I recommend an insightful column in last Sunday’s Washington Post, “Why are liberals so condescending?” (February 7, 2010) This op-ed is by University of Virginia political scientist Gerard Alexander. It is based on a forthcoming Bradley Lecture at The American Enterprise Institute.

The essay is likely to interest individuals who’ve observed that nearly every Prius (or is it Pious?) in Bozeman sports an Obama bumper sticker, while so few 4 x 4 pickups, and none with gun racks, do. (Anthropologists may find cultural coherence in these observations.) More importantly, Alexander explains why those who supported the campaign for “hope and change” infer that those who didn’t harbor some strong combination of stupidity and wickedness.

Here is Alexander’s argument: Intellectual policy debates in the United States have for decades evidenced a pervasive liberal, collectivist perspective. It has long dominated U.S. politics and the media. Many liberal and progressive thinkers assume, usually implicitly, that they possess a monopoly on knowledge about cause-and-effect relationships in U.S. society, government, the environment, and the economy.

Alexander states that liberals assume that conservative and libertarian politics are fundamentally irrational, not guided by reason and evidence. This was the theme of What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America by historian Thomas Frank. He explores the rise of conservative populism in the United States through politics in his native state of Kansas. A progressive, liberal Populist center during the late nineteenth century, it has recently become overwhelmingly conservative.

Hence, something is “the matter” with Kansas. The malady leads people to “cling to guns and religion.” The same assumption justifies the left-of-center domination of American universities. It justifies the automatic, default dismissal of conservative policy recommendations, however sound and respectable the credentials of authors in think tanks, universities, and other organizations.

Liberal commentators often assume that conservatives and libertarians who dissent from liberal policy recommendations necessarily reject liberal goals, such as helping the poor or protecting our environment. Not even former Harvard professor and Democratic senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, had immunity when challenging ill-founded liberal dogma.

When Senator Moynihan analyzed the breakdown of inner-city families, he was maligned as racist and his concerns were ignored for decades. His focus on the consequences of welfare dependency was characterized as insincere and nasty. The phrase, “blaming the victim,” was central to the attack on Moynihan’s work.

The welfare policies he criticized, those that discouraged work, marriage, and the development of skills conducive to employment, remained until 1996 with devastating effects. Moynihan had broken ranks and asked the key question for evaluating policy, “And then what? What are the logical, predictable, empirical consequences of the policy?” The liberal prohibition imposes politically correct constraints on asking questions. And thus cripples discussion.

Ironically, the result of PC censorship fosters unhappiness among attentive liberals. When conservative and libertarian arguments are dismissed as unworthy of consideration, oft-silly but popular positions on NPR and others among the mainstream media go unchallenged. Then, as events unfold, ecological and economic reality checks ultimately emerge and disappointment follows.

The squelched or ignored conservative and libertarian arguments were largely unknown to them. The alternatives to liberal dogma are usually anticipated by opponents of “progressive” causes, sometimes opportunistically but often well founded.

As a result of their bias against considering alternatives, liberal intellectuals are blind-sided and disappointed when their preferred policies are not enacted. Cap-and-trade proposals to control CO2 provide a current example. And liberals may be even more disheartened if a program is enacted but precipitates a host of regrettable consequences. Government mandates for ethanol derived from corn is a compelling example.

I suggest liberals place hopes for reform and expectations for its success in separate baskets. This is most effectively and economically accomplished by asking the “and then what,” question. What are the logical, predictable unintended consequences of the proposed policy?

Consider what will happen if rent controls are imposed, if minimum wages are increased, or if we boycott the products of Third World sweatshops? What if the size and duration of welfare payments are increased? What if entry standards are adjusted downward to achieve affirmative action?

What if we use property rights and markets to foster environmental goals, and give vouchers to students who suffer from bad government schools? In each case will the intended beneficiaries of the policy be helped or harmed?

What happens if liberals’ default assumption is that only misanthropic and mean spirited ecologically insensitive bigots ask such questions? Will public debate over important questions be fostered or inhibited? Surely public understanding of important policy issues is impoverished by the discounting or dismissal of conservative arguments.

I argue that those who don’t ask “and then what” when offered a “hope and change” policy are at best naïve. Those less charitable might castigate them as intellectually and ethically deficient and irresponsible. Name calling, however, is rarely constructive.

I am hopeful that liberals’ pervasive dismissal of libertarian and conservative policy perspectives will diminish. Results of poor policies pile up and generate unavoidable conclusions among honest liberals. Evidence should ultimately erode their irrational prejudice against arguments coming from libertarian and conservative sources.

This bias is a powerful obstacle to more nuanced policy debates, yet I see hope for change—I’ve witnessed some. For example, libertarian and market process arguments have clearly captured the intellectual high ground of the environmental policy arena.

Ideas advanced by my colleagues and me at MSU, and later at PERC, in the 1970s and 80s were initially dismissed as libertarian fantasies. Now they comprise the dominant environmental paradigm. For example, Yale Press has just published Breaking the Logjam: Environmental Protection that Will Work by NYU law professors Schoenbrod, Steward, and Wyman.

The first two were senior officers of the Environmental Defense Fund. All of these authors have participated in FREE conferences on environmental policy. Their book’s preface includes this statement: “Reformed statutes that make greater use of economic incentives and other more flexible regulatory tools would save on costs, prompt technological innovation, that would pay dividends for the environment and economy.”

Acceptance of our ideas for environmental policy is indeed encouraging. However, outside the environmental arena, I place my hopes and expectations for acceptance in separate baskets. Hence, I am unlikely to be disappointed.

The practice of segregating hopes from expectations suggests why libertarians and conservatives tend to be happier than liberals, a common social science finding. This is another reason to at least accept, if not yet join, us; you are likely to be happier!