Liberals and Conservatives: Open or Conscientious

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Two things.

1. I'm not a closet liberal, neither have I ever been.

2. To Inuyasha, here, here.

If your area of study is the humanities or social sciences. yes. If your area of study is hard sciences or engineering, then no.

I'm a fairly clean / neat / "anal retentive" liberal. My living quarters tend to be rather simple/plain compared to most people.

A liberal is a conservative who has not been mugged by one of the Underclass.

ruveyn

I value most of those things equally and don't closely identify with either ideology

I don't consider myself to "identify" with any ideology either, but in the US supporting anything less than completely unfettered free-market puts you on the liberal side of the fence. Belief in a mixed-capitalistic economy with progressive taxation and a social safety net is considered liberal. If you are a true conservative even a minimal social safety net with a progressive taxation system is "stealing". At least that's what I've learned on here.

I've always heard it that a conservative is a liberal who has just been mugged, where as a liberal is a conservative that's just been arrested. As a libertarian, I don't see all that much difference between the cops and the muggers.

LOL that's a great way to put it.

I dislike that whole pseudo-political attitude I often see about 'left' and 'right', here and other places. I have seen interviews with a Republican candidate who supported gay marriage, stem cell research, universal health-care, the generic 'leftist' ideals. Really, it just comes down to progressive and regressive. There are progressive people who are right-oriented and also left-oriented, and they can work together; in fact, must work together, a form of checks and balances, if you will; the 'regressives' are those who are blatantly unaware of three major facts, these being: human dignity has inherent value, and any calls against this inherent value are from those who represent ideologies not in the best interests of the common man or the 'upper' class man; that freedom of speech is not meant to represent a freedom to be ignorant but rather a call to excellence of communication; and finally, that religion is a personal philosophy and does not have any place in the class room or in any government body. Therefore I think it is impossible for progressives to work with regressives. Regressives often describe life & politics as a Socially Darwinist struggle, at least, ultra-conservative regressives. The true irony of this situation is that natural selection tends to favor the most adaptable organisms, not the ones most resistant to change. Thus when I hear ultra-conservatives talk about this I can't help but snicker, because as a general rule, conservation of the status quo is the antithesis of adaptability. The rest is all gravy, in terms of ideology, at least I think so. Asides the fact that Social Darwinism is a crock of sh**

Are conscientious republicans interested in halting corporate bailouts, improving the conditions of food production, or ending the sale of weapons to volatile countries?

Perhaps some are, but you are conflating two definitions of the word conscientious: one as a psychological term referring to a domain of personality in the Big Five factoring of personality traits and the other as a related lay usage. A conscientious person, in the psychological sense, is careful, dutiful, meticulous, organized, self-disciplined, frugal, prudent, reliable, perfectionist, achievement striving, industrious, etc. Their sense of morality may be based on a strict understanding of a set of rules derived from their religion.

Like it or not, politics in most democratic countries tends to divide into two roughly opposed camps where members of each side are bound to specific policy goals/priorities and ideological beliefs more or less strongly such that the ties between people and causes on one side. Independents, centrists, and moderates would be tied to concerns/interests on both the left and the right or only weakly tied to various concerns (think of politics as a graph of nodes of people/ideas/policies connected to each other at different strengths). Political parties, special-interest groups, political-action committees, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), etc. try to operationalize these interconnections, even strengthening some and weakening others, by forming a political ideology/memeplex and through a system of political patronage/reward.

In countries with multiple viable parties, there are still usually two major parties on the left and the right with smaller parties that usually form coalitions with the major ones. The graph does not form large, discrete sections that make something distinctly different viable on its own. In the United States, some libertarians may indeed fall distinctly outside the left-right paradigm, but many bind themselves more closely with the Right and with conservatives; a lesser number may identify more readily with liberals because of common positions on social issues.

The more socially liberal wing of the Republican Party is not particularly strong at all, and the insurgency of Tea Party supporters has definitely swamped out what little of their voice there may have been. There may be a few relatively liberal Republicans on the West Coast and in the Northeast, but those aren't the GOP's core regions of support.

Being liberal on the aforementioned issues puts a person further to the left, all things considered. Their views on the economy may be more right-leaning, but left and right are not exact synonyms for Democratic and Republican.

Freedom of speech does indeed include the right to unfortunate, ignorant, and offensive speech and not a call to any high-minded sermonizing. Odious speech should be "cancelled out" with better informed, reasonable speech.

This would not sit well with many on the Right. Secularism is a cause championed more by liberals; conservatives seem to accept begrudgingly at best in most cases.

I believe that Republicans tend to be more left-brained, and the Liberals more right-brained. There has been some minor studies done on this, but nothing substantial. I suspect that's why "Liberal Arts" is called liberal, associating it with the artistic qualities of the right brain, but I am not definitely certain. Often, the party that supports the Arts is often the liberals. Liberals are more open to change, experience, diversity and social understanding. They are also likely to be more visual in nature. They also tend to be more in favor of social bonding, which goes directly into the idea that right-brained people often tend to favor their emotions.

Republicans are often more in favor of rules, order, dominance and often patriarchy. This is more in tune with the left brain. They often come off as more competitive, dominant and authoritative. They are likely to favor sequential tasks and care less about what others think of them. They are less apt to be a part of a social organization and favor sticking to things as they are, e.g. a reactionary ideology.

Like many things, it's not just as simple as that. How much of a specific portion of the brain is used is rarely on equal footing, and so too is the case of how conservative or liberal a person really is. I tend to think of it more in terms of left versus right, since parties like the Tea Party still fall to the right end of the spectrum, the Green Party to the left end, etc.. Ironically, though, the terms of left and right are said to be based on the way the Roman court was set up, so it likely has little to do with brain orientation.

Where an autistic person would fall on this spectrum, I would think, depends on what part of their brain is dominant. I have a tendency to be more right-brained, so I fall towards the left. I just think autistic people handle it differently. They will focus more on details than on the social needs, but that doesn't mean social needs are left out of the picture. A number of autistics are very compassionate, which tends to be a right-brain function, and thus could be considered to have more emotional complexity. Emotional complexity for an autistic person could well mean that he or she may feel so overwhelmed as to find it best to avoid relationships, or such a person may seek out friends but have some issues with doing so. It is hard for me to fathom an autistic person taking part in traditional left-wing protests, though, as it would involve extreme social meandering and possibly a fear of breaking conventional rules. I suppose it's not impossible.

As far as more left-brained autistic people are more concerned, I suspect they tend to favor libertarian (in the US sense of the word) ideals. They may be a bit more productive in nature and find it a bit easier to sustain work, but are likely to clash with the boss over possibly minor details. Some may be prominent entrepreneurs, who knows? They have less trouble with emotional complexity, so social needs probably mean far less to them.

That's just my take on it. I seriously doubt it's a 100% accurate, but what faction of psychology or sociology really is?

I kind of agree with what you just said. Not literally, but... the basic idea.