Are liberals crazy? Keep reading
Spring brings spring cleaning, which means it’s time to run the news of the day through “Ask A Liberal” and get some answers. Dear Liberal: A while back, you wrote a column about what a waste of time Twitter was. With the latest tweeting foofaraw that has landed a Bernalillo County Republican leader on unpaid leave, don’t you think this is a good time to say you were wrong?
Dear I Told You So:
Right you are. (And thank you for bringing “foofaraw” back.) When Twitter was in its infancy, I could only imagine its uses: Commenting about TV shows in real time. Sharing photos of what the waitress just brought you for dinner. Offering off-thecuff hostility about just about everything. Boring. Super boring. And more snark in a snarky world.
I completely failed to recognize that Twitter would become yet another venue for public figures to show how dumb they are. Albuquerque mayoral candidate Pete “Don’t Be a Pendejo” Dinelli reminded us last week that regular old cam-
paign speeches are still the best venue for misguided “attempts at humor,” but without tweets, would we ever know that county Republican Party Executive Director Steve Kush thinks it’s OK to call women bitches? Or that the former county party chief, responding to the tweet on Facebook, looks at a woman wearing high heels and assumes she’s a prostitute?
So, to Twitter: Honey, I was so, so wrong. And thank you for a real good time. Dear Liberal: I remember that after former state Sen. Manny Aragon pleaded guilty to mail fraud, his name came down from a building at the National Hispanic Cultural Center complex. Now former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici has admitted he fathered a child out of wedlock and kept it secret for 30 years. But I still see his name on buildings all over the place. Isn’t what’s good for the donkey good for the elephant? Dear Fair Is Fair: You’ve got your political parties right: Aragon is a Dem and Domenici is a Rep. But I think you are fuzzy on your vices. Aragon stole public money — $600,000. Domenici broke his marriage vows. Aragon went to federal prison; Domenici probably spent some time in the dog house. Are they comparable? Even the Liberal thinks not. But instead of playing tit for tat with the misdeeds of public figures, maybe we could agree that there is one sure-fire way to ensure the esteemed person you name a building for will never tarnish that esteem: Make sure he or she is already dead.
Meanwhile, score another one for Pete. New Mexico State University has just broken ground on yet another Pete V. Domenici building. Pete V. Domenici Hall will be, by the Liberal’s count, at least his 12th. Dear Liberal: I have heard that Liberalism is a form of mental illness and the more I encounter or deal with any of them (liberals) I believe that is true. Dear L is For Loco: I think there’s a question hidden in there. And I think it might be, “Are you crazy?”
Like many issues in an open and vibrant democracy, the relative looniness of people of differing political opinions is open to robust debate. I have not personally had my gray matter probed recently, but I do have some brain research at my fingertips that probably won’t answer your question.
From a study published in “Biology,” MRIs of selfreported liberals found more volume in the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain, which provides tolerance to uncertainty, whereas selfreported conservatives had more volume in the right amygdala, where fear is processed.
From another study published in “Current Biology”: “In general, liberals are more open-minded, creative, curious, and novelty seeking, whereas conservatives are more orderly, conventional, and better organized.” And another study in the journal “Dreaming” that is even less responsive to your question but still interesting found conservatives slept more soundly and had mundane dreams while liberals were more restless sleepers with bizarre dreams.
Which reminds me of a dream I had the other night: I was being chased around the newsroom on deadline by a huge, well-organized right amygdala. Now that is scary.