I confess. I started out as a (Gasp!) democrat.
However, there's a large "but" in there. At that time I was in my mid-teens, which meant I actually knew next to nothing about virtually everything. My mind was almost exclusively focused on girls, cars, girls, sports, girls, sleeping, eating and, oh yeah, girls. Also, to be honest, I had no idea what being a democrat actually meant. I was a democrat for the simple reason that I was from the deep south and back then almost everyone down here voted democratic. My father, grandfather, uncles, everyone. The funny part was, had they actually attended the national democratic convention, they would have probably wound up in a fight with someone. Or everyone.
So, how did the transformation occur?
(Note: The picture to the left has nothing to do with this article, but it got your attention, didn't it?) Initially, the credit must go to my high school Economics/Accounting teacher, Miss Wright. (That's not her name) Taking both Economics and Accounting I & II, I had her for two classes for two years. I'm no genius, but math has always come rather easily for me, and so I would tend to finish my work early, as did some others, and she would talk to us about things like politics. She didn't so much try to sway us on our thinking as she just asked a lot of questions about what we thought on various topics. When I would answer, she'd say, "That's what Republicans believe, not democrats". I really didn't know much, I was simply answering using the common sense God gave me.
To me, that's still the difference between the mind of a liberal and the mind of a conservative. It has little to do with "book learning" intelligence, but it has everything to do with common sense.
For the most part, Conservatives and Libertarians have it. Liberals do not.
So that got my political mind activated. With the 1980 presidential election coming up, as well as my first opportunity to vote, I decided I'd better learn some more about the differences between the parties. This being well before the Internet, I had limited sources to choose from, as well as limited ability to pinpoint and acquire the material. On television, there were big three news organizations and PBS, but for the most part that was nothing but left slanted propaganda. Newspapers, again for the most part, weren't much better. Often worse.
So, that left the library. Luckily, I was in a part of the country where conservative books weren't all but banned as they are now in certain places. I was even luckier still when the first book I found was Milton Friedman's
Capitalism and Freedom. Originally published in 1962, this book turned me on to true conservatism and libertarianism. This man, simply put, was a genius, with his overriding principles being good common sense and a real understanding of what made/makes America great. A few years later, I watched his series on PBS (!) called Free To Choose.
I tell you, as much as I love conservatives like Ann Coulter and Rush, it's really Milton Friedman who I feel really stood for true conservatism/libertarianism. I can't strongly recommend enough getting his material. It will either really open up the true conservative/libertarian in you or it will finally confirm you're a liberal socialist.
Also around that time, I read Barry Goldwater's
The Conscience of a Conservative and William F. Buckley's
God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of "Academic Freedom".
That was when I really began to understand that the MSM (MainStream Media) are mostly hard left liberal subversives and that everything they wrote or said had to be filtered through that prism. I had no issue with them being liberal, but I despised them constantly hawking how "unbiased" they were, when in fact they were anything but.
College was an eye opener too. Even in the deep south, left wing ideology permeates academia. I was constantly bombarded with liberal bullshit presented to me as undeniable (And thus supposedly undebatable) truth.
When the elections of 1980 rolled around, I had seen the light. I voted for Ronald Reagan and have never, ever, felt better about my vote. After that, my distrust of Hollywood and the MSM only deepened as I saw them call Reagan and other Conservatives every nasty name imaginable and accuse them of hating children, senior citizens, the poor, women, minorities, animals and trees. I saw them go on insane crusades to "rid" the world of "dangerous" things. Chemicals like DDT, which summarily caused (And is still causing) the deaths of thousands in undeveloped nations from diseases carried by mosquitoes.
The great Alar apple scare, started by 60 Minutes and Ed Bradley, sending many apple farmers into unnecessary bankruptcy and costing the American people almost 10 billion dollars as the government tried to compensate apple and grapefruit growers.
That was also about the time I started seriously distrusting scientists as a group. How many times have they warned us about some horrible thing that's supposed to destroy mankind/Earth/both sometime in the not-too-distant future? The so-called population explosion, which was supposed to kill millions by the year 2000 and literally destroy Great Britain, scares about running out of oil due to overuse, not enough food, unbreathable polluted air, not enough water, too much water, nuclear power, and of course, the current scientific boondoggle rage, global warming. Too hot? Global warming. Too cold? Global warming. Floods? Global warming. Droughts? Global warming. Utter bullshit? Global warming.
I won't even go into the original, still enforced today as a virtual religion among liberals, boondoggle: Darwinism.
I love science, but many scientists are left wing whackos that the MSM foist on us. They come up with these goofy ideas, mix in a little psuedo-science, and bang, suddenly we can no longer buy a toilet that actually flushes properly in some idiotic attempt to "conserve" water. Three quarters of the Earth is water, but we have to conserve it. Riiiiiight. Of course, we all know that flushing does not "destroy" water any more than billions of aquatic life forms urinating and defecating in ponds, lakes, and oceans "destroys" water.
To answer a question posed to me by "Ronny": My leanings as so far as conservative vs libertarian depend on the subject. True libertarianism and true conservatism are very close in overriding ideology, but they differ on a few key points. I'm a libertarian on most issues but, for instance, I just can't see the logic and benefits to legalizing drugs. I completely understand the idea of an adult having the right and freedom to ingest whatever they want. However, as long as my taxes have to pay for Mr. Druggies extra costs and my insurance goes up because of his drug usage, I'll have to pass on giving him free reign to load up on pot, cocaine, heroin or whatever.
Also, I feel our military involvement, at times, in foreign countries, is both necessary and understandable given the world situation. Many Libertarians tend to want us to stay out of such things completely.
So that's how I began as a conservative/libertarian. Over the years, my belief in that philosophy has done nothing but get stronger and stronger. I also know that most Americans believe more as I do than in liberal ideas, but credit where credit is due, the left is truly great at manipulating mass media. If not for talk radio and the Internet the would dominate everything.
But I keep the faith and try to do my small part in changing people's minds and hearts.
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