In the current polarized atmosphere wherein we are all pigeonholed into stereotypes and considered by each side to be in the other's camp unless we toe the line all the way, those who think for themselves and come to their own conclusions are generally left out.
People seem comfortable with a world where everyone else "fits" into their preconceived notions. I suppose it's easier to cope with mentally than one in which there are multiple answers and many facets to issues, and where compromise is often where the best solutions will still be found.
I'm another oddball social liberal and fiscal conservative. A Constitutionalist and history junkie who realizes that we are not perfect as a nation, and never were, but may still be the closest man has ever come.
I became a conservative back in high school when I first became aware of Barry Goldwater. He favored smaller government, a modernized and ready military that would be held in readiness but hopefully not constantly busy at their trade....like firemen and EMT's and disaster responders, people you want to be ready, but idle as much of the time as possible except for training exercises.
Barry also was quoted as saying that a soldier didn't need to BE straight, just to SHOOT straight, when asked about accepting gays into the military. Did that make him a liberal? He was recognized at the time as the leading spokesman for conservative politics in the country, if not the world.
Used to also enjoy another leading conservative political spokesman, William F. Buckley, as he would politely maneuver any liberal guests overconfident enough to accept his challenge to debate on the air and guide them out onto a limb, then saw the limb off with a bit of logic and truth, still smiling and still not shouting. He was a strong proponent of legalizing marijuana as well as many other regulated drugs. Did that make him a liberal, or just a conservative who could see that the drug war that was fifty or so years old at that time, had been lost for at least thirty years, and was no more than a repetition of the failure that Prohibition had been?
The only political party that currently proposes smaller government and debt, and less foreign entanglements involving our military, and increased personal liberty, is the Libertarian Party. I don't even agree with every position they take, but I'm much more comfortable being put into that pigeonhole than any other.
The old adage is that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We have now granted the government as a whole something that very closely approximates absolute power over our lives. We happily swapped our liberties for promises, and still do, thinking we are playing one side against the other in their battle for our support. A few have come to the realization that what we thought of for so long as two sides, are now one....the statist side, and they are no longer all that concerned about our support.
