Empirical political formulations
A couple recent threads on Metafilter have brought home a couple of basic realizations for me.
One, on cycling: many people have no problem with bigotry when its object is cyclists.
Another, on patriotism: Conservatives are quick to impugn the patriotism of progressives. There are actually two forms of patriotism. There are those who love their country in spite of its faults. These people are progressives. And there are those who love their country because of its faults. These people are conservatives.