But this only occurs, when one has the courage to allow it to take place.
It's not something that one persons can force onto another, just as you can't force an addict to quit snorting paint chips. Although they can be guided down the right path, they essentially have to come to make the change on their own.
Bringing this macro level argument back down to the micro issues of Conservative/Traditionalist vs Liberal/Progressive on the Reality War Front - we have to realize that the war isn't really between these two archetypes. The war is within ourselves, and we have to be just as willing to accept reasonable portions of their template into our matrix as we expect from them.
Generally speaking though, the nature of a Conservative is indeed to embrace Paradigm Paralysis. It's at the core of what and who they are. They wish - even if they don't all realize it - that things to return back to the pre-Copernicus era. A Flat Earth at the Center of the Universe where everything made sense (to them).
the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, the most powerful committee in the House , distributed to legislators a memo pitching crazed wingers who believe the earth stands still -- doesn't spin on its axis or revolve around the Sun -- that Copernicus was part of a Jewish conspiracy to undermine the Old Testament. That would be the same Old Testament that was written by the folks Chisum's friends say are conspiring to undermine it.
They wish to return us to a feudal society, one controlled by Corporate Multi-National Overlords of immense power, wealth and influence who have the ability to completely manipulate and control the lives of their workers and customers wage-slaves and serfs - through their enablers and sycophants in the media, the halls of Congress and the White House. U.S. Steel, United Fruit and the William Randalf Hearst Empire of half-truths have all been resurrected by the new 21st Century Robber-Barons. That is the truth they have yet to fully face because they believe they might one day become an Overlord themselves. The concerns of the little people crushed along the super-speedway of their self-gratification are therefore irrelevant, and probably their own fault since they obviously failed to do the logical thing and get out of way by jumping on the neo-conartist Capitalism is the One True GOD bandwagon.
Thus we have Iraq, Katrina, Walter Reed and quite possibly Iran.
Science is their enemy, as is Reality (with all it's Liberal Biases and all it's Inconvenient Truths) which require them to adopt and absorb radical, painful paradigm shifts.
We must understand that both their fuel and primary tool is Fear.
They use it well and they use it often. They've used it in the War on Of Terror ™. They use it in our Churches and our Schools. For decades they have worked in tandem to erect the Conservative Fact Shield to protect their interests and their goals from all threats. Especially Us. The best tactic then to help prosecute this Reality War - one which is the True War of Civilizations IMO - as well as help Koolaid Kids and Komandos who oppose us into their next inevitable paradigm shift, is to confront those fears with Courage.
Some, possibly the 23%-ers are well beyond all hope of recovery from their compulsive addiction to bullshit, but many others may be open to reason if they are not necessarily attacked with a fact swarm but rather engaged and challenged to have the courage to consider a new approach and a new viewpoint. They may not completely come to accept the new information, not right away, but simply getting them to consider the possibilities is always an improvement.
The goal has to be to implement incremental changes and slowly move the Overton Window just a smidge at a time.
It can be painful, it can be frustrating - but it's well worth it.
And that goes not just for the Neo-Cons, Proto-Cons and Zeta-Cons, it goes for we Progressives as well, because the entire point of being a progressive in my view, is being willing and able to make the next Paradigm Shift in our own Reality Template.
And the next.
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