One thing I always find curious is the question of why people believe what they believe. I'm naive enough to think the answer to "Why should I believe something?" should be as simple as "Because it's true." (Or seems to be, as best as you can figure out.)

So I'm always floored when people seem to use other criteria for choosing their beliefs.

A liberal co-worker had mistaken me for a hard left-wing liberal based on my voting record. I asked him why he was a liberal. He said: "Because we're the good guys." Err... and how do you know that? I don't know. I never got an answer from him!

So here's a guy who apparently chose to act as though a set of facts were true because it would get him the right set of associates!

I was talking with a friend of mine who'd been considering a choice between Chritianity and Judiasm. She chose Judaism. Why? Christianity's too hard, and there's no hell in Judaism. I pointed out that atheism was less work, still. "But I believe in God!" she responded.

So one gets to choose whether one believes in a hell or not, but not whether one believes in God or not? Look, these things exist or they don't. They don't wink in or out of existence depending on how we feel about them today, or which religion we decide to adopt.

Recently, Keith Burgess Jackson received an interesting letter from a former conservative. Keith is a former liberal, a philosopher by profession, and a civilized animal rights advocate, so he makes for interesting reading.

Among other things, the letter said:

Why did I change, you may ask? It's rather simple. I grew weary of the cynical nature of the right, their lack of desire to include minorities and women in the process of governing and the general arrogance I encountered from my conservative brethren.

The issue really hit home one day when a group of rich, white young men were leaving the campaign office of a certain Southern California politician who happens to have been a lifelong friend of mine. It seems that a gardener contracted by the business park had the temerity to park near one of the young men's Mercedes. Apparently he dropped some wet clippings near the young man's door... I haven't heard such a racist, misogynistic, and disgusting stream of vulgarities since boot camp.

And:

But does it mean all conservatives act in this manner? Thankfully no, but enough of those I've met that have expressed similar hateful opinions forced me to examine my own values and ideals....

I have owned my own business for many years. I've enriched my employees and myself by relating to them as human beings... I've listened to their issues, personal and professional, and helped whenever possible. As a result, I have 2nd generation employees and have kept turnover to less than 8% year after year. And I've released only 4 employees in the last 5 years while never having a layoff.

Could I have made more money? Sure. Would my employees or I be any happier? I doubt it. I think I've learned as many lessons from them as they have from me and this has created a family atmosphere I wouldn't trade to be CEO of Microsoft. And it's because I've treated people with compassion and a firm hand.

This is liberalism to me. Not handouts, but help. Not a caste system, but treating all people with respect. Paying a living wage and rewarding for results....

But I have seen conservatives continually pull back when they've been asked to help out of their pocket. I have seen conservatives intentionally mislead and lie to the populace about the facts of a matter and I have seen conservatives exhibit a basic lack of human compassion and utter arrogance that I can't bring myself to watch any longer.

As a conservative, let me tell you a secret: Such conservatives exist. It's not entirely a stereotype, but it's also far from the majority, at least in my experience. (I've only met one or two such conservatives in my life.)

A while ago, I was sorting through some survey data concerning charitable giving among conservative/liberal and religious/secular people, and made an interesting discovery: Conservatives gave money and donated time to charity more than liberals do. Significantly more.

(Whatever the author may think.)

But -- only because more conservatives are religious, overall. When comparing "secular" liberals to "secular" conservatives, the secular liberals gave and did more than secular conservatives, who did quite poorly -- the worst among all four categories.

If you think about this, it makes some kind of sense. The essence of conservativism is to limit the power of government, at least economically. Some want this for their own benefit: To make a lot of money. And some want this because they think anyone, even greedy folks, will make better use of money than a bureaucrat. (I'm in the latter category.)

I don't have the kind of experiences the guy above does. I'm fortunate enough to attend a church where it's indirectly obvious that many give very, very generously. Politics is seldom discussed (and never officially), but there's a conservative trend whenver it comes up among peers. (Though we do have liberals too, praise God.)

But what freaks me out is that he seems to think that conservativism, or liberalism, is simply a matter of how you feel about people. As if there were no point in questioning whether conservative or liberal dogmas were, in fact, true, or their policies, helpful.

He helps his own employees by paying them a bit more. And being a nice person to them. In essence, since the price of his products are set by the market, he is donating his own compensation to increase their wages, and his own free time to listen to their problems.

And that's admirable. Though hardly unique to liberals -- at least in my experience.

But that's a long way from saying that we believe it's best for everyone if we support a law which forces every company to pay it's employees a bit more. Not every company will keep it's CEO if it means taking pay cuts. Not every CEO is willing to do a CEO's job for much less than they're being paid now, they'll do other things. And companies will close. And jobs will go overseas.

Well, they shouldn't do that!

How does that matter? They will, and that's the point. You can't structure a belief system around what you hope people will be like. You end up with Marxism, and millions of dead bodies. You have to take a cold, hard look at human nature and then say: Okay. Given that, now what?

I think many people have trouble making this leap. The want every CEO to give time and money to their employees, but they don't realize a minimum wage law won't do that. It'll do something else. And we won't like that other thing. Even the alleged beneficiaries will be hurt. Especially. And badly.

And you can't compel virtue. What if we passed the other law too? The CEOs-must-listen-to-employee-problems law? Is that going to make society better? If you can see the absurdity in this position, why can't you see the absurdity in the other?

I'm not a conservative because I don't care for people. In a roundabout way, I'm a conservative because I do. Or at least because I know I should, regardless of how little sympathy I may feel for my fellow sheep on any given day.

And it's important to get your beliefs right. To support things which really do help the most people. And, on point after point, I've slowly become convinced that most conservative positions, if not true or best, are at least much truer, and/or more beneficial than the corresponding liberal offering in that category. And liberal beliefs aren't only a bit less beneficial, some are downright murderous.

Again, think of the millions killed under Marxism for perspective.

And I'm not saying I know I'm perfect or perfectly right. So I try to keep an open mind. But that's where I am now: an uncool, moderate, non-partisan conservative.