This ABC news article compassionately relates the story of disillusioned Democrats fleeing to places like Italy for asylum because "the United States is changing in ways they do not like."

"'How could our country be heading backward? How could so many people miss or choose to ignore the obvious failures of the Bush administration?" wails one dejected Vermont college professor before scampering away to Tuscany to brood.

Not that long ago that it was conservative Republicans that felt the United States was changing in ways they did not like. Unlike these fragile people, they did not make a mass exodus to into exile where they could nibble biscotti and rail at the wrongheadedness of their poor, deluded countrymen. Rather, they stayed and did something about it.

Now, with the proverbial shoe on a different foot, liberal Democrats can only flap their hands and run away, searching for a more likeminded place where they will not have to suffer the indignity of contradiction and competing ideas.

This all reinforces the Gnomon's view that the dichotomy between liberal and conservative that runs through all history has its roots in the natural human predisposition, identified by William James long ago, to be either "Tough-minded" or "Tender-hearted." Tough-minded people tend to develop into conservatives, while the Tender-hearted mostly become liberals. (Some, of course, such as ourselves, start out Tender-hearted but are compelled by reason to try and develop a tough mind).

Tender-hearted people are needed; properly grounded they can act as the concience of a society. Today's groundless, logic-less, feeling-based liberals are an abberation from the long tradition of true liberalism that stretches back to the roots of our nation. Rather than helping build the country arm-in-arm with their tough-minded brethren, they are reflexively corrosive, yammering critically from the margins with invincible arrogance, corrupting any uncomfortable facts Michael-Moore-like to fit their hysterical worldview.

When they find this fails to convince voters -- even when fronted by a bland type like Senator Kerry rather than someone more to their tastes, like Dr. Dean -- they take their ball and huff away.

(NEXT: A suggested cure)