I threw together some thoughts on why I became a conservative and sent it to Pop and Politics, a liberal group that’s really interested in what us conservatives think. (I attempted something similar here. I’ll get it together one day.) It’s not my best, but I tried to organize it in a reasonably cohorent way:
Despite America’s ugly history of the enslavement of my ancestors, I love this country and marvel at the blessing of being born here. I appreciate every day the freedom I once took for granted. While I think America’s culture is on the decline, our form of government, rooted in individual rights, is still the best in the world.Like many of my black peers, I grew up believing conservatives were rich white people trying to take away our “civil rights” and send us to the back of the bus — which wasn’t consistent with reality, of course. I wasn’t oppressed and neither was anyone I knew. I didn’t have to walk through “Colored Only” entrances and wasn’t otherwise prevented from doing what I chose to do.
I was a middle-class kid who came of age in the 1980s when affirmative action was in full bloom. I felt deserving of the extra points and consideration I got just for being black. My parents, who grew up under legal segregation, weren’t so fortunate — or so I used to believe. I was angry and thought my indignation was righteous. The indignation led to a sense of entitlement, and I assumed whites owed me something. I was angry about slavery, residual racism and the sense of superiority I perceived about them.
For some reason the editor turned my last paragraph into the next-to-last paragraph, so it seems like the phrase “such rhetoric” in the last paragraph is referring to “biblical values” in the preceding one. Get it? It doesn’t matter. You know what I mean. (Update: The passage has been edited for clarity.)
Liberals will hate it; conservatives will like/love it. Read the rest if you dare. 
Addendum: If you started out liberal/libertarian/apathetic/other, what caused your conservative conversion?
