The facts tend to fall on the side of free markets. So why are there so many intelligent progressives out there? (And there are plenty. Though he takes a few shots at Harvard and Princeton, even Kernen won't argue their resident liberals are dummies.) And what if, despite his daily dispensation of free market economics, Joe Kernen loses the war? What if his daughter Blake grows up to be -- cue the Hollywood horror-movie screams -- a liberal?

And, more importantly, what would inspire her to make that choice? The positions of progressives leave Kernen flummoxed: "It's hard, if not impossible," he writes, "to tell whether the positions taken by the New York Times are so consistently wrong out of ignorance, denial, or a deliberate attempt to gloss over problems that get in the way of the newspaper's Progressive agenda (this is actually a problem with most Progressives). "

Life, with its shades of gray, often frustrates the empiricist -- and political persuasions are often about far more than facts. Kernen cites a psychological theory that divides people into two groups: " 'Internals' believe that they are in control of their own lives, while 'externals' see themselves as subject to outside forces they can't control." Not shockingly, "externals" tend to be progressives -- and cultural attitudes can influence and encourage this belief.

Smart people (and not just progressives, by the way) cling to dodgy ideas for all sorts of reasons. Some may give them a sense of identity. Some, like "humans bad, trees good" environmentalism, have an almost religious appeal. Some are powered by persuasive marketing.

And some ideas are so appealing on the surface that people, quite simply, just want them to be true. Facts alone won't change their mind.

But offering a competing and positive vision might. It's something that even a 10-year-old, thankfully, can understand.