I’m in the midst of writing a post about conservatism that will put a capstone on the many posts that I’ve written on the subject. It occurred to me that it might be helpful to understand why some conservatives (or people who thought of themselves as conservatives) abandoned the faith. I found “Do conservatives ever become liberal?” at Quora. None of the more than 100 replies is a good argument for switching, in my view. Most of them are whining, posturing, and erroneous characterizations of conservatism.

But the first reply struck home because it describes how a so-called conservative became a “liberal” in a matter of minutes. What that means, of course, is that the convert’s conservatism was superficial. (More about that in the promised post.) But the tale struck home because it reminded me of my own conversion, in the opposite direction, which began with a kind of “eureka” moment.

Here’s the story, from my “About” page:

I was apolitical until I went to college. There, under the tutelage of economists of the Keynesian persuasion, I became convinced that government could and should intervene in economic affairs. My pro-interventionism spread to social affairs in my early post-college years, as I joined the “intellectuals” of the time in their support for the Civil Rights Act and the Great Society, which was about social engineering as much as anything.

The urban riots that followed the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. opened my eyes to the futility of LBJ’s social tinkering. I saw at once that plowing vast sums into a “war” on black poverty would be rewarded with a lack of progress, sullen resentment, and generations of dependency on big brother in Washington.

There’s a lot more after that about my long journey home to conservatism, if you’re interested.