It's by no means ridiculous to posit that there are cognitive areas not shared by any two people, for example you and me. Haven't there been countless times when you've gotten exasperated at my failure to see your point and agree with it? When you occasionaly drop the patronizing line "how could anybody seemingly so smart...", you're describing to a T the phenomenon of differing cognition. Our conversation right now is providing a nice self-referential example.

It's hardly newsworthy to observe that conservatives and the other side (it wears out my fingers to keep typing Liberal/Progressive/Democrat/"Leftie"...et al) don't seem to be thinking from the same hymnal. Lakoff's is the best attempt I've seen so far to examine and codify the differences in our deep cognitive structures. As I opined to Tech1, doesn't that beat the hell out of the "explanations" we've relied on so far, "greedy heartless bastard" versus "commie colectivist bastard"?

Well, of course, you might not think so, and that's yet another example of our cognitive differences. To me it seems potentially constructive to understand that you're not exactly crazy, but rather that your mind is functioning well, but it's functioning on another cognitive planet. The point of "Whose Freedom?" is that Conservatives aren't being hypocritical when they elevate the word "freedom" to a rhetorical fetish object and yet seem to be working tirelessly 24/7 to destroy freedom; the problem is that we have two very different concepts of freedom.

Our differences are probably irreconcilable in that light, but yet, if understanding that takes "winning" off the table, it might be possible to return to our traditional method of getting along through permanent and continuous conflict resolution, aka the American system of adversarial politics.

That's important, because I think what ails us the notion of winning, that (in the context of who's currently in power) a "permanent Republic majority" is simply untenable, because of those irreconcilable cognitive differences. Pushing it much farther is likely the formula for civil war--the other side is no more likely to surrender its principles and values and adopt the alien Conservative cognitive set, than your side is to adopt the progressive cognitive set. The alternative to civil war is a return to balanced democracy at whose core is compromise, and eschewing the pathological winner-takes-all view. The American system frowns by design on winner-takes-all.

In the present, the Rockridge position paper on taxation makes so much sense to me that it achieves common sense (yet to you it's gibberish!). Of course those who profit most from the rich infrastructure built with taxpayer money are obligated to pay more taxes. It goes well beyond common examples such as roads and police and fire protection. For example, government regulation of the securities industry has been an inestimable boon to capitalism. The SEC serves a role analogous to Underwriter's Laboratories, as the guarantor against fraud and deception. If it weren't for the SEC, capitalism could still go on, but at a much smaller scale. Anyone contemplating an investment would have to spend lots of money on due diligence, hiring an army of auditors and lawyers and gumshoes to substitute for the level of security provided in a government-regulated securities market. Lack of an SEC would doom the Conservative dream of all Americans becoming investors--capitalism would remain a game only the rich could afford to play.

Another example, one that pushes your emotional buttons yet it's self-evidently true: One IRS auditor can audit dozens of individual taxpayers simultaneously, but to audit a major corporation requires a large team of dedicated auditors. Like it or not, a government that collects taxes incurs expenses in collecting those taxes, and those expenses are disproportionately higher when collecting taxes from business.

How about government R&D? You and I profit indirectly if the cost of some product is lowered because private industry exploits government R&D results (but we never see the entire cost reduction--that's profit), but the businesses that do so profit directly. Similarly too with below-market-value leases or purchase of public land containing valuable natural resources. Why shouldn't those who profit more from our "commonwealth" expenditures pay more in taxes?

If the benefits of government expenditures can't be distributed equally to all the population, how can we not tax those who benefit more at a proportionately higher rate? Where's the concept of fairness in taxation without progressive taxation?

In an earlier conversation, you claimed that the top 1% of taxpayers pay 34% of the taxes, and I responded by pointing out that the top 1% also has about 34% of all the wealth in the country. How could there possibly be anything unfair about that?

And here we are: I know that I'm making sense, and those of a progressive mental persuasion will see it too. And to you I'm speaking gibberish, and a particularly subversive kind of gibberish at that. How do you explain that (constructively) without invoking Lakoff's description of different cognitive sets?