I know the terms liberal and conservative have very different connotations in the US from the UK, and I don't want to get into political controversy.-You say that "It is the latter [conservatives] who question Darwin, Global Warming, and express other non-mainstream views."-The fact is that in the UK hardly anyone questions the truth of Darwinian evolution, and very few now have any doubts about the truth of global warming, certainly across the main political parties. Any dissent from these views is by a minority of mavericks. If there is any party whose members question the orthodoxies I would say it is the Liberal party over here.-I have the impression that there are two opposite cultures in the US. There was a list in The Times last Thursday of the top twenty-one universities in the world. Thirteen of them are US institutions and five are UK, the others being in Australia, Canada and Switzerland. So US scientists and scholars are outstanding leaders in the world of learning. Yet there is the other side of America consisting of the creationists and antiscience gurus and religious fundamentalists. It's like a split personality.-You quote Churchill about being a liberal when young and a conservative when older, but he was using those terms in a very different context, of the Liberal and Conservative parties in this country early in the twentieth century, probably to justify his crossing the floor of the house from one to the other.
 
My own background is of being brought up in a family that supported the Labour Party and the Cooperative Movement. This was the progressive party of Attlee that brought in the national health service, and gave independence to India. My impression is that Socialism in the US tends to be identified with Communism, and Anti-Americal Activities.

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GPJ

The website to which David drew our attention: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/swimming_upstream_the_life_of.html
&... the absurd anomaly of liberalism as extremism, with people falling so far backward in order to make up for past intolerance that now they've become intolerant towards the very values that made them liberal in the first place. I guess a pendulum has to keep swinging. I don't think it's any different in this country. There was an air hostess who lost her job for wearing a cross round her neck. We are fierce defenders of minority rights. For instance, after kids set fire to the trees at the bottom of our garden, we erected a fence with a string of barbed wire at the top. If a trespasser ... let's say a would-be burglar ... were to injure himself climbing our fence, he could sue us.
 
But there's as much conservatism as liberalism. A subversive shift is taking place in our educational system, to which our attention was drawn in August 2008 (under Intelligent Design) by "rightarmover" ... a primary schoolteacher. In particular he mentioned so-called Academies, which replace ordinary schools and are frequently funded by religious bodies whose last concern is to foster tolerance. Faith schools by their very nature are conservative and divisive.-The fact of the matter is that there's a streak of intolerance in most groups that share a belief or a set of values. You can't believe something unless you reckon you're right, and that automatically means you reckon others are wrong. It then becomes a question of degree. I would like to think the vast majority of people are moderate ... prepared to live and let live ... but there's a minority of, for instance, atheists who will shout down theists, and theists who will shout down atheists (not to mention theists who will blow up anybody in order to get to Paradise). Liberal, conservative, socialist, Christian, Muslim. Jew, Hindu, tribalist, football supporter ... each one can be extended to extremism, and each extreme engenders intolerance and conflict. That doesn't mean you shouldn't ally yourself to a group, but every group should have a healthy enough proportion of internal scepticism to respect the rights of others. Here endeth the moderate, tolerant, open-minded agnostic's lesson.

Two different mind-sets are present in Liberals and Conservatives. It is the latter who question Darwin, Global Warming, and express other non-mainstream views. I know this difference colors the discussion here. 
> 
> I started as a young New Yorker and very liberal. Later very conservative and followed the famous line: if you are not liberal at 20 you have no heart, if not conservative at 40, you have no brain. I know Churchill used this statement, but it goes back before him. Lord Chesterton, perhaps? The following link is like my story, and I am mostly a libertarian at this juncture, one who understands and appreciates the needs for minimal societal rules. In this case the discussion represents how liberal the education establishment is in this country. 
> 
> http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/swimming_upstream_the_life_of.html-I'm flatly "middle of the road." Social conservatism is something I hate with a passion, because of fact that it wants to use the government to push cultural and social norms. -Fiscal conservatism is flatly right, but complete Laissez-faire cannot solve all societal problems. (If a business must manage people, who manages the businesses?)-
Individual liberty should be maximized. -While I have no issue with what causes the basic mentality behind modern liberal thought (people need help) I'm more apt to stick to the "tough-love" mentality of "Teach a man to fish." -Libertarian is something I can (almost) support. I disagree with the party's idea of eliminating the Dept. of Education. Standards mean nothing without a body to enforce them. Plus, someone needs to dictate what the national policy is; we need scientists, engineers, and teachers, right? However, left to market forces we will continue to have a glut, because basic research = government research. (There's no marketability of gluon and hadron research, for example.) -I'm more conservative than I would have thought I was 10 years ago, but again; market forces cannot solve all problems.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"