There have been studies showing that we become more conservative as we age. There have also been studies showing that the right is more fearful of the unknown and change. We also have studies showing that as we age, our brains become less plastic, and and not as well equipped to deal with change. If we extrapolate from these studies, it seems likely that aversion to the unknown is what drives the right. You keep hearing religion, family values, business freedom, etc... They essentially sell the idea of no change, or returning values to a point in time when things were even more in my favour. And this makes sense, if I worked my ass off for whatever merger wealth I have attained, and I see something that may or may not affect that, I'm going to rally against it. And because I'm old, I have a very little chance of reaccumilating wealth if the politicians screw up, and devalue my wealth. This goes for religion, family values, etc...

It's been interesting watching my dad age. He taught me to treat all people with respect, and that I shouldn't judge people by the colour of their skin. He'd point out that religion was an accident of birth, and not an all being absolute. Now that he's 70, he's much less racially tolerant, and is less able to tease out the fear mongering of the right. He hears he should be afraid, and so becomes afraid. Some has to do with experience, like the Chinese family that moved in next door and painted their house pink and green, which undoubted decreased the value of his home in his eyes (lets face it, that probably didn't help). He sees the black man my daughter dated treat her like crap, and essentially played video games all day while she supported him in an economy where you could get a job just by saying you were thinking about working. Our brains look for patterns, even when there aren't any. So he saw her dating white guys that didn't mooch off her, and then one black guy that did, and all the years of stereotypes form a pattern, whether it's there or not. She ended up marrying a white guy who is also currently mooching off her, but he doesn't see this as a racial, as he now sees the last, he just chalks it up to my brother in law being an idiot.

I always say I'm about as liberal as you can get, and this is true, but it become harder to maintain those ideals when you see change coming as you age. If you're not introspective, you can easily be swept away with the fear of the unknown future. For instance, the constant issue with Islam. I think everyone should be able to practice whatever neandrathalic religion that they choose (though I think their all fairy tales, and make believe), but it's becoming harder and harder for me not to think that the world wouldn't be better off without Islam. Then the fear sets in as you look at birth rates among white people, and the birth and immigration rates of muslims. Most of my friends are having a single child. It's possible, in my lifetime that in certain parts of the county could be majority muslim. And being an atheist, and that being an atheist means death under Sharia law, it's an irrational concern. If you aren't constantly challenging these fears, and getting at the root of the issue, then you start to let the irrational fears take control. And most adults don't have a ton of time to think about these issues deeply, or investigate beyond what the news networks are spewing.

News networks don't help. They know this, and they pander to this fear. Rather than explaining how things are, they ask questions, and present things are being worse to get viewership. When I was a child, the evening news was as trustworthy as you could get. At least that's what we thought, because we had no way to verify what was actually going on, or if what you were seeing was true, or a con job. People older than 50, will trust the news because they know no better.

Republicans are willing to trade for the illusion of safety. This is best seen when it comes to gun control. You can show the statistics of gun violence, show that you're more likely to kill a family member than a burglar, but to them, it's safety. Religion causes more harm than good, but to the believers, it's the protection of their soul. Facts mean little when something frightens you.

Now, when it comes to the youth being more progressive, it's because they don't have a lot of life experience to taint their views. They really don't have a lot to lose, and the sacrifices you make as youth pale to those that you may have to make as an adult. You have no wealth to protect. Their idealistic, and haven't lived long enough to truly be wise. Change for them happens daily, and their able to adapt, and excel under these conditions. Remember, the plastic grey matter. For instance, kids nowadays have grown up in multicultural environments. They know someone from most races, and see them as equals, not as immigrants. This is a luxury the older generations didn't have. Even my school, we had two kids of Chinese descent, one was my best friend, and the other was my younger sisters best friend. I delighted in the culture, and I've always remembered what his father told me about eating quality Chinese food: "When you walk into the restaurant, if you see any whiter people in there, find another restaurant, it isn't Chinese food". Less true today, but at the time, it was poignant. There was also a very dark skinned Indian boy who used to eat beetles on a dare, along with a number of other very weird things. I thought he was weird and avoided him, though now I feel bad because I'm sure he was just willing to do anything he could to fit in. If that was my only exposure to Indian's, I would probably think they all were strange.

The youth also have a tendency to be more passive when it comes to war. This is just smart, because it's the youth we send to fight our battles. But it also comes down to that wealth issue again. We go to war to protect our wealth. If you have no wealth, and moreover, didn't struggle to earn it, then it's not something to fight over. So it's easier to be opposed to a thing if you have no skin in the game. If you've been through rough times, and struggled to crawl your way up from eating ramen for months on end, then you don't want to go back there.

At the end of the day, it's mostly fear, the feeling of safety, and aversion to loss. The beauty is the answer is almost always in the middle. So the youth is idealistic, and the old are scared and a tad selfish. Together, with both sides pushing, we seem to slowly get better over time. Faster than the old farts want, slower than what the young generation wants. But fast enough to see and enact change, but slow enough that we don't tank the economy, or get invaded for a lack of military.