Yep. I'm one of the 8 percenters (conservative blacks). Out there on the bleeding edge of cultural evolution.
My liberal sis called my Mom and I "brain washed" some years ago upon hearing that we listen to Rush Limbaugh.
Pretty standard babble from liberal family members, in my experience. I've endured much worse. I'm a "race traitor" and an "Uncle Tom" don'cha know. A "bamboozled, hypnotized pawn of the evil right-wing, etc".
Thing is, a person can't un-know what they know, and I've come to know quite a lot since I escaped the liberal mind control plantation. My certainty in what I know about the truth of America goes right down to the core of my being, and can't be shaken by insipid liberal barking.
Like any conservative, my allegiance to the right isn't about my belief in its principles, but in the knowledge of them. That certainty is maddening to liberal family members, whose positions are based on feelings and indoctrination, alone.
You've nailed that down tight. Once you know something all the emotional spin and propaganda dissipates like morning dew. It is really tough when the conflict is with family. People who should know you well enough to know you aren't a racist, traitor, brain washed, and on and on. But when you know the truth it does transcend even the closest ties.
What a great way to say it. Belief is one thing, and it can change on a whim. But one doesn't believe that 1 + 1 = 2, one knows it. To say we "believe" in conservative principle is actually misleading. We know the proven rightness of conservative principle, and we know -- not believe, but know -- the proven failure and slavery of communism, facism, socialism.