You must have heard the saying: “if you’re not a socialist/liberal by your 20s, you have no heart; if you’re not a capitalist/conservative after your 30s, you have no brain”. I offer this humble rationale.

The first part is explained by one’s early training. From infanthood kids are taught to care about those nearby, to share toys, not to make too much noise, to leave daddy alone while he’s beating mommy. In elementary school, he’s given the standard “diversity & tolerance” indoctrination, where we care about the blue people, the pink people, and the plants of the purple people. In high school, the lefty staff gives us many reasons to hate George Bush (or whoever is the latest figurehead of Evil American Capitalism), sigh about the black people, the hemorrhage of social justice, the community work hour credits, the soul-piercing cruelty of calculus. In university one gets the final belch from the overwhelmingly unionized and socialist faculty about the intellectual corruption of this or that western concept. He will be taught how a little bit of activism, ever popular on campus, can make one feel good amongst the marching mob. Plus there is the little trend that families with kids, or independent students, tend to be hurting financially. It’s no wonder that one immersed in such circumstances thinks that the interests of poor people should trump all others. Tax the filthy rich indeed! Screw the System – after all, you have literally nothing to lose.

The second part is easily explained too. Assuming one didn’t get stuck in the rut of academia or the grant-teat of activism, and one actually started working for a living, one will gradually acquire assets. One will realize how little help one actually gets from The Government, how much an adult has to stand up for his own interest. He will start worrying about taxes, about crime, about who really is paying for all that money-hating education. He may get involved in longer-term personal commitments like marriage, careers, major asset ownership, peculiar hobbies. Gradually, he will realize that these personal accomplishments don’t amount to anything if someone else can come along and tear them down. He will start valuing his situation in a way he did not forsee earlier. He will have something to protect, i.e., to conserve.

Then he screws it up by making kids, and letting the cycle begin again. Dumbass.