There may be no official rule book for being a liberal, but that doesn't mean there aren't rules. There are actually quite a few rules liberals go by and the more politically active liberals become, the more rigidly they tend to stick to their own code of behavior. These rules, most of which are unspoken, are passed along culturally on the Left and viciously enforced. Ironically, many liberals could not explain these rules to you and don't even consciously know they're following them. So, by reading this article, not only will you gain a better understanding of liberals, you'll know them better than they know themselves in some ways.

1) You justify your beliefs about yourself by your status as a liberal, not your deeds. The most sexist liberal can think of himself as a feminist while the greediest liberal can think of himself as generous. This is because liberals define themselves as being compassionate, open minded, kind, pro-science and intelligent not based on their actions or achievements, but based on their ideology. This is one of the most psychologically appealing aspects of liberalism because it allows you to be an awful person while still thinking of yourself as better than everyone else.

2) You exempt yourself from your attacks on America: Ever notice that liberals don't include themselves in their attacks on America? When they say, "This is a racist country," or ",This is a mean country," they certainly aren't referring to themselves or people who hold their views. Even though liberals supported the KKK, slaughtering the Indians, and putting the Japanese in internment camps, when they criticize those things, it's meant as an attack on everyone else EXCEPT LIBERALS. The only thing a liberal believes he can truly do wrong is to be insufficiently liberal.

3) What liberals like should be mandatory and what they don't like should be banned: There's an almost instinctual form of fascism that runs through most liberals. It's not enough for liberals to love gay marriage; everyone must be forced to love gay marriage. It's not enough for liberals to be afraid of guns; guns have to be banned. It's not enough for liberals to want to use energy-saving light bulbs; incandescent light bulbs must be banned. It's not enough for liberals to make sure most speakers on campuses are left-wing; conservative speakers must be shouted down or blocked from speaking.

4) The past is always inferior to the present: Liberals tend to view traditions, policies, and morals of past generations as arbitrary designs put in place by less enlightened people. Because of this, liberals don't pay much attention to why traditions developed or wonder about possible ramifications of their social engineering. It’s like an architect ripping out the foundation of a house without questioning the consequences and if the living room falls in on itself as a result, he concludes that means he needs to make even more changes.

5) Liberalism is a jealous god and no other God may come before it: A liberal "Christian" or "Jew" is almost an oxymoron because liberalism trumps faith for liberals. Taking your religious beliefs seriously means drawing hard lines about right and wrong and that's simply not allowed. Liberals demand that even God bow down on the altar of liberalism.

6) Liberals believe in indiscriminateness for thought: This one was so good that I stole it from my buddy, Evan Sayet: " Indiscriminateness of thought does not lead to indiscriminateness of policy. It leads the modern liberal to invariably side with evil over good, wrong over right and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success. Why? Very simply if nothing is to be recognized as better or worse than anything else then success is de facto unjust. There is no explanation for success if nothing is better than anything else and the greater the success the greater the injustice. Conversely and for the same reason, failure is de facto proof of victimization and the greater the failure, the greater the proof of the victim is, or the greater the victimization."

7) Intentions are much more important than results: Liberals decide what programs to support based on whether they make them feel good or bad about themselves, not because they work or don't work. A DDT ban that has killed millions is judged a success by liberals because it makes them feel as if they care about the environment. A government program that wastes billions and doesn't work is a stunning triumph to the Left if it has a compassionate sounding name. It would be easier to convince a liberal to support a program by calling it the “Saving Women And Puppies Bill" than showing that it would save 100,000 lives.

8) The only real sins are helping conservatism or harming liberalism: Conservatives often marvel at the fact that liberals will happily elect every sort of pervert, deviant, and criminal you can imagine without a second thought. That's because right and wrong don't come into the picture for liberals. They have one standard: Does this politician help or hurt liberalism? If a politician helps liberalism, he has a free pass to do almost anything and many of them do just that.

9) All solutions must be government-oriented: Liberals may not be as down on government as conservatives are, but on some level, even they recognize that it doesn't work very well. So, why are liberals so hell bent on centralizing as much power as possible in government? Simple, because they believe that they are better and smarter than everyone else by virtue of being liberals and centralized power gives them the opportunity to control more people's lives. There's nothing scarier to liberals than free people living their lives as they please without wanting or needing the government to nanny them.

10) You must be absolutely close minded: One of the key reasons liberals spend so much time vilifying people they don't like and questioning their motivations is to protect themselves from having to consider their arguments. This helps create a completely closed system for liberals. Conservative arguments are considered wrong by default since they're conservative and not worth hearing. On the other hand, liberals aren't going to make conservative arguments. So, a liberal goes to a liberal school, watches liberal news, listens to liberal politicians, has liberal friends, and then convinces himself that conservatives are all hateful, evil, racist Nazis so that any stray conservatism he hears should be ignored. It makes liberal minds into perfectly closed loops that are impervious to anything other than liberal doctrine.

11) Feelings are more important than logic: Liberals base their positions on emotions, not facts and logic and then they work backwards to shore up their position. This is why it's a waste of time to try to convince a liberal of anything based on logic. You don't "logic" someone out of a position that he didn't use "logic" to come up with in the first place.

12) Tribal affiliation is more important than individual action: There's one set of rules for members of the tribe and one set of rules for everyone else. Lying, breaking the rules, or fomenting hatred against a liberal in good standing may be out of bounds, but there are no rules when dealing with outsiders, who are viewed either as potential recruits, dupes to be tricked, or foes to be defeated. This is the same backwards mentality you see in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, except it's based on ideology, not religion.