The young man in the following video tells his political change story, and in doing so he describes a process that I think—having contemplated the process of political change myself for about a decade and a half—is the heart of the matter. The quote begins around 1:06 or so, and I’ve transcribed it:

So it became fairly evident very quickly that these people [many of his fellow progressives, who he describes as being proponents of “an authoritative sort of progressivism”] weren’t actually standing up for anything relating to liberty. They were just standing up for a divisuve brand of politics that would tolerate no dissent whatsoever. I’ve always tried my best to think as clearly and logically as I can. And that necessarily entails poking as many holes as I can in my own beliefs, until I’ve managed to narrow in on the beliefs that best model the world, or at least that model the world a little more accurately than my beliefs did before.

What I think is so marvelous about that quote is that it describes two elements very well. The first element is that it’s quite obvious that this man sets a premium on liberty. I’ve referred to liberty as “the great dividing line,” and noted that some liberals value it and others don’t, and that this particular difference is an enormously important one:

I don’t know the relative size of the two groups, because I don’t seek out political discussions with my friends and family; I don’t want get-togethers to degenerate into the useless, repetitive, unproductive arguments I witnessed in my youth, which they easily could, with me now as the sole conservative. But I know that those two groups exist, and I think that what differentiates them are (a) the person’s need to control others and/or society; and (b) the degree that the person thinks he/she can do so effectively and get the desired results. Among most of my friends their motives are “good”””that is, they want people to be happier, healthier, and in general just better. Some leftists I know have the same motivation (I would add that most of the people who think they are doing good are also motivated by the need to feel that they are good people for wanting that). But many leftists””we’re talking about quite a few of the leaders of the movement, and certainly people such as Stalin””have a different motivation: they are motivated almost purely by the desire for power and control. There is an unholy alliance between the two groups. The first is the much-larger pack of would-be do-gooders who believe that liberalism is the way to go about it, whose minds are formed by a combination of their families growing up, present-day peers, the MSM, eduction, politicians, literature, the entertainment business, and in some cases their “progressive” churches and synagogues. The second is the smaller but extremely influential group of leftist activists, some proudly out as unrepentant “progressives,” and some just quietly going about their business, some motivated by the desire for power/control plus the idea that they’re doing “good,” and the rest just wanting the power/control part.

I believe that this dividing line of liberty represents two very different types of people, and that it’s rare that someone from one group turns into someone from the other although it might happen on occasion. It’s also my observation that left-to-right political changers tend to be disproportionately drawn from the group that highly values liberty. What’s more, during the last decade in this country, the Democratic Party has become more and more populated by people who do not.

The second element the man in the video talks about is also key: the desire to poke “as many holes as I can in my own beliefs, until I’ve managed to narrow in on the beliefs that best model the world.” Long ago I used to think everyone felt like that, but it became abundantly clear to me about fifteen years ago that it wasn’t that way at all. Many or perhaps even most people ( (on left or right, I might add) cling tenaciously to what they already believe, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. That’s why a mind is a difficult thing to change. And so change is much more likely in people who already have the habit of challenging their own beliefs.

[NOTE: You may have noticed that this video has a subtitle: “My Red Pill Story.” That’s a reference to the movie “The Matrix.” It refers to a moment in your life that completely changes your outlook about the makeup of the world or politics (and not just politics). Here’s the quote from the movie:

“You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” ”•Morpheus, to Neo [not me; the character in the movie] The term redpill refers to a human that is aware of the true nature of the Matrix.

There are a ton of videos at YouTube on the subject, and although it sometimes refers to a left-to-right political change, it more often refers more specifically to leaving feminism or rejecting feminist beliefs: