Sure, they just can’t defend it on any substantive grounds. It’s just their opinion against someone else’s opinion.

Cleombrotus on January 28, 2013 at 1:37 AM

That’s funny but true since there is nothing in any way substantive about any of the alleged gods invented by man. There is no reason we even need to defend not believing in something there is zero evidence for. Do I also need to defend not believing in the tooth fairy?

Cleombrotus on January 27, 2013 at 7:48 PM

Oh, yeah, I know about Pandora; tried it a few times, but I’m not all that keen on it for the same reason I stopped listening to Live365 stations on iTunes — hate being pestered to subscribe to their service every five minutes.

Instead, I’ve found some interesting stations just by Googling, one of which is Rocket 88, which as far as I can tell is one person with a bunch of iPods filled with tons of rare, eclectic music, mostly blues, but sometimes obscure 60s psychedelia and the like. Every so often, it goes offline, presumably to replenish its stores. Best of all, there are no commercials. Zip, zero, nada, and the music is only very briefly interrupted by a quick station break, which tells you that it’s “the best station out there.”

“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

It’s shocking how many young people AND adults are blissfully unaware of the damage that liberals and Democrats have systematically caused to the very people they claim to help.

Violina23 on January 28, 2013 at 9:41 AM

Yep and Brian Williams appreciates the ratings. ; ) I once asked my Mother in Law what they had been saying on the nightly news about F&F. I own no tv and honestly didn’t know what the coverage had been. Her reply. “What is Fast & Furious?” *crickets chirping*

I think the Iraq War was among the first things to really kind of change my thinking (since I didn’t yet have a job, so taxes & the economy weren’t on my mind aside from the fact that the job market wasn’t that great, but I didn’t really know enough to figure out who to “blame”). The war started Spring of my senior year of college. When it started coming out a few years later that WMD’s were never found, etc, and the quickness that people were willing to just backtrack and potentially do more damage than ever before, it became clear to me that the attitude of Democrats was very short-sighted and potentially dangerous. Being Jewish and a proponent of Israel, I started to look into the politics of that situation, and before I knew it, I was voting Bush in 2004 for pretty much foreign policy reasons (I was still pretty uneducated in fiscal, but it didn’t seem as important at the time)

The defining change for me came around the primary season for 2008. I’d been working for about 4-5 years now, with flat paychecks. I was now married, buying my first house. Doing everything responsibly and living within my means. I started paying attention more to politics. When I’d express my opinions which were turning more conservative (and partly libertarian-leaning in terms of the constitution), my bleeding-heart-liberal sister would say “Oh, that’s just what the right-wing-radio-talk-show-hosts want you to think”, as if I was too stupid to come to my own conclusions. The disagreements became person, and I was often attacked as a bad, uncaring person for having non-liberal thoughts. Ironically, she got me curious about talk-radio and I started listening to a bit of Sean Hannity & Mark Levin on the way home from work. Mark Levin, who originally seemed WAY too angry for me to listen to on a daily basis, became less angry-sounding to me once I guess I became MORE angry about things.

The ironic part of the whole thing is that when Obama first came on the scene, I was thinking “Hey, this is a personable guy, maybe he’ll be a democrat that I can be OK with”. Boy was I wrong. Of course, little did I know that having an open mind, and forming my opinion based on his words & actions would turn me into a racist.

So I’m still libertarian-leaning on social issues (Yes, you can say I’m not a “true conservative”, I really don’t care anymore), but I definitely had a conservative evolution. I’ve always been a responsible person, I’ve never been terribly impulsive or done anything stupid in my youth. So I’d attribute most of my “evolution” to paying attention & educating myself on the issues, something I think will be harder and harder for future generations facing such a biased media & education system. It’s shocking how many young people AND adults are blissfully unaware of the damage that liberals and Democrats have systematically caused to the very people they claim to help.

Mid-life crises?

flicker on January 27, 2013 at 6:31 PM

haha no.

I was raised in an upper middle class, suburban, Protestant family. If I ever had a “crisis,” it was when I was 19 and brought a girl home from college, of whom my family vehemently disapproved. Their reaction made me realize just how much I didn’t fit in with them – overall, I’m laid back and very open-minded, but the rest of the family’s members were (and still are) repressed/shackled in fear to varying degrees, and resistant to change.

But seriously though, I don’t think I’ve ever met a grown man (or woman) who has seriously questioned everything he’s always believed, and has thrown it all out, and started over.

