I think the reality is – we do have some limited degree of choice in our beliefs. For example, I can choose what books I read. If I choose to read two dozen apologies for Marxism, that is not guaranteed to make me believe in Marxism, but it almost certainly increases somewhat the probability I will end up believing in it compared to if I hadn&#x27;t chosen to read all those books. (Substitute for Marxism any other belief system – Islam, atheism, Christianity, whatever – and the point still holds.) At the same time, I can&#x27;t wake up tomorrow morning and decide out of the blue &quot;I&#x27;m going to believe in Marxism today&quot;. Beliefs are ingrained habits of the mind – we have some conscious power over our own habits, but it requires a desire to change them, and a willingness to make concerted efforts over time to change them, and even after all of that there is no guarantee of success. (It&#x27;s unusual for people to actually want to change their beliefs, but not completely unheard of; while most atheists are quite happy to remain atheists, some of them actually do want to believe in God, but can&#x27;t; some of those try to make themselves believe it; many of those who try fail, but I&#x27;m sure some of them actually do succeed.) In most cases when people change their beliefs, it happens without any conscious effort to do so–the ideal of rationality says on the basis of new evidence or better arguments; however, given the reality of human non-rationality, I&#x27;d say that social and emotional factors are often more important in changing beliefs than rational or evidential ones.<p>Now, when it comes to the actual topic at hand – political liberalism vs. political conservatism – I don&#x27;t think the vast majority of people&#x27;s political beliefs are the result of a conscious choice to believe one thing rather than another – they are primarily the consequences of social and emotional and personality factors (reason and evidence do play a role, but far less than either side would like to think.) While in theory a person could consciously choose to try to make themselves believe in a particular political ideology, I doubt many people ever actually make that choice in practice.