What Made You A Conservative?

I have a problem. Actually, I have many problems, some of which require ointment, but I'm not here to talk about those because I left my rash album at the in-law's place.

No, my problem as it pertains to politics is this--despite years of following politics, I still don't get how leftists think.

Oh, sure I know WHAT they think. But as far as what goes on those looney heads of theirs ... how they get from A-B, so to speak ... I got nothing.

And that's because I've never been a leftist.

Here's a story. You guys like stories, right? Those of you who can read?

Alright, so when I was 5 years old, I was over at the neighbor's house. They had two kids, Jeff, who was 7 years old and his sister, Jamie, who was 4 years old.

They'd just returned from McDonald's where their mom had apparently bought them each a box of McDonald's cookies. You remember those things? They were essentially animal crackers that they had re-branded.

So, the younger one, Jamie, burned through her box in a little under a minute. And as soon as she'd finished, she began howling through tears of outrage for some of her brother's cookies.

Her brother, predicably refused.

Then I saw something that made me dislike their mother for the next 15 years I knew her.

The mother saw her daughter's tantrum, then marched over and scolded her son for not "sharing," then ordered him to give the rest of his cookies to his gluttonous sister in order to appease her.

As he sadly handed over the rest of his box, I gaped in disbelief and anger. What mother would be so unfair to her son? What had he done wrong? Nothing! And here he was having his treat taken away from him simply because his snotty, crybaby sister demanded it.

She was the irresponsible one, not him! And she was being rewarded for it!

Oh, how I fumed. The sense of wrongness, of injustice, just overwhelmed me. HATED that woman for what she did.

And even though I had no political sense about me at that age, I now look back in amazement at how this story so perfectly illustrates the difference in thinking between folks like us and ... those ones.

Right? Because isn't that the basic idea--take from the person who's minding his own business and give it to the person who screwed up? And worse yet, scold the person you just took from for objecting.

I know the leftists don't see it that way, of course. And that's what I don't get about them. I'm simply not wired that way. And so they're totally alien to me, at least as regards to how they've arrived at such a twisted political worldview.

I actually wish I understood their thinking better so I could figure out how to more effectively win over the more squishy ones.

So here's what I was hoping to get from this post. I know some of you have made the journey from left to right. What I want to know is why you were a leftist in the first place, what made you change, and who had the most influence on that change?

How about it?

posted by Code Red at 07:50 PM

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