Frequent visitors, who don’t avoid the political postings, will no doubt notice that I tend to more often criticize Republicans politicians over Democratic ones. Such visitor might get the impression that I am more favorably inclined towards the liberal arguments and that such criticism is mostly just attacking ‘the other team.’  This is not the case.

For a number of reasons I am less comfortable with the liberal side of the political spectrum than I am of the conservative side.

Of course that begs the questions how do you define liberal and conservative and boy that is a can of worms. For my purposes, and for this essay, I’ll use simple and crude definition. Conservatism as being in general in favor of smaller more local government and more free-market solutions to problems while liberalism seeks more government solutions and a more active central government. Naturally the situation is much nuanced than that and no simply definition can cover all people or even most in the current political environment.

There are many, primarily cultural, elements on the left that I am either in disagreement or personally uncomfortable with. I despise the categorization of people into neatly check-boxed groups. We are more than just our socio-ethnic backgrounds, though those factors cannot be ignored. I stand against ‘hate crime’ penalties and legislation. I stand against progressive taxation.  I find controls on political speech of be a violation of basic rights. I do not see guns as evil (outside of D&D no object can be evil) and would repeal most gun control laws. I am suspicious of public employ unions and I favor vouchers as a form of education reform. I am not a relativist and gladly agree when theSoviet Unionwas called an evil empire,

Give that short list, and there are other elements, it’s easy to easy how I am not at home on the left, sadly I am not at home on the right either, at least the right as it is now constituted.

I believe that we do have a protected right to privacy. I do consider myself pro-choice. I fully support the right to marry any adult you want. I don’t accept that you have to be religious to be moral. I support allowing gays to openly serve in our military. I am suspicious of ‘personhood’ for corporation. I think deficits always matter, not just when the opposition is in control.

I think if the Republicans walked their talk of limited government instead of social conservatism, of fiscal disciple instead of reckless borrow and spend policies, of individual rights instead of corporate rights, then I would be a very happy man. I point out the flaws of the Republicans more often than the Democrats because I want the Republicans to be better. I want them to be what they claim they are, to live up to their promise.