Today we heard the unfortunate news that apparently the gays have launched a jihad against Rick Santorum. Poor Rick. Always persecuted and condemned for persecuting and condemning other people. Why is it that he always ends up in this situation? One commenter explains.

From EasttoMidwest:

He is exactly the kind of guy who would have denied a heliocentric solar system because that would further remove him from the center of all creation.

What he really believes in is a Santorumcentric universe. Whether he realizes it or not, he believes that he is the bullseye of perfection and that the world will be a better place if the most possible people were the most possibly close to it.

Which, of course, duh, we all want the entire world to be exactly how we like it and to suit all our own personal preferences and predilections. Shit, if the world was made of people just like me, it would be so freakin' awesome. I really believe that — and so does everyone else.

Conservative personalities* tend to see themselves as the ones inflicting the rules and barriers on other people. They don't imagine themselves holding the short straw. Somehow, they're never the ones giving anything up, in their imaginations and that is as it should be. Somehow they think that, well, they are the center of the universe and everything else needs to be modified to suit them.

Leaving that center of the universe thing aside, a lot of liberal people understand that they are part of the elite and that they will not be affected by any of the rules and barriers. None-the-less they resist them because they are unlike conservatives who have difficulty switching perspective. Again I've noticed this with people when discussing any variety of subjects. I have a colleague who is perfectly intelligent and quick within whatever frame he started, but who is incapable of switching frames and so will spout out the wrong thing over and over again because he literally cannot shift to the new concept. It's the damndest thing and might exactly explain why someone like Santorum thinks he's the center of the universe.

He is quite simply unable to perceive a reality, let alone consider the value of that reality, outside of his own. So he can harass gays because he is doesn't understand how it feels to be attracted to someone of the own sex and because some religious leaders shoved the issue in front of his eyes, but he cannot fathom that this might be upsetting and that people might react accordingly.

He is working to take rights away from other human beings, with whom he assumes he has nothing in common, and yet their reprisals are as foreign and evil and mysterious as a jihad is to someone who has never actually met a Muslim. Also, he's pretty dumb.

Conversavitism is the instinct of would-be-tyrants.

Not a revolutionary assessment maybe, but pleasingly and satisfyingly said, I think.

[Photo via Getty]