To Be Conservative

Paul at Wizbang relates how he became a dreaded right winger.  Reading it sounds a little like my transformation.  Except my reading material shifted from the Boston Globe and Hartford Courant to the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

I subscribed out of curiosity but after a few issues I realized the conservatives were running logical circles around the left. Conservatives were speaking about ideas and ideals and liberals were speaking about hatred and fear. (not much has changed in the political arena since then either)

I was never really far left wing, but I definitely wasn't right.  The first time I was eligible to vote was 1980, and I came firmly down on the side of...John Anderson, for cryin' out loud.

In any event, Paul excerpts from a piece on sfgate.com by Cinnamon Stillwell, which is very interesting - "The Making of a 9/11 Republican."

So, what happened to change all that? In a nutshell, 9/11. The terrorist attacks on this country were not only an act of war but also a crime against humanity. It seemed glaringly obvious to me at the time, and it still does today. But the reaction of my former comrades on the left bespoke a different perspective...

Thoroughly disgusted by the behavior of those on the left, I began to look elsewhere for support. To my astonishment, I found that the only voices that seemed to me to be intellectually and morally honest were on the right

Except for me it wasn't 9/11.  It was the bombing of Pan Am 103 on December 21, 1988.  And it was my own brother on the plane, the target of the terrorists.  My awakening had come 13 years earlier.  What's amazing to me is that so many politicians who must certainly have heard from families of victims of terrorism (I know Ted Kennedy has heard from mine) are still asleep.