We live in tumultuous times. Facebook, twitter and all the other technological ways of communicating have increased our awareness of that fact. Because of this new found ease of communicating two groups have immerged to do battle, liberals vs conservatives.

During most of my teaching career being liberal or conservative was not a big concern among fellow faculty members. During our often raucous noon lunches in the staff room politics were rarely discussed. Instead we told stories and shared funny experiences that kept the crowded staff room chuckling.

I understand today that is not the case. In fact the staff room is almost disserted as staff members eat in their rooms or other areas of the school. What fun they are missing all because liberalism vs conservatism has put such a damper on our society’s ability to have thoughtful and meaningful discussions.

So how do we become liberal or conservative? I’m a conservative and I feel it’s as much a part of me as my curly, brown(used to be) hair, my green eyes and my big Larson nose. I don’t feel I decided one day to become a conservative. To me it seems like I always have been.

That question kept bugging me until I finally googled ‘liberal, conservative, genetics’ and here’s what I found. As in all science questions there is some uncertainty. Science is continuingly gathering knowledge about the topic adding and deleting information as new data requires. But at this point in that investigation it appears DNA has a say in determining if we become liberal thinkers or conservative thinkers.

Identical twins separated at birth were studied along with a control group of fraternal twins that remained together.

The identical twins developed from the same fertilized egg thus each of their cells contained forty six chromosomes that were identical.

The fraternal twins did not develop from the same fertilized egg. Instead their mother released two egg cells into her fallopian tubes and each egg was fertilized by a separate sperm cell. Thus the twins did not contain the same identical DNA as was found in the cells of the identical twins.

As the twins in both groups matured they were tested for liberal or conservative leanings. Even though the identical twins were raised in separate families they were more likely to share either liberal or conservative beliefs compared to the fraternal twins who were raised in the same families.

Scientist have determined 40 t0 60% of our political attitudes are inheritable while the rest comes from our environment. DNA to a certain degree predicts whether we will be conservative or liberal

With that knowledge it concerns me how the conservative voices are being silenced on all of the technology devices such as twitter, Facebook, snapchat along with the mainstream media.

If being liberal or conservative is an inherited condition does it seem fair that one group should have the right to silence the other?

Remember what happened years ago when some people had to sit in the back of buses,  drink from special water fountains or be banned from eating from certain lunch counters? They too were treated differently because of their inherited differences.

Another form of racism has reared its ugly head as ‘freedom of speech’ is being attacked. Conservative voices are being removed from many of the technology communication devices. Actual news that we need to make voting decisions are purposely kept from we citizens.

That point was driven home to me as I was visiting with a relative of mine who is very liberal. I asked her what she thought of Hunter Biden’s laptop being discovered in the computer repair shop. She did not know what I was talking about!

How could that be? It had been on the news for several weeks.

And of course the answer was freedom of speech or actually lack of freedom of speech. Conservative media had been reporting on the laptop all along while the liberal media had failed to make it known. On top of that the technology devises such as twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, etc. were silencing the conservative voices so many liberals never heard about the laptop containing Biden/China suspicions.

After the election a poll was taken of Democrats who of course had never heard about the laptop because they did not watch or listen to conservative media. 14% of them said they would not have voted as they did had they known about the Chinese and Ukrainian implications that the laptop contained.

Freedom of speech is too important to have it succumb to a new form of racism.

Let’s return to what used to work when liberal and conservative voices met to decide differences in past decades. Let each side explain its wants and then do some good old fashioned compromising!

It would be an United States that I would be proud of. 🙂

Until next time.