Gnoso

George Lakoff does a pretty good job of explaining why in Don't Think of an Elephant. He asserts that we have these seemingly arbitrary positions because of how we personally understand family and then project that understanding on how we understand the nation -- namely, the distinction between the "strict father" model versus the "nurturant parent" model. If you are a strict father, you might think the government should aggressively protect from outside harm and punish disobedient "children" with a firm hand (i.e. wage wars and have a big military and cut social programs because those poor people deserve what they get for being thoughtless with their resources). If you lean more towards the nuturant side, you might feel the government should protect from harm but not over protect, and divert more attention to compassionately nurturing the health and development of the "children" (i.e. have a sufficient military presence to protect the nation, and invest that savings in education and social programs). Of course, the author does a much more exhaustive explanation and connect a lot more dots than I can do in one blog comment.

With a forward written by Howard Dean, Lakoff obviously is not a conservative republican, but the ideas are pretty insightful regardless of where you land politically.

I'm not going to touch the abortion question.