My professorial colleagues who have not realized their limitations still gravitate to the left. Media stars and Supreme Court justices, both frequently kissed up to, also tend to head left. The liberal emphasis on liberation from traditional institutions assumes that we're bright enough to do much better. Liberals in power harass what previous generations built: Look at homosexuality's war on marriage, the Supreme Court's assault on unborn children and the tens of thousands of regulations that hamstring the freedom to work.

Sure, the word "conservative" carries a heavy burden. The Social Darwinist variety of conservatism -- humanity evolves economically through survival of the financially fittest and elimination of the poor -- turned its back on the needy in the past. But that is changing, and the tragic liberal alliance with abortion has made the Democratic Party a Social Darwinist battering ram against the weakest of the weak, unborn children.

Most conservatives, unlike most liberals, understand that progress comes one by one from the inside out, not million by million from the top down. Most conservatives understand that all manmade institutions and all people are flawed, so utopia is not one revolution or one great leader around the corner. Conservatives, like liberals, like all of us, are sinners, but conservatives who privately defend sin at least do not try to use governmental force to push others to sin. Liberals, though, regularly purchase government-surplus stain removers that in practice grind the evil deeper into the social fabric.

That's why I'm a Christian conservative. "Claiming to be wise, they became fools," the book of Romans says of those who do not honor God. That was me. But now I pay attention to herald angels who sing, "Glory to the newborn king."