Ah, but as a famous right-winger once pointed out, there are unknown unknowns.

When I discovered there was an emotion I had never felt before (by feeling it), it started my path toward conservatism.

I’ve always had empathy (actually my empathy had been whipped into an almost crippling over-sensitivity to the slightest discomfort in others by a childhood of emotional abuse), and a powerful, delightful curiosity about the world.

It seemed perfectly natural to me to be a leftist. (I’m actually a liberal but these days that comes off as right wing)

I believed what I was told about what conservatives believed:

• I got mine
• Fuck weak people
• Macho bullshit involving guns

I had a republican friend in high school. We’d debate politics, and he’d sit there giving reasoned responses to everything I said, and I’d eventually raise my voice for a forceful claim, and he … would calmly present some other evidence. Then I’d tell myself that he doesn’t understand because he’s middle class and comfortable, and too young to see how callous he’s being.

But then I went from poor to homeless. And while I was homeless, the only way to stay safe was to be armed. I got attacked, and discovered that there was a feeling beyond fear, called terror. I knew the word but assumed it meant extreme fear. That’s not what it refers to. It refers to a thing most of us don’t experience, because our society is so stable.

The terror refused to be ignored, even after it was over. It came with an imperative: I must never feel this again. My mind raced through the options. How could I make sure I never feel that again? I didn’t have a choice but to absorb this new knowledge of being’s extent into my philosophy.

I tried to buy pepper spray. Denied. Required a license in MA (law since changed, thank god), and as a homeless man I didn’t get licenses for things.

I had never felt injustice like that. Here I was without walls, without much muscle, without many calories, and living on the streets of Boston with drunk fuckheads who beat up homeless men for sport, and whereas reality has said “ah we’ve got a thing for that, called pepper spray. Great for getting attackers off you”, but the local government was like “Yeah but … you don’t get to have it”

And I realized why being armed is a human right.

Anyway I got a knife instead. Way less effective as a defense than pepper spray. It won’t stop an attack.

So along with the knife I had to vow that I would slice the next attacker crotch to chin. He might even kill me, but not without getting scarred for life. I had to vow this. The reasoning why I had to strike back while being killed is obvious to anyone who’s had to handle their own security without recourse to authority. And to anyone who hasn’t had to do that, unless they are completely, open-mindedly devoted to logic no matter where it takes them, they will simply reject the reasoning.

So I won’t bother spelling it out. You either get it or you don’t.

And because I have empathy, my understanding of weapons as a human right, and of the knowledge that the basement goes a lot deeper than most people have ever gone, translated into a new political philosophy. I don’t just want myself to be protected from drunk frat boys who decide to kick a man in the head repeatedly for no reason. I want everyone to be protected from that.

And not just the people in the future, after we’ve achieve star trek communism. Also right now. The people right now who have predators around them. I don’t want them to have to wait for society to completely reform itself, before they feel safe.

As a liberal I already believed in free market, self determination, merit, democracy, etc.

But the only people who understood my new stance toward being capable of mayhem, were conservatives.

Dang that was long.

And of course, the last thing to say is that people who are leftists because of ignorance of how bad it can get, don’t know that they don’t know this thing. They think they know the map, that there aren’t any parts of the map they haven’t seen. Therefore, the difference must be in a person’s values: they don’t give a shit about other people. Or, they simply don’t look into things, ie they must know less of the map, and that’s where the political difference comes from.

But sometimes the people on the other side went over there when they saw something you haven’t seen yet. Sometimes, the people who disagree with you do so because they know more, not less.