Studying the liberal brain

Science is a beautiful thing -- when it reinforces your biases.

Take the new research from two Canadian psychologists who set out to study a most peculiar bird: the "green weenie," or, as the study calls them, "consumers of 'ethical' products." I prefer the more common name of "yellow-bellied, feel-good liberal."

Turns out these folks, as verified by this scientific study, share less than other people and are six times more likely to lie and cheat.

Whoa. Now, that's some important science. And unlike that global warming stuff, I'm not making this up.

Last week, the British newspaper the Guardian reported the study showed "when people who feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the 'licensing (of) selfish and morally questionable behavior.' "

Scientists measured this asocial and unethical behavior trait by devising a test in which consumers of "ethical" products were given a chance to boost their money by cheating on a computer game and then given the opportunity to lie about it -- in other words, steal. These liberal do-gooders were six more times likely to lie and steal than conventional consumers.

The study calls it "moral balancing," and the British newspaper was quick to point out this behavior was exemplified by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who was caught running up huge energy bills at home at the same time he was lecturing on the need to reduce energy consumption.

I didn't need a British newspaper to tell me that. And there certainly was no need to go back that far to find an example of liberal moral balancing.

Name a topic, any topic, during Barack Obama's presidency, and you'll find ethical expediency embedded in the elitist liberal agenda. Looking down upon people deemed too damn dumb to fully understand the "higher" purposes of liberal thought is a common conceit.

How else do you explain a president who mandates cleaner air standards but can't stop smoking himself? Morally balance that.

And, how about an unintelligible 2,000-plus page health care bill so esoterically crafted that no one -- not even the people voting on it -- fully understand it.

If we've heard it once, we've heard it a million times from our liberal keepers: If the average person only knew what's really in the liberal heart (and, by extension, the health care bill), they'd be all for it.

To which citizens everywhere say: "C'mon, man! Give us some credit. Show us the deconstructed bill so we can understand what's what."

But liberals insist that explaining their own health care "reform" would take "too long," and besides, the unwashed American masses are too agitated right now because Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and the two or three right-leaning editorial pages in America, including this one, have fooled them.

Do-good liberals say the people won't "get it" until it is passed into law and slowly unveiled in the fullness of time.

Truth is, the people are angry because what few parts of the health care bill they can see, they hate.

And when they rise up in righteous grass-roots protest, their own representatives won't talk to them. They call them "Astroturf" (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) and "evil mongers" (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid). Reporters who should know better giggle (knowingly, I suspect) and call them "tea-baggers."

In the meanwhile, these same alleged reporters, who are supposed to watch-dog government, let the president and his men go unchallenged when they serve up stupid slogans like "don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good," "never waste a good crisis," and "the 'Cornhusker Kickback' is just how Washington makes sausage."

Scientists, I guess, would label it all "moral balancing."

I'd just call it for what it is: A steaming crock of selfish lies and cheating.

There, I said it.

And, hey, now I have a study to prove it.

Sherman Frederick (sfrederick@ reviewjournal.com) is publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and president of Stephens Media.