Battle of hearts and minds

"If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative at 40, you have no mind."

A teacher told me that in high school, and I soon found that many people had heard the theory and ascribed to it.

The decisions made over the past few years and some recently established policies of the major political parties seem to indicate something different. While Republican policy shows decisions based on emotion and spirituality, Democratic policy reflects science and logic.

Most recently, President Bush appealed to his softer side by appointing close friend Harriet Ellan Miers to the Supreme Court. Miers, according to the Washington Post, "brings no judicial experience or constitutional background to her new assignment."

"I've known Harriet more than a decade," Bush said. "I know her heart, I know her character."

Miers is a native Texan and an active member of her evangelical Christian church, according to the Los Angeles Times-nothing like going with the girl next door.

Bush identifies Miers, presumably to appeal to the left, as a woman who has broken gender barriers. While naming her to the Supreme Court would make her the third woman to have been given a seat, it can be assumed that her decisions on the bench will be an extension of Bush's policies. She's been with the President since his days as Texas Governor, and she is lavished with the ilk of flattery he reserves for only his closest of devotees.

There is nothing feminist about taking the seat of an honorable woman who transcended party lines and using it to do a man's bidding.

The President seems to be thinking with his heart by appointing to a long-term position someone who would directly apply his own politics, rather than recognizing the possibility for error in personal preference and going with an appointee who would be the fairest to the integrity of the Constitution.

Liberals are often labeled "tree-huggers" for their environmental concerns. The moniker implies a preoccupation with emotion, as if there is no logical reason to promote conservation.

Global warming is so evident scientists don't even debate the issue anymore. The question has become, "What can we do about it?"

Despite scientific advancements like bio-diesel and the sound arguments for finding sustainable energy alternatives, the stereotype remains that conservationists have a leaky heart valve for foliage.

The conservative response, meanwhile, has been a call for energy alternatives, while ignoring options that don't support the current oil economy.

The stereotypes don't seem to hold up. The liberal calls for logical changes are consistently met with heartfelt, illogical conservative discomfort.

The impassioned President rushed The Patriot Act through Congress immediately after Sept. 11, 2001. The US government, as a result, has rights to violate citizens' privacy that were previously considered Orwellian.

Public support for The Patriot Act is based on a willingness to hand over liberties in favor of a sense of security from terrorist threats. Suffocating, overpowering central governments certainly make me feel better at night.

Universal equality seems logical right? Not to the right. Their morally based-read: homophobic-opposition to gay marriage triggered a knee-jerk request for an amendment banning civil liberties. This morality of which the right speaks is a euphemism for spirituality, and faith is unquestionably a resident of the heart.

The aloof assertion that conservatives are the wise old sages who have overcome their hormonal idealism and that liberals are just too stupid to have realized the error of their ways is an indication of what happens to most people once they're comfortable with their lives.

Find a well-paying job, start a family, get satisfied and you're bound to be less comfortable with change.