See, despite the fact you're a filthy commie, you have a good head on you which confuses my ultra right wing programming.
Haha, I'm more of a technocrat than a communist - but I do agree with the Marxist criticisms of Capitalism, just not communism as the solution.
I think spending all day doing statistical analysis, predictive modelling & trying to find the underline causes of a given behaviour or event programs you into thinking slightly differently - for me it resulted in me discarding ideology & changing to just seeking out data.
The only problem with much right wing ideology is that it's not founded in evidence, mostly historic rhetoric & tradition (the behavioural assumptions underpinning it).
I can understand that there is a temptation for most people to exhibit selfish traits on a day to day basis, to a certain degree it makes some sense insofar as the self-preservation aspect goes. But then you could take it back a step to the nature vs nurture debate. For example, I actively shy away from selfishness where it isn't 'true' and I'd wager that any psychiatrist worth their fee would put that on the influence I had from family growing up.
In fact, it's usually to a (costly) fault.
Indeed, the environmental(family)/genetic/epigenetic influences will always be in a struggle against other cultural or political views (as it's simply another environmental influence).
What keeps me honest is simply the recognition that I'd like people to be honest with me at all times & not screw me over, if I'm to expect this of others then it would be logically consistent for me to posses those traits myself - it makes no sense to appeal to values in others an individual does not support or possess themselves.
The old adage's "Be the change you want to see in the world," along with "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." are both quite apt, as they are both the cornerstone of a logically consistent moral outlook.
This is why racism & homophobia are fundamentally logically flawed world views, as no person individually would like to be the victim of it & neither would a straight person wish to be victimised for possessing a certain sexual preference - the only people which mess up this logic are sadomasochists
.
But I digress (apologies for the off-topic rant!).
