On my bro-in-law's blog to which I post, a contributor wrote the following, under the most polite of circumstances:

My basic problem with conservatives is not that I don't understand where they are coming from, 'tis just that I can't understand how they reached that position in the first place. ;)

That got me to thinking and I'm willing to post a theory that might possibly replace the Young Conservative Without a Heart, Old Liberal Without a Brain theory. Here it is:

Liberals grow up taught to believe that the world holds many wonders and that everyone is inherently good and nice. As long as they live their lives being good and helping others, the spirit world will protect them from harm. There is a small cabal of evil people who are trying to make the world a worse place for their own personal gain. Liberal leaders try to point out who the evil people are so that they may be shunned.

Conservatives grow up taught to believe that the world is a generally crappy and annoying place and every person needs to fight just to be left in peace. They know that the Nazis/Communists/Islamic Findamentalists are not going to spare their lives because they gave to Greenpeace and there's some people that just need killin'. Their leaders try to keep everyone who thinks differently as far away as possible, unless they think they can be converted.

I need to expand on this, but that's the basic idea and I've got work to do.

Discuss.