I’ve known a lot of people who never learned much and have been more or less stagnant for most of their lives. But I’ve never to my recollection known a guy who slapped his head and said, “Wow, I’ve been so wrong all these years! I’ve got to rethink everything I’ve ever thought I knew.”

Can anyone out there think of someone and relate the story?

flicker on January 27, 2013 at 6:41 PM

When I said “30%” before, I meant it’s my observation that only 30% of people out there are willing to question everything they’ve been taught, not that they’ve actually gone and done it, often because the need to do so has never arisen for them.

Oh, wait. Dennis Miller. But still they seem so rare. I’ve never actually met one.
flicker on January 27, 2013 at 10:20 PM

C. S. Lewis, Malcolm Muggeridge, Alexander Sholzenytzen (sp?), come to mind.

Can Atheists make good Conservatives?
Bmore on January 27, 2013 at 8:04 PM

Sure, they just can’t defend it on any substantive grounds. It’s just their opinion against someone else’s opinion.

I have actually had the experience of “throwing everything out” and starting over … multiple times. I actually think I’m a bit crazy. Indoctrinated in college, I was a diehard liberal until age 35 … I hated McDonalds, Wal-Mart, all the big corporations. Then I had an epiphany during the 2004 GOP convention … I realized everything the liberal media had told me about George W. Bush and Republicans was a lie … and I wanted to know for myself.

It was like discovering the Matrix.

I’ve also had several religious transformations … but those seem to be continually changing … going from faith to doubt … back to faith.

As to what the future holds … Please God, do NOT let me go back to being a liberal … but I do hope that I will regain some of my earlier idealism and optimism.

These last four years have been tough …

Quisp on January 27, 2013 at 9:16 PM

Thanks for the link, Quisp. That’s pretty much what I was talking about. Any other examples? Have you ever met anyone that made a complete 180? I’ve seen people mellow and become more patient and tolerant. But I’ve never met a grown man who just woke up one year changed his out look.

Oh, wait. Dennis Miller. But still they seem so rare. I’ve never actually met one.

I think some people vote in such a way as to rebel against their parents whatever way that may be. If they ever grow up maybe they take a look at what’s going on and vote based on what they see.

Sheesh! There is much stupid at ivy league levels.

ss396 on January 27, 2013 at 4:44 PM

You can send an idiot to an ivy league school but that doesn’t cure him of being an idiot, it just trains him into an ivy league idiot, 10 times as dangerous.

But I’ve never to my recollection known a guy who slapped his head and said, “Wow, I’ve been so wrong all these years! I’ve got to rethink everything I’ve ever thought I knew.”

Can anyone out there think of someone and relate the story?

flicker on January 27, 2013 at 6:41 PM

Wouldn’t David Mamet’s Why I am no longer a brain dead liberal be a “slapped his head” moment? David Horowitz did an about face in his late 30s – early 40s.

They will find themselves in an EXTREME minority, and the rest of the world will oppose them.

listens2glenn on January 27, 2013 at 8:48 PM

In that case, let’s get to planting.

Can Atheists make good Conservatives?

Bmore on January 27, 2013 at 8:04 PM

.
Absolutely. We’ve got a number here in our ranks, at HotAir.

But conservative atheists will have a horrible time, after they’re “left behind.”
They will find themselves in an EXTREME minority, and the rest of the world will oppose them.

Axe on January 27, 2013 at 8:44 PM

Axe, you do know QOTD is up, right?

She’d be a fine catch. : )

Bmore on January 27, 2013 at 8:35 PM

I think I’ve actually married my work, to be honest. But RWM is welcome anywhere I am, that’s a fact. That girl need not fear starvation whilst I have a pulse.

Can Atheists make good Conservatives?

Still loving the question. Mulling. Questions about the foundations of natural law, etc. :)

Axe on January 27, 2013 at 8:14 PM

She’d be a fine catch. : )

*She’d say she’s a libertarian, but she makes a good conservative anyway.

Can Atheists make good Conservatives?

Bmore on January 27, 2013 at 8:04 PM

Resist is an athiest. :) And, one fate-filled night, as she stood panting over the bodies of a pack of trolls like Summer Glau with a bloody axe, I proposed. lol — and, Bmore, I meant it.

As for me, I still listen to pretty much the same stuff I did during my formative years – and for the most part, the same bands and songs. I never really shifted.

Based on the stuff typically posted in the QOTD thread it seems many people have been listening to nothing but the same 70s and 80s pop music all their lives.

I’m in Southern California if you still want to hold me too, btw ;P

SD Tom on January 27, 2013 at 2:24 PM

LOL! That’s a bit of a hike.