A few days ago, my elderly aunt forwarded an email petition regarding illegal aliens receiving Social Security to me, my mother (her sister), and several other people.  It requested that after signing it, you forward it to friends.  Everyday stuff.

My mom signed it, and since she is not very active with email, among those she forwarded it to was my cousin, the aunt's son, who is a flaming liberal.

He sent a letter to both my mom and my aunt.  My aunt was very embarrassed, and asked Mom not to read his letter because it was mean and nasty, so naturally she did, but she doesn't want to talk about it.  All she told me is that my cousin accused them both of closed-mindedness, and ended by saying that bigotry makes him nauseated.

Neither is bigoted or racist; they grew up during the real Depression, and feel we simply can't afford to subsidize illegals.

For the sake of his liberal ideals, he insulted and offended two elderly ladies who love him, one his own mother.  Mom isn't going to answer him, she doesn't want to further embarrass my aunt. 

How do you account for this?  The only rationale I can come up with is that his desire to feel "holier than thou" is so strong that it overrides family feeling and basic civility.  Despite being an intelligent man, he must not see that his immediate leap to conclude they are both bigots is itself bigoted.  He concludes he is in a superior moral position, and has the right to criticize.

In some ways, the secular liberal ideology has become a rather ugly religion.  I would guess his response was a reflex, not based on thought, but emotion.  I would also guess that his upbringing was similar to mine, grounded in respect to elders, manners, politeness, honesty, family loyalty, and so forth.  So for his emotional response to a differing ideology to be strong enough to overcome his upbringing and allow him to insult his elderly mother and aunt, it must be pretty powerful.

It is frightening to consider the power of liberal hordes swallowed up by this kind of thinking...  It also implies that just because a liberal may be intelligent doesn't mean he is amenable to reason, quite the contrary.  The more one tries to reason, the more emotional the liberal would get.  It would be a challenge to their belief system, which I think is more basic to their self-concept than I had previously imagined.  Yuck.