Depends on where one looks from. It is possible to understand the differences and judge them insignificant.

A cat is bigger than a mouse, but they’re both tiny compared to elephants. 100mph toward the cliff is faster then 20mph, but both trips end the same. We should give this argument a number to save us all repeating it… 🙂

@neo: What’s more, former Marxists, etc. in the GOP are often the most conservative of all when they “change.”

…an important, too often overlooked, observation. Kudos.

Perhaps this is true, because they are the ones that know all too well …that are most familiar with, as former denizens …the hell that mere liberalism always arrives at, and consigns liberals to?

And knowing the depths attainable, they fear liberalism the most? Fear drives people, you know.

And just to correct the record, I’m not a former any of those things except Democrat. I called myself a liberal but didn’t subscribe to all its tenets even back then. In fact, my views haven’t changed so very much (although they certainly have somewhat). I was always in the more moderate wing of the Democratic Party, which was even more to the right then than now.

What’s more, former Marxists, etc. in the GOP are often the most conservative of all when they “change.”

And if you don’t see a difference between Romney and Obama, I don’t think you understand much about conservatism and liberalism, or the right and the left.

And, yes, breathing the free air is my favorite way to describe it. But with freedom, of course, comes responsibility. That is why so many choose (I think they choose?) to stay liberal. Responsibility is hard, paying for mistakes “sucks”, and why think when someone else will do it for you? And I am still not sure which woke in me first, the want of freedom or the acceptance of responsibility. Which came to you first?

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2012/03/03/james-q-wilson-1931-2012/

An excerpt:

Our reluctance to speak of morality,” he notes, “and our suspicion, nurtured by our best minds, that we cannot ‘prove’ our moral principles has amputated our public discourse at the knees

I reject Communism (in part) and therefore become a Socialist. I reject Socialism (in part) and therefore become a Democratic Socialist and vote in the Republican primary.

Why don’t the “former” Maoists, Leninists, Trotskyites, progressives, liberals, etc. stay in the Democrat Party, voting there to make it more “conservative” instead of voting in the Republican Party to make it more progressive.

This is why there is so little difference between the two parties, and between Romney and Obama: “former” progressives reject the consequences of their ideals, join the opposition, but continue to believe in the lite version of their ideology.

It’s difficult to distinguish this from deliberate infiltration and corruption.

By 2050 “conservatives” will Maoists, if this migration continues.

Yes, completely agree with your anatomy of Ace. I love him to death, but… well, what you said.

I wrote a massive post last night distinguishing between different senses of “rational analysis” and “dogmatism,” but apparently it was so long I couldn’t post it. At any rate, it wouldn’t go through. I tried to chop it in half, but it still wouldn’t go through. I took that as the higher powers telling me to let it go, so I let it go.

I also agree that a conversion begins with an “entering wedge of truth.” Like log-splitting. First you tap that wedge into the butt end of the log … then you get out the sledgehammer of reality for a mighty WHACK!

For me, the entering wedge was the lies the Left told about the 2000 election (I fell for them at first, then realized we’d been conned). The mighty WHACK! was the attack on September 11th by monsters whom the Left shortly allied themselves with, indecently so.

I will never forgive them for that.

>>Actually, Wretchard, there is no mystery here. Just conflicting priorities and goals.
1. The Obama administration wants to convert the USA from a superpower to a larger version of Mexico, a corrupt one party welfare state with the democratic party in permanent control. They see no need for a large or capable military and would rather spend the money buying votes and doling out favors to the various groups that make up the Democratic Party. Hence they will practice as much appeasement as necessary to get throough the election. If in 2013 or 2014 Iran nukes Israel neither Obama nor anyone who supports him will care. If tossing a few soldiers who followed procedure to burn trash and confiscasted Korans that Muslums themselves desecrated will appease various mobs for awhile, well Obama wont mind.

2. Iran wants to be the leader of the Islamic world and wants to destroy the little satan (Israel) today and the great satan (the USA) tomorrow. Towards that end she is developing nuclear weapons and delivery systems suitable for large scale EMP attack.

3. Israel wants to survive. And is learning, as the South Vietnamese learned, that it is a lot more dangerous to be a friend of the USA than an enemy — as long as your name is not Osama Bin Ladin.

4. Egypt — well, the Muslum Brotherhood wants a pure Islamic state within Egypt, and most likely they want to take up the Jihad. So, no more natural gas for the hated Jews, and look for them to scrap the peace treaty and arm Hamas as soon as possible. The Egyptian military wants to hold on to what they have and will not oppose the Brotherhood.<<

Thoughts? Grim assessment, but seems all too plausible.