate worthy. I’m wondering if there is any actual original thoughts being put forward from the OP. [shrug] That’s never a requirement here, is it? > [@Bone](#): > > I see cut and paste link heavy text without much substance. That **is** the substance. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/14 "2015-01-30T18:47:49Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You’re missing the point, which Perlstein hammers home in every one of these posts: Liberals need to understand that conservatives think **differently** than they do. What the responses are essentially saying is that Perlstein refutes himself via his own article. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/15 "2015-01-30T18:50:06Z")
It’s funny how otherwise intelligent people can read stuff like the linked content in the OP and not see that it is the mirror equivalent of [this](http://www.amazon.com/Church-Liberalism-Godless-Crown-Forum/dp/B0013H3GSM/ref=sr_1_25?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422643688&sr=1-25) kind of thing. It isn’t thoughtful analysis. It is pablum designed to take dollars from credulous ideologues. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/16 "2015-01-30T18:53:26Z")
Just a brief note from a mod. I’m game to let this continue here as there’s potential for a real debate. But if it turns into just a partisan bash-fest I’m sending it to the Pit to be Miller’s problem. So let’s all play nice, shall we? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/17 "2015-01-30T19:05:03Z")
Well, at least it wasn’t Michael Lind this time. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/18 "2015-01-30T19:09:52Z")
I blame racism. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/19 "2015-01-30T20:24:23Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > It’s funny how otherwise intelligent people can read stuff like the linked content in the OP and not see that it is the mirror equivalent of [this](http://www.amazon.com/Church-Liberalism-Godless-Crown-Forum/dp/B0013H3GSM/ref=sr_1_25?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422643688&sr=1-25) kind of thing. 😕 > [@](#): > > Many Americans are outraged by liberal hostility to traditional religion. As Ann Coulter reveals in her most explosive book yet, to focus solely on the Left’s attacks on our Judeo-Christian tradition is to miss a larger point: liberalism is a religion-a godless one. In Godless, Coulter throws open the doors of the Church of Liberalism, showing us its sacraments (abortion), its holy writ (Roe v. Wade), its martyrs (from Soviet spy Alger Hiss to cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal), its clergy (public school teachers), its churches (government schools, where prayer is prohibited but condoms are free), its doctrine of infallibility (as manifest in the “absolute moral authority” of spokesmen from Cindy Sheehan to Max Cleland), and its cosmology (in which mankind is an inconsequential accident). Writing with a keen appreciation for genuine science, Coulter reveals that the so-called gaps in the theory of evolution are all there is-Darwinism is nothing but a gap. After 150 years of dedicated searching into the fossil record, evolution’s proponents have failed utterly to substantiate its claims. And a long line of supposed evidence, from the infamous Piltdown Man to the “evolving” peppered moths of England, has been exposed as hoaxes. Still, liberals treat those who question evolution as religious heretics and prohibit students from hearing about real science when it contradicts Darwinism. Liberals’ absolute devotion to Darwinism, Coulter shows, has nothing to do with evolution’s scientific validity and everything to do with its refusal to admit the possibility of God as a guiding force. They will brook no challenges to the official religion. Fearlessly confronting the high priests of the Church of Liberalism and ringing with Coulter’s razor-sharp wit, Godless is the most important and riveting book yet from one of today’s most lively and impassioned conservative voices. You **can** see, can’t you, how this sort of thinking is not the “mirror equivalent” of Perlstein’s **at all?** > [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > It isn’t thoughtful analysis. It is pablum designed to take dollars from credulous ideologues. Nobody writes for _The Nation_ for the money. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338/20 "2015-01-30T20:36:19Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You **can** see, can’t you, how this sort of thinking is not the “mirror equivalent” of Perlstein’s **at all?** They are equivalent in this respect: it is a relatively smart person writing half-baked theories about “the other side” that have no real grounding in reality, but that appeal to people who think others with different political ideologies are fundamentally different and worse than they are. I don’t know if Perlstein really believes that conservatives have, on average, less “intellectual imagination” than liberals, or if Coulter really believes that liberals are principally animated by a refusal to admit the existence of God–what I do know for sure is that these arguments are very entertaining for a certain kind of partisan and will do a good job for the author of securing a lucrative career in rallying the faithful. I mean, where to even start with Perlstein? All he really offers is a bunch of silly anecdotes shoehorned into some preconceived narrative about how conservatives are stupid. He does precisely what he accuses conservatives of doing, utterly failing to understand their reasons for believing what they do or recognizing that reasonable people can disagree about something like the effectiveness of gun control. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thinking-like-a-conservative/711338.md?page=2)