A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, and a libertarian is a conservative who's been indicted.

If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested.

A liberal is a conservative who's been arrested. A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged.

A conservative is a liberal who got mugged the night before.

It is one of the truisms of politics that a conservative is often enough a former liberal who has been 'mugged by reality.'

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness... &
... Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.
–