Conservative? There's a pill for that now.

Progressives like me have often stood back in awed incredulity at some things conservatives say they believe: the Earth was created 6000 years ago, guns at home will protect you from the government, a second-class status for women is God's will, President Obama is not an American, on and on. When I say "conservative" here, I am not talking about conservatives like President Eisenhower or even Ronald Reagan. I am talking about the gay-hating, gun-toting, racist, tea party, misogynist, creation-thumping conservatives. You know the ones – the "bottom line" supporters of Rick Santorum.
For so long, we thought that this was an enlightenment problem; they just needed to be dragged out of the 12th century and into the modern world by education, and all would be OK.
How wrong we were.
Even a four-year, college education only helps 62% of them, according to Rick Santorum; it didn't cure him, obviously.
Recent research conducted by Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology, shows that conservatives have fearful ideologies, "because such ideologies feature 'structure and order' that make it easier to comprehend a complicated world. Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice."
Moreover, it seems that conservatives' very brains are different. Other research done in the UK points up the fact that conservatives have larger centers of the brain associated with fear. The researchers caution that whether this is a cause or an effect is not clear. Indeed, being "born again", an experience shared by many turbo-conservatives has been linked to atrophy of the hippocampus, the "part of the brain critical to learning and memory".
Then comes along this study done at Oxford University, no less, which seems to show that racist and probably other "fearful" conditions can be treated by a common medication for heart disease. Racism and sexism have already been linked to certain personality disorders associated with other conservative views, so it might well be that a whole array of conservative symptoms might be a part of a bigger but treatable condition.
Clearly we need to stop thinking of conservatism as something that more time in the classroom will ameliorate but rather as a mental health issue. Medications like those mentioned above need to be developed so that they specifically target the fears of right wingers. This way doctors can prescribe a pill to cure someone of – say – an irrational fear that President Obama is a Muslim, or that gay marriages somehow affect straight life. Maybe – with luck – a pill could even be developed to cure creationism and other extreme Old Testamentarian views!
Of course, getting these cantankerous people to take their medications for their own good (and ours) might be difficult, but a doctor's orders will carry a lot of weight. Since conservatism is so clearly a mental disorder, it should be included in the DSM IV, so that these palliative medications can be prescribed as a part of a health insurance plan. I certainly would not have a moral objection to THESE pills being covered by health insurance.