I'll counter with:
I was raised by liberals, i.e. Carter good, Reagan bad. I shared joints with my parents. By 17 I had dropped-out and was working dead-end fast food jobs. I soon figured I'd be dead and/or in jail if something didn't change.
I joined the army. No ideology, no patriotism; just a free meal and a roof.
While I was there I had an interesting experience...
The "greens" in Germany would protest us incessantly. If they caught us walking in town at night it was guaranteed to be a fight, especially if they outnumbered us (never if we outnumbered them). Yet, a few miles away was an entire border of barbed wire and machineguns put up by the Soviets, not NATO; and it wasn't put up to keep NATO out but to keep Soviet slaves in.
We weren't the ones willing to kill people to keep them, but the greens protested us.
That was when I first started to question this whole "Just give peace a chance" mantra.
Then when I got back to the states I had a sociology prof say that abortion, gay rights, feminism and other pillars of liberal religion were based on Marxism. He used to say, "You don't have to belive me, but you at least have to try to prove me wrong."
I had an inkling that noone would try, they would only sit there in silent animosity...so I went to the library and got a copy of The Communist Manifesto as well as numerous books by various gay rights, feminist and other authors. Not books ABOUT them but books BY them.
He was right.
I remembered that it was the Marxist that put up the barbed wire and machineguns to keep people in.
I never looked back.