And flip-flopping is bad why??

As we are  half way through the current presidential race heading to the election in 2012, one thing strikes me as absurd, or at least frightening; the use of the term "flip-flop" as a derogatory epithet.  It means, I gather, at least in current attack ad parlance that some candidate has changed his/her mind about an issue they once either opposed or supported.  Sticking to one's guns in the face of attacks is a hard thing to do and is often borderline heroic.  But not always, not always.  Life is about constant learning, or should be.  We are bombarded constantly with new information.  As if that is not enough, this marvelous age of information allows us to seek out new data, facts, opinions, etc., about almost any imaginable topic.  If we continue to push the boundaries of our personal knowledge, to take in new discoveries, thoughts, ideas,ones that do not just reinforce our own currently held opinions, how can we not, at least from time to time, change our own opinion about a few topics?  To think that it is heinous to do so intimates that once someone forms an opinion it is set in stone, never to be revisited or modified.  How silly.  That would mean that no one ever evolves intellectually after the age of, say, twenty one.  It would mean the end of learning and adapting that learning to old tenets, keeping those  that are still deemed worthy and adjusting those that cannot hold up in the light of that new knowledge (think the Bush administration and global climate change).  That way of thinking would mean that good people of differing opinions could never talk, never negotiate, never arrive at a consensus.  It would mean a congress like the one by which  the American people are now encumbered.  Some of them signed a piece of paper years ago vowing never to raise taxes  Most of them did so at a time of spiraling wealth creation and growth and under tremendous pressure from money-rich PACs.  That growth has ground to a halt.  That wealth has been redistributed upwards.  Times have changed.  New solutions are called for.  But they cannot or will not change their opinions in the face of growing evidence that to not do so will be ruinous for most Americans.  On the other side of the coin, some members of congress are so tied to how the  programs of the past are structured that they cannot or will not change their blind defense and support of those programs in the face of a crushing debt load.   C'mon.  Continue to grow and learn. Let in new ideas and ways of looking at things.  Take a chance.  Flip Flop.  All of you.