Remember Saul on the Road to Damascus moment?

People aren’t going to be converted if they are fanatics, without that. And the weaker ones, when faced with it, will not continue the path.

Some of the sweetest people I know are liberals.

A valid point, just as valid as Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany having good and sweet people living their lives.

Thinking is hard. Most people, like Corn or Chuck, think the truth is crazy because they haven’t paid the price for it and probably never will.

Humans aren’t naturally inclined to imagine connections between abstract stuff that have never hit them directly.

Re: Political and “other” types of conversion

Some of the sweetest people I know are liberals. I think the biggest reason is that they “think” mainly with the heart, rather than the head and heart. Thus the reluctance to explore, and read, other points of view. They don’t seem curious when it comes to politics, and spend their time elsewhere, or in just wasting some of their free time on TV.
But the ones I know have very good hearts/intentions.

I converted back to my faith about 10 years ago(at age 50 after 35 yrs in the desert), and have found this to be a very rare event as well. Seems actual conversions in any form are pretty rare. I’ve also sworn off trying to convert anybody. I’ve had no success with it whatsoever, and tend to just tick people off. In politics, live and let live, and in faith, I just pray for them.

!

I “converted” one person, and perhaps that person would have converted anyway, but I probably hurried the process, anyway. I three-quarter converted another, who really was a conservative to begin with but kept voting liberal out of habit or something like that.

But most people don’t listen to me for all that long, anyway. The ones who do, I don’t see that they’ve changed in a fundamental way. Maybe small ways. I don’t think they “connect the dots.” They might end up agreeing with me on this issue and that, but they don’t have the context. I’ve recommended books for them to read (like Sowell, for example), but they haven’t read them.

Somewhere I think I’ve got a post answering those questions. But since I can’t find it now, I’ll just answer them.

Yes, my liberal friends and/or relatives all know about my politics. Even some acquaintances know, depending on the context. I don’t automatically tell everyone I meet, though.

A few friends and/or relatives have read a couple of my articles, but most have not. They don’t care to, for the most part. Some of them have explicitly said they don’t read what I write because they don’t want to get angry at me. Most just don’t read blogs, or they’re very busy, or they’re not all that curious. One liberal relative reads my blog with some regularity, but I think only one. I sometimes send people links to posts I think they will like that aren’t about politics (such as the dance posts for people who like dance).

Yes, I would wager some think I’m “batshit crazy,” although they are kind enough not to say it to my face. One or two stopped talking to me long ago, and I suspect it was over politics, but maybe it was something else. I would wager that the vast majority are merely puzzled by me. They think I’m eccentric rather than crazy (these are old friends). Some newer acquaintances find me offputting, I think, and have not become friendly with me in part because of this (although maybe we would not have become friendly anyway).

One of two liberal friends seem to respect me for my intelligence and sometimes ask me what I think about this or that issue, and listen to me with some respect although I doubt I’ve ever changed their minds. Some don’t seem to have had it affect their attitude towards me although we avoid speaking about politics because we are so opposite on that (including the way we approach the topic, how much reading we do on it, etc.).

But you have to understand that I’ve never really fit in all that well anyway, even prior to this. I think I was always considered mildly eccentric or different by a lot of my friends in some indefinable way. So now the politics is part of that. If they were my friends before, they obviously liked my mild eccentricities well enough (or at least didn’t dislike them too much) to be friends, so politics is now in that same category.

And lastly, a few people have used the opportunity to come out of the political closet themselves and declare their conservative and/or Republican status. Just a few.