http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mri-brain-study-usc-political-beliefs-challenged/

I had to laugh when they said the subjects were all people with a liberal bent. I guess they couldn’t find a significant sample on or near the USC campus. Nevertheless they said they are seeking out conservatives to see if there’s a different response. I be there will be, but will they report their findings or just tweak the test?

In my pieces on political change, I have discussed the fact that change as a young person (college age, for example) is not what I’m talking about. A 17-year-old or 18-year-old at college, first time away from home and family, is just beginning to form a political identity, which is quite fluid. That person is also subject to a lot of propaganda at college, at a vulnerable age. I count the beginnings of political identity for most people as being a few years out of college and out in the world.

I was just saying that to a friend the other day.

Moore was already outside the liberal box in order to interview Yiannopoulos. Moore just didn’t realize that he was already unusual.

He believed that liberals were liberal. That already marked him as somewhat apart.

The same was true for me. I was always “different,” but I had no idea that was so.

One thing I have noticed is that “friends” seem to have a much deeper meaning, for liberals in general, and their reaction a much greater impact in their lives, than is the case for conservatives or libertarians. Who seem to me to have on average the attitude that one amiable and trustworthy beer drinking companion is almost as good as another … after all you’re not marrying the son of a bitch.

I think the idea behind the comment is assuming people with a conscious and developed belief system. “People going to university” are pretty much by definition teenagers, and few teenagers have sufficient life experience, or knowledge of (much less interest in) political and historical events to have deliberately and clearly thought out belief systems. I would suspect that teenagers believe in what they were raised with; or believe what their friends/social media believe; or are in blind rebellion against what they were raised with. Teens and young adults are very susceptible to peer pressure, so shrugging off default conservative values they casually picked up while growing up in their household on arriving at a university is not the kind of “political change” that’s being referenced.