Intellectual honesty is basically impossible with Party allegiance.

I remember how it went for me, including the moment I became politically aware.

I had just heard of affirmative action, the justification for it, the basic arguments against it, and the fact that Democrats generally liked it and Republicans did not. I took some time to think it through, considering it an interesting solution to an interesting problem - one that merited consideration, anyway.

I ultimately reached the right conclusion for the right reasons, but then immediately decided that means I'm a Republican, and I was stuck in tribalist hell for a lot of years.

What jostled me out of that, years later, was hearing Milton Friedman ask "but why restrict immigration in the first place?" and everything came tumbling down around me.

It should have happened sooner by the way. There had been other quandaries that should have had the same effect. "Why is it OK for the government to do X if it's not OK for me to do it?" I just assumed some philosopher had sorted that out long ago, or else the world wouldn't be like this, and got back to work.