Why I became a Conservative
      

When I was in college there was this guy 2 1/2 times larger than me... a philosophy major, as I recall... appropriately named 'Animal.'  I remember having a debate about pain with him.  I argued it was all in our minds- just a brain state- and not real.  Animal said, "Come here, and I'll show you unreal pain."

While I was of the mindset that there were just "brain states" or just "subjective opinions" or just "one's political views", I was a liberal.  When my mindset changed, so did my 'political' stance.  This is a realization that congealed more than ten years after the change had happened.  Was it just me?  Correlation does not prove causation, and yet I see the same ingredients in the conservatives and liberals I meet.  What made my mindset change?

I wouldn't say it happened over night but there was a singular 'event' that proved the catalyst.  One should understand that at the time, I was a Christian, an apologist, a Christian religion teacher.  But I still entertained many viewpoints we'd call 'liberal.'   The catalyst arose out of my never ending quest to make sure that when I talk about something, I actually know what I'm talking about.  In the general course of that, I read a great many writings of Communists, Nazis, and to a lesser extent, the 'fascists.'  Here I discovered something frightening:  these people were advocating many of the same things I was advocating, and for the same reasons.
         

http://sntjohnny.com/front/why-i-became-a-conservative/1333.html