Liberals, Conservatives and Brains

The current political situation has determined that almost all political talk features a single continuum stretching from liberal at one end to conservative at the other. Those in the middle are called swing voters. While this prevents anyone who thinks both health care for all is good while homosexual marriage is bad from being able to have a name for themselves, there is some truth to it. There are clear personality traits that are correlated to people who self-describe themselves as liberal and conservative. The linked article gives an excellent overview http://psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=20061222-000001&page=1
"Conservatives have a greater desire to reach a decision quickly and stick to it, and are higher on conscientiousness, which includes neatness, orderliness, duty, and rule-following. Liberals are higher on openness, which includes intellectual curiosity, excitement-seeking, novelty, creativity for its own sake, and a craving for stimulation like travel, color, art, music, and literature." But what I consider the most important difference is this, 'The study's authors also concluded that conservatives have less tolerance for ambiguity...Liberals, on the other hand, are "more likely to see gray areas and reconcile seemingly conflicting information""
I frequent a religion forum in which are a number of conservatives. One of them described himself as seeing the world in black and white, and he thought this was a good thing because it made his decisions quicker. When I suggested that the world was often not black and white he replied that his "Decisions are almost always dead-on." He saw the world in black and white, it was good to make decisions as quickly as possible and he did not doubt the accuracy of his opinions.
As a liberal I find this sort of mindset amazing. But that's because I have a different mindset. If you go back and read my first paragraph it is as stereotypical a piece of liberal writing as the guy from the religion forum is stereotypically conservative. A conservative might write that "People are politically liberal or conservative, and conservatives are better because they aren't wishy-washy, they know what they want and they know the difference between right and wrong." It's shorter, it's more to the point, it's clearer and as an opinion it works just fine.
In the same forum is someone I believe to be liberal, but it's hard to tell. This person is so comfortable with ambiguity and relativism that it's impossible to tell what they believe in. If you ask him a question about how a problem should be solved he will describe all the possible problems in any solution for the problem. He will take great pride in not committing himself to a position, embracing doubt as a laudable ideal.
But what I want to touch on is that these mindsets are facts of existence, they will change very little despite our best efforts. You will not get a liberal person to happily make a snap decision on a complex topic, and you won't get a conservative person to happily waffle about something for an hour weighing all the pros and cons without reaching some conclusion. As such we must start changing how we communicate if we want to cooperate. It is like learning another language, if you want to get cooperation from someone who speaks a different language we have to alter what we say.
So, if you are a liberal who wants to convince a conservative that we should bring our troops home from Iraq don't spend a lot of time on deceptions, and doubts, and worries and equating iraqis with americans (that's ow you convince a liberal) simply say, "The mission in Iraq was simple, get rid of Saddam Hussein and remove any WMD's, those are done, they don't want us there, let them fix their own country" and then don't say anything else. Just pound on these dogmatic points, ask "Is Saddam in power, yes or no?""Are there WMD's, yes or no?""When a mission's over, what do you do?"
If you are a conservative who wants to convince a liberal I suggest the following tactic. Think of five outcomes to any situation but make sure that what you think is right will be the best answer to get the best outcome. Thinking of the possible outcomes and what is the right solution should be entirely natural. But what won't be natural is outlining these five different possibilities, what is more natural is just saying what the right thing to do is. It will show to the liberal that you are nuanced, thoughtful, open to different ideas and therefore to be respected intellectually. The summary is exactly the same, but a liberal will take it seriously.
But in the end, most of the time, conservatives and liberals will keep on being conservatives and liberals because they can't help it. Just like puppies have to chew, girls like pink, and everyone likes to gossip, liberals have to waffle and conservatives have to decide.