The reason I consider myself conservative...

I do consider myself conservative, at least by American standards. However, many of the issues that are supposed to appeal to conservatives are ones that consistently fail to get me excited. The important thing to note about American politics is that all those thousand and one parties that exist in Parliamentary systems still exist. We just have them organized in formalized alliances where they share a jersey, as opposed to many other countries where they fly their own flag and form temporary and shaky coalitions for a time.

I am not a social conservative. For the life of me, I haven't figured out why I should care if someone is gay or not. Abortion and bans on some contraceptives are, quite frankly, none of my business. These debates are largely nonstarters for me, because they mostly serve as distractions from what I feel that political debate should be. Those who are nominally on my side but are interested altogether too much on these topic make me feel uncomfortable, but are tolerated because I don't have much in the way of a recourse.

So, why do I tend to line up with Republicans and Libertarians more often than Democrats and Greens? Well, I guess it comes down to how I grew up. I was raised on a county line, one was a conservative suburb and the other was a more liberal one. The difference was night and day. On one side of the river the roads were regularly repaved, police response was prompt and effective, the parks were regularly upgraded, and the schools were among the best in the state. On the other, none of these things were true, and one of the most common complaints was about how other parts of the county was receiving all their tax dollars, and how much higher their taxes were than neighboring counties.

I was taught a lot by this continuous experience. Mostly, that government is a tool. It is a really useful one. But that being said, it isn't a perfect one. There are a lot of things that a government just doesn't do as well as a charity, community organization, business, or fraternal organization could do. Passing laws can make a lot of things happen, but passing a law alone is meaningless. A law cannot change reality, but people working to enforce said law can. This is something that I am less certain that Democratic pundits understand, even with very well known examples such as Prohibition.

Still, the reason I am conservative now stems mostly from a single fact. Republican lawmakers at the local level have actually listened to me. They went out of their way to respond and I saw things that I want actually happen, partially as a result of my actions. This has been more than I can say for the Democrats in my life, ultimately if the opposite were true then I would likely be a moderate liberal than a moderate conservative today. I do believe that this is a more common state of affairs nationally, but that assessment is largely based on fact that while SOPA/PIPPA had bipartisan support many more Republicans than Democrats withdrew their support for those bills in response to protest and extensive contact from their constituents.