In the modern world, there is only one thing that frightens me more than international terrorism, and that is the American conservative. This summer, Fox News covered the National Conservative Student Conference, organized by Young America’s Foundation, and reported that young conservatives are “brushing off their image as impressionistic and naive followers” and rejecting the Republican Party.

Before I could even start donning my party hat, the Noise continues on to conclude that the future of the conservative movement lies in “edgier” icons like Ann Coulter and Dinesh D’Souza. Although my initial reaction was to write them off completely, I realized it would be folly to blame conservatives for this lemmingesque idiocy. It is simply in their nature.

The conservative is, like all of us, a certain kind of animal. However, where the common man is endowed with reason and good sense, the conservative happily surrenders these faculties for nebulous concepts like “protecting the homeland” and “family values.” Of course, these concepts are not abhorrent. In fact, liberals actively pursue the same ideals through fully considered and rational policies. Why, then, does the average conservative have an image of liberals closely resembling that of the Antichrist? To put it bluntly: because this kind of false dichotomy favors Republican politicians.

They realized, some time in the 1980s, that they could not substantially sway the South unless they could create an incentive powerful enough to overcome an entrenched loyalty to the Democratic Party. Finding themselves shut out of the legislatures, they tried the churches. There they discovered a population with strong values, overwhelming faith and a healthy skepticism for the federal government. All they had to do was train them to believe that liberalism was irreligious, and only Republicans could save them from an oncoming moral decay. Thus the Republican elite became not only their brother’s keeper, but his handler as well.

The ideology they created was a hodge podge of religious ideals connected to big business, tied together with a string of vicious emotional imagery and invented doubts in Democratic patriotism. The strong sense of community that exists in religious people, who are abundant in the South, has been warped into a political Frankenstein. And now, it has begun to turn on its master. Instead of maintaining their loyalty to the Republican Party, conservatives find themselves craving those who will feed their hunger for anti-liberal rhetoric. They have been so convinced of this counter-intuitive message that they need to surround themselves with voices that tell them the mob of liberals is right outside their door, waving torches of atheism and polygamy.

The poor animals are so well trained that it has become nearly impossible for the Democrats to coax them out of their hovels. The only hope we have for breaking them of this habit is to educate them on the ignorance forced on them by their masters. Unfortunately, their well-intentioned religious faith has spilled over into their political beliefs, creating an adamant resistance to new ideas. Although some may be too far gone, there is hope for young people who can be exposed to real liberalism, with its strong moral convictions and a rational plan for the future of America.

We should view this new trend of young conservatives retreating from the Republican Party as an opportunity to snatch them away from the inhumane treatment they have received at the behest of a manipulative elite. They have been so abused that they believe that they do not deserve health care, they should send their sons and daughters to an incomprehensible war, and the subsidies they depend on are actually bad for them. Surely, if they are brought under the tender wing of liberalism, they will begin to see that not only do liberals share the same values, they also care more about the working man’s livelihood than the security of their own economic interests.