[2banana]

Any college student who is all for every socialist program that comes down the pike and loves obama. Then they can't understand why their first real paycheck is so small...

[GonzoGOP]

Heck I didn't make it out of sixth grade. A teacher balked on a promise and when confronted basically went with the “what are you going to do about it attitude”. I realized that people in authority lie. And that any promise that I could not enforce by my own means was without value. Living in Chicago the transition from personal life to politics was obvious and simple. Once you are no longer willing to trade what you have now, for promise of a utopia later, liberalism has no appeal.

[Huck]

I would say that 9-11 was, not to diminish the nature of that event in any way, a sort of national mugging that turned quite a few liberals towards the right.

I think GWB's adventure in Iraq may have nullified some of that original reaction, though.

[KarlInOhio]

I don't know him personally, but 9/11 seemed to give Dennis Miller a major smack upside the head.

[murron]

Yes. I worked with a woman who was a flaming liberal Democrat. Definitely against the death penalty. One day, tragically, her daughter-in-law was murdered while working in a restaurant. Guess what? She was suddenly FOR the death penalty.

[A_perfect_lady]

I’m a public school teacher, and a lot of teachers start out liberal and slowly drift to the right. It’s a gradual process and many of them never consciously realize that they are now Republicans, but when you talk to them, their dismay over the demonization of whites, the birth rate of illiterate illegals, the declining work ethic and sense of entitlement of the poor, and their fear for where this country is going is tangible.

[CPT Clay]

Bingo

[CPT Clay]

My nephew had his identity stolen, changed him from a lib to a conservative overnight. An illegal alien had his id.

[Melas]

I wish I could remember who, but we have a FReeper here who’s always said that a conservative is a liberal that’s been mugged, and a liberal is a conservative who’s been indicted.

[happyathome]

My sister is an East Coast liberal who complained loudly about everything Bush did. Then she got mugged twice within a year (in New York). Interestingly, she’s a conservative on law and order and illegal immigration, but still a brainless Obamabot on everything else. I think she was adopted (just kidding).

[Lakeshark]

I was a lib by default coming out of college. I didn't realize there was a choice at that point, the whole world was filled with only liberal choices from what they were teaching.

Getting into my own business cured me of that idea fairly quickly. A short series of muggings by reality.

[ConservativeWarrior]

I met a very annoying Jewish woman at a funeral this weekend. She recently completed her medical residency as a surgeon, and is now seeking employmnet.

When I asked her how liability insurance for PA (philly) compared with NJ, she got all huffy. At one point she said something to the effect of “I hate Republicans, but they’re right about the need for liability reform.”

I see a reluctant conversion in her future, though I’m not sure we’re any better off with her on the team. Very annoying.

[Texas resident]

A good example is David Horowitz.
Born to hard core communist parents.
Now he is farther to the right than Limbaugh.
Don’t know what brought on the conversion, but that is a long journey.

[chrisser]

I leaned a bit liberal, in an unthinking sort of way.

Until I got a job and saw how much I actually got to keep out of my paycheck.

If there was any lingering doubt, it disappeared when I bought a house and started paying property taxes.

There’s a reason that leftistism is prevalent in those who aren’t actually paying any of its bills.

But that just got me to see that liberalism was an abject failure.

What made me a conservative, (who, more accurately), was Ronald Reagan.

[tophat9000]

"A liberal is a conservative who hasn't been mugged yet"

And a Progressive is a mugger

[Eddings]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/letter_of_amends_from_a_recove.html

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/how_to_deprogram_a_liberal_in.html

[VRW Conspirator]

For posterity:

“If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.”

-Winston Churchill