Curing conservatism, ranked by the World Health Organization as more important than eliminating Ebola, AIDS, and malaria combined, may be a step closer according to researchers at several major American universities.
In a recent spate of articles appearing in venues which report not only applied science, but theoretical breakthroughs, teams of investigators have linked conservatism to genetic and other predisposing factors. The list includes Catholic education, thought to trigger hypothalamic reorganization due to exposure to celibate adults, and listening to Fox News, known to cause death of crucial neurons through a process known as "ranting." Inadequate parenting, disturbed family structure, or attending a fundamentalist college is thought by several experts to disable or deform a cognitive function known as the "bullshit filter." According to geneticists at leading research centers, a familial tendency also appears to be at work. The liklihood that a conservative will have a conservative sibling is nearly 30%, a figure which rises to an astounding 76% if the sib is an identical twin. As one guilt-striken mother of a conservative son exclaimed, "Who would ever bring a child into the world who will live a life of delusion and hypocrisy?"
Conservatives often exhibit a constellation of irrational beliefs and phobias which include, but are not limited to, sexism, creationism, homophobia, and belief in The Rapture. Conservative children often grow up to be sexually ambiguous adults who serve as presidential advisors, directors of family-oriented research organizations, fake psychologists who use the title "Doctor" followed by their first name, ministers of music, and pastors of mega-churches. Conservative children and adults often display "imaginative retardation," a trait which manifests as irrational fear of fictional characters such as Harry Potter or Jehovah, or formation of homicidal intentions towards people they know nothing about.
A fetus destined for the sad fate of conservatism may be observed engaging in "in utero bloviating," and other abnormal forms of posturing, traits which untreated carry over into the adult state. Conservative females often exhibit inadequate socialization which sometimes extends to writing books and blogs which advocate violence toward or forced religious conversion of people unknown to the afflicted subject. In some cases, deeply conservative females actually resemble drag queens more than they do normal women.
Progressive researchers believe that abortion of conservative fetuses should be a last resort, although it is difficult to justify a life of severely diminished function and abnormal affect should the conceptus be carried to term. Unfortunately, apparently normal children sometimes begin to exhibit symptoms of conservatism as teens or young adults, a characteristic conservatism shares with various mental illnesses with which it shares features such as compulsive behavior, panic attacks, hallucinations, and feelings of extreme moral certitude. Among male conservatives, sexual addictions are common, male hustlers and congressional pages being common objects of fantasy, although in some fortunately rare forms, conservative men acquire female harems which they isolate from normal society in "compounds" centered around "temples." Conservative wives and men of the over-weight "Republican eunuch" habitus appear more susceptible to addition to anxiolytics and orally administered analgesics ("pain pills").
The search for a cure continues, but like cancer, conservatism is just beginning to be more clearly understood. More than one evolutionary biologist has suggested that Nature may eventually take the matter in hand. One researcher (who requested that his name be withheld due to fear of retaliation) noted, "Survival of the fittest necessarily implies the extinction of those who can't adapt. In this case, global climate change may succeed where education has failed."
