Liberals build alternate realities as well. See post #17.
Human beings are curious creatures....they rarely realize that it's OK to be different.
Heh, I saw a segment on 60 minutes about some research being done on very young children; some as young as 3 months old.
They did a puppet show for these kids. 3 puppets, the one in the middle was struggling to open a toy box. In one show, one of the other two puppets helped the one in the middle open the box. In the other show, the 3rd puppet jumped on the box making it even harder to open. Something like 75% of the 3-month-old children showed a preference for the helpful puppet after watching these shows. This demonstrated that even at 3 months, children recognize good vs. bad behavior.
They took it further. Some puppets were shown playing with a ball or something, throwing it back and forth. Another puppet comes along and grabs the ball and leaves. Then they go back to the original two shows, with the puppet who stole the ball trying to open the box. Amazingly, the 3-month-old children now showed a preference for the puppet that made it harder to open the box. Again, near 75%. This demonstrated that not only do 3-month-olds recognize good vs. bad behavior, they also recognize that bad behavior should be punished.
This brings me to the point that is relevent to your post, Doc. They took it further. They offered the kids a choice between graham crackers and cheerios. They must have been a bit older if they were eating solids but they were still very young. Anyway, after they chose, they had a puppet make the same choice in front of them, sometimes choosing the same option and sometimes choosing the opposite. Then they had that puppet try to open the toy box in the same original puppet shows. If the puppet chose the opposite snack, the kids preferred the puppet that made it harder to open the box. This showed that at a very young age, kids demonstrated a desire to punish others simply for being different.