Has anyone here ever known anyone who abandoned Conservatism (or something similar) and gone all out Liberal ? (Without some type of serious head trauma, that is.)

Present.

Nope. I have heard of liberals turning conservative but never the other way around. Usually the liberal that has changed positions to become a conservative has been struck by reality. Take Dennis Miller for example.

Originally Posted by RumRunner_1492

Nope. I have heard of liberals turning conservative but never the other way around. Usually the liberal that has changed positions to become a conservative has been struck by reality. Take Dennis Miller for example.

This. I believe it is obvious that conservatism represents the a wiser demographic. Liberals feel, conservatives think.

Originally Posted by J.Douglas

Has anyone here ever known anyone who abandoned Conservatism (or something similar) and gone all out Liberal ? (Without some type of serious head trauma, that is.)

Yes. Charles Johnson runs Little Green Footballs and posted a list of 10 reasons why he's ditching the entire right wing dogma in 2009:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/arti...With_The_Right

2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)
3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)
7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)
8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)
And much, much more. The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.

Funny how his list sounds a lot like a rant about LTUP

There are a few exceptions of course but 95% of youth eventually become conservative if they are productive. There is just something that turns off a productive person like the liberal policies that keep you addicted and unwearable off the government teat. Liberals enslave and ruin people's lives forever.

Originally Posted by J.Douglas

Has anyone here ever known anyone who abandoned Conservatism (or something similar) and gone all out Liberal ? (Without some type of serious head trauma, that is.)

Andrew Sullivan. Bright people don't toe a party line. So when the line diverges from your beliefs, then you skew one way or the other.

Originally Posted by BE77 Pilot

This. I believe it is obvious that conservatism represents the a wiser demographic. Liberals feel, conservatives think.

So why are all the great thinkers liberal?

I even have difficulty naming any of history's great conservatives. We don't exactly build monuments for them.

Originally Posted by AintQytRite

There are a few exceptions of course but 95% of youth eventually become conservative if they are productive. There is just something that turns off a productive person like the liberal policies that keep you addicted and unwearable off the government teat. Liberals enslave and ruin people's lives forever.

I've not found that to be true.

Originally Posted by Pipemajor

So why are all the great thinkers liberal?

I even have difficulty naming any of history's great conservatives. We don't exactly build monuments for them.

Ayn Rand... oh wait that was a joke.

I don't know if I was a conservative or not, but what got me investigating politics was when I had to give a three minute talk on a current event in a history class in HS. I was 15 or 16 years old (1970-71) and did my speech on how we should ramp up the Vietnam war, that we could win it if we applied ourselves, and I really did zero research for it.

After giving the speech, and the guy before me did some tirade about war protestors, I felt odd, my teacher made some comment about our speeches collectively being "gung ho", and I realized it was based completely on feelings, nationalism, patriotism and ignorance. I began to read about the war, and for the next couple years, including at the community college where I spent my senior year in HS on a joint enrollment program, I did two papers on the war and one based on an ancillary view of the war. By the time I had found out exactly what was going on over there, I was against the war and a liberal. Have been ever since.

Originally Posted by Pipemajor

So why are all the great thinkers liberal?

I even have difficulty naming any of history's great conservatives. We don't exactly build monuments for them.

Please....

Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, John Marshall, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Elihu Root, Theodore Roosevelt.......

Yup ... he was an ass of a jerk Conservative in high school ... and then became an ass of a jerk Liberal after college.

The conservative wunderkind 13-year old author of the book, "Defining Conservativism" Jonathan Krohn is now 17 years old and has grown out of the conservative manchild fantasy land.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/teen...-conservative/

“One of the first things that changed was that I stopped being a social conservative,” said Krohn. “It just didn’t seem right to me anymore. From there, it branched into other issues, everything from health care to economic issues.… I think I’ve changed a lot, and it’s not because I’ve become a liberal from being a conservative — it’s just that I thought about it more. The issues are so complex, you can’t just go with some ideological mantra for each substantive issue.”