Quote from: Dopeboy on April 29, 2012, 02:39 pmThe drug war, like any war, is about domination and control. And this war in particular is between left and right wing politics. Left wing (liberals) want freedom whereas right wing (conservatives) want to dominate and control. Over the past century there has been a gradual political shift from the right to the left.Rubbish. It's nowhere near as simple as that.Take evolution theory. If you are a Democrat, then you are statistically more likely to agree that evolutionary competition and specialization produce the diversity and design of the animal and plant kingdoms.On the other hand, if you are an Republican, then you are statistically more likely to disagree with evolution theory because of the implications which appear to conflict with your theology.So far, so familiar to a reader of the New York Times. Now let's look at it from the other side.--Take capitalism. If you are a Republican, then you are statistically more likely to agree that competition and the division of labor (specialization) lead to the diversity and design of the economy.On the other hand, if you are a Democrat, then you are statistically more likely to disagree with capitalism, because of the implications which appear to conflict with your world view *cough* theology *cough*.So far, so familiar to a reader of the Wall Street Journal.--So who is right? Do competition and specialization work, or don't they? Do Republicans want to "dominate and control" because they tend to want to restrict your social choices? Or do Democrats want to "dominate and control" because they want to restrict your economic choices?My view is that neither are right. And neither are wrong. It depends entirely on the environmental conditions.Quote from: Dopeboy on April 29, 2012, 02:39 pm A lot of it has to do with the way parents raise their children. If a father uses physical discipline and trauma to dominate his offspring, these children will be submissive to authority figures and never question authority. Those are the conservatives. This is a good way to raise well-disciplined soldiers who follow orders, but unfortunately, studies have shown that physical trauma during the formative years in childhood can lower IQ greatly.Nor is this correct. I'm not debating the specific, but your interpretation of what it means. Tell me, why do the conservatives and liberals exist? Because they've existed, with different names, for pretty much since the inception of humankind's ability to communicate, even when political parties didn't exist in their present conception. Seems to me, if one way was more efficient than the other, then we'd have sooner or later evolved along that path and not the other. Instead, we have two opposites that appear to be evenly matched the majority of the time. This is a matter of equilibrium between two powers, not right or wrong.Finally, IQ is a metric commonly used, often inappropriately, for the speed of human computation, or association. Liberals make for good pattern detectors, which is why many of them are scientists. That does not mean that conservatives are stupid. It means they bring something else, something very necessary to the table. You might as well start a debate on how soldiers tend to be male rather than female, and therefore females are going to become obsolete in the coming century. Cool story brah. Also, I am more likely to vote Republican than Democrat, which according to you makes me dumber. Given that I've accumulated more Benjamins than all my liberal friends, and their friend's friends, and... ...put together, I'd say I'm pretty content to be this much of a numbskull. Excuse me whilst I tend to my peacocks, they are lunching on caviar and crystal this evening and I fear they may suffer from peacock gout if I don't watch out.But seriously; this is more about centralization vs decentralization than left wing or right wing. I suggest giving politicalcompass.org a whirl for some interesting ideas.btw: I would tend to agree with DPR. The "consequences of the peace", are not what people imagine today. In fact I believe, unfortunately, that this seemingly innocent concept could lead to either A Brave New World or Big Brother. Chemical dystopia would be the ultimate consequence of such 'freedom'.