Sprawled on the canyon floor, Mog wakens to the sight of two jagged walls of mastodon bones cradling a big blue snake overhead. The brain-fog lifts and he beholds the mid-morning sky meandering between cliff-tops. Head pounding, Mog struggles onto all-fours, lets his head drop, and stares between his arms and legs. Noticing a purplish splotch on the loin-skin that Kosh just made for him, Mog flops to the ground.
After some time, finally reaching his feet, Mog immediately regrets the achievement. Now the canyon floor wears a color matching the loin-skin stain. Last time Mog felt this way he’d eaten an under-roasted piece of that nasty critter Shrag killed near the glacier.
“Focus,” Mog thinks. But yet another application of pigment now coats the ground.
“Damn that Throog! I’ll kill him.”
A big, ugly bird swoops from a nest in the canyon wall to check out Mog. A warm, sticky deposit barely misses Mog’s face.
“And I’ll kill you too!”
Mog’s clan’s less-evolved neighbors make a habit of ravaging grapevines. Deep within a cave, one day Mog’s pal Throog had come across a hole filled with rotting grapes from one of the neighbors’ binges. After sampling the earthy yet fruit-forward concoction, Throog fell into camp, careening off trees and feeling his happiest ever.
Word of the purple stuff spread.
Word passed down through generations has it that in the before-time, the clan had wandered constantly, eating whatever beasties they could get their spears into, as well as brown and green stuff. Now they eat — and drink — purple stuff too. Sometimes the clan ventures to the big water and splurges on lobster and abalone if large-lunged clan mates can be convinced to ignore the shark god’s insatiable appetite for legs and thighs.
Meanwhile, wine—as Throog named the purple stuff—has caught on big. Mog and other occasional over-imbibers pay for Throog’s discovery with over-imbibing’s aftereffects.
With no decent glasses available, for a while things had gotten ugly when drinkers started tossing pitchers. Hollow or not, 25-pound chunks of flying granite leave vicious gashes and knots on heads. After a spate of such incidents, folks had taken to lying around wineries to await new releases, jockeying for position under spigots.
Now brave, disciplined, results-oriented men hunt beasties while their women work the vines and wines. The disciplined ones spend nights grilling, eating, drinking, and making whoopee to assure future generations of vintners. Reap-what-you-sow free enterprise is born.
The more Zen-like, in-touch-with-feelings humans leave their options open. These enlightened ones steal into the background, redistributing animal skins, firewood, arrows, and other items which they feel compelled to make everyone share. With idle time on their hands, the recipients of the redistributed assets tend toward “creativity.” Uggy weaves Thaggy’s hair in tight little twirlies, avoiding the constant washing otherwise necessitated by the squalid environment. Dreads incorporating back hairs all the way down to the derriere present an impressive sight.
Rather than ape free enterprisers’ fondness for filth and fatigue, the free spirits relax and crash the nightly barbeques. It is the dawn of liberalism.
Within a short time, special creatures gain status—Homo sapiens ghurlimanus. The sensitive ones invent touchy-feely fests. They consecrate the practice of redistributing supplies, pretty stones, food, and wine—all provided by free enterprisers.
Over the next twelve million days, signature behaviors become indelibly etched in humans’ cerebral cortices. Randy Thornhill and Corey Fincher of the University of New Mexico found that liberals spurn tradition and are “rebellious, pleasure-seeking, egalitarian and risk-prone,” while conservatives cherish “tradition, duty, close family relationships”1 and freedom.
Childhood circumstances strongly influence outcomes.
Kids with safe, low-stress childhoods and appropriate parental relationships mature into conservatives while stressed-out kids who were detached from mom and dad resist growing up and become liberals. A Commentary magazine staffer remarked to author Norman Podhoretz on entering a room full of left-wingers, “Do you realize that every young person in this room is a tragedy to some family or other?”2 Tragedy and the liberal psyche—inseparable.
It’s no surprise that less than 40 percent of Democrats feel mentally healthy versus nearly 60 percent of Republicans. Self-impressions differ to an astonishing degree. Liberals are less happy, less satisfied. They spend their lives seeking, needing to blame someone for how they feel. In a constant state of longing, liberals muddle along trying to fix everyone but themselves in an effort to feel good—somehow. But liberals make up for their emptiness by having lots of sex.3 This explains the alternate glassy-eyed versus scowling expressions worn by liberals depending on how long it’s been.
Today, hard-working free enterprisers go for down-home cooking. Drinkers choose beer or sensibly-priced wines. Conservatives and libertarians protect and provide for their women, traditionally-inclined creatures who encourage the behavior. Conservatives and libertarians are hunters, handgun permit holders, shooting enthusiasts, private investigators, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firefighters, doctors, police officers, test pilots, athletes, soldiers, and scientists who do real science.
And conservatives and libertarians believe that people should earn a living.
Liberals fancy imported wines, especially French, or pricey domestics from boutique wineries that meet the standards of liberal social circles. Liberals drink bottled water with non-American names, eat raw fish, sushi, tofu, and other specifically non-American foods. Liberals gravitate to roles like social worker, emergency vehicle pursuer, journalist, actor, government-subsidized artist, hair-dresser, critic, subsidized or unemployed radio talk-show host, and global warmist or other pretend scientist. Liberals hoarsely whine about conservatives, libertarians, logic, “fairness,” and reality in general.
Liberals scoff at producing output. Indeed, the liberal views it as a birthright to spew pseudo-intellectual theories, govern producers, judge results, and distribute output. The liberal politician seeks to secure enough freebies for voters to perpetually ensconce liberal politicians in all political offices.
Right now, somewhere, some liberal is wearing that characteristic scowl.
1 “Security check: Why conservatives have happy childhoods but liberals have more sex,” The Economist, May 17, 2007.
2 Norman Podhoretz, World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism,” Doubleday, 2007, p. 81.
3 “Security check…”
