When I asked people to put forward some stereotypes of conservatives that they found to be true, one of the notions put forward wasn't really a stereotype, but a general wondering about the way the two think. The actual quote was, "Recently, there have been numerous articles that purport that conservative thinkers and liberal thinkers brains are wired differently which lead the conservatively wired brain to view issues more conservatively and vice versa for liberals. I think this is true."
I do not think this is true, but I will expand on the idea. It won't be a great expansion, though. I have a mind that wanders from here to there, so I apologize!
I have a really good friend that I grew up next door to. Her family and mine became pretty close, and is part of the reason I, in my adulthood, love to meet my neighbors and try to be friendly with them. Anywho, we have a good relationship as a whole.
One day on Facebook, she had mentioned something along the lines of, "black children learn differently than others." That statement made me think... "uh, what?" I should probably mention that along with that post on Facebook, she was making a point in regards to black children doing poorly in school compared to others. But the statement that jumped out to me was the "learn differently than others" dealy-o.
I immediately wondered why something of this sort would come up, and why the schools were forced to be desegregated back in the day, if specific people learn in different specific ways. It could be argued that desegregation didn't really matter in terms of learning, but as to more of a general statement of thought that Horace Mann once wrote; A good education can "exorcise bigotry and prejudice..." This would be a misnomer in this case, of course. If a good education can perform what Mann said, then it would seem putting a group of people that learn differently from "others" would present a more drastic challenge in educating the whole of the students to cast out the ideas they had.
In my life, I have rarely had racist thoughts. I believe that every person has a racist or bigoted thought every now and then, though, and that they can't help it (this is personal belief, and not absolutist). I of course can't prove this, but from every friend I have had and talked about such things, black, white, mexican, asian, etc., I believe my statement rings true. Even though the vast majority of us aren't racist, sometimes we will say something, or think something contrary to our own belief system. I think it is our own human nature that allows such a thing to happen. Mankind is not, nor will it ever be, perfect.
What am I aiming at with what I have said thus far? My point is, whether conservative or more liberal, people are people. We are all human beings, and sometimes we look at other human beings in a different light than we should. We are all guilty of this I believe, and I think the labels of slander against one-another are abhorrent. I feel that others feel this too. So my question is, "how do we fix it?"
My own answer is, "we cannot."
There will always be the bigot on both sides of the fence. There will always be the racist waiting on the other side of your own beliefs. There will always be the person that is skeptical around the corner. BUT! Being skeptical is a bit part of being conservative. It doesn't matter what the issue is. If the issue is race, as I have mentioned, or whatever. The conservative is always the skeptic. We do this to try and alleviate the growing pains. It may seem to add to the pains, right? It does not.
What we do is look at every issue. We absorb it, we sleep it. We eat it, we crap it out. Conservatives actually think about the issues, even though you may not think so (yes, there are fake ass conservatives that you may see on the web, just as in the case of liberals). We take in everything about the issue, we think about it, and we research it. The problem with our disagreements arises with this: We both, conservatives and liberals, find research that supports our own opinion. It creates a divide in there somewhere.
It's funny, because we all want what is best for our fellow Americans, but we have people directing us and we won't admit it.
2:05 AM PT: Don't be afraid to respond to this post!
12:45 PM PT: People are seeming to wonder what my definition of conservative is. That's kinda moot. This is a first response to the ideas presented in the comments in this post: http://www.dailykos.com/...