Endive Wombat: As a conservative, It is astounding to me how I am becoming more and more alienated by the Republican Party, especially during this past election cycle. Yeah, I am a registered Republican who voted for the Democrats this time around.

Good for you, I'm the same, only two elections back. That means you don't belong to the hive mind that both sides of the aisle just assumes of you.

Rebates, blunts, whores and dope
Chronic love of da fuggin Change and Hope.

Stamps fo' food is stamps for Gin
F*ck that honkey, Santa 'G did Win.

Bentleys, Dom, and the corpse of Biggie
Tank you, Brosef, for getting so jiggy

Now smoke this herb and high 5 Obummer
He gonna send out the Laker Girls to give me a hummer!

lennavan: Yeah but it still didn't answer my question. I don't understand how you can read this list of your positions and identify yourself as conservative. I get why you don't vote (R). I don't get why you consider yourself conservative. I really don't think you are. Not that the label really matters, I'm just genuinely interested why you and I hold similar beliefs and yet identify with very different ends of the political spectrum.

You are right, a label really does not matter. Fine, I will take another wedge issue: Guns

Guns do not kill people. People use an object called a gun to kill people. I believe I should be allowed to own as many badass guns as I want. Full auto, tracer rounds, RPGs, etc. Only fine, arrest, prosecute if I use them illegally. Some guns are just toys to shoot shiat with because "fark you, that's why." The Dems want to restrict legal gun owners rights quite severely and that is not ok with me. Obama has been practially silent on the matter of gun restrictions and that sits just fine with me. Mittens helped pass the assault weapons ban in MA.

Let's talk about welfare: Dems think that you should be able to go on welfare no matter your circumstance. I agree to a certain degree. I think that there should be mandatory drug testing to receive welfare, food stamps, etc. Look, I had to piss in a cup to earn my money, you Mr. Welfare collector should be required to do so as well, especially since you are taking my money. Dems call that racist as a sizable portion of minorities on welfare statistically are drug users as well. I call bullshiat! Just because you are black, does not mean you have a proclivity to crack. This brings up and goes back to addressing why someone is using, not just that they are...

I also think that there should be limited use of welfare. If you are able bodied, and mentally sound, other than being lazy, I do not see the need for you to be on welfare. Quite frankly, welfare should be used in more dire circumstances. We need to stop rewarding those on welfare with more money the more kids they have. A current flaw in the system boots welfare income the more kids you've got. I am not sure of an answer to this problem, but it needs to be discussed.

I would argue that there are many aspects of my beliefs that are a pretty equal blending of liberal and conservative ideals, but for the aspects of my beliefs that I am unwilling to compromise on, I would say that more lean towards the right than left.

More_Like_A_Stain: Big government again. Without out government intrusion, how will we know if your 60ft tall pink dildo is structurally sound? Are the materials used certified as safe for such an application? Were worker safety standards followed during construction? An entire new bureaucracy will have to be formed, as surely you can't be saying that the local county building department is prepared to take on such a burden.

Assuming it is not open to the public and is on my property, not infringing on any other property, I do not see any need for government regulation. If this is open for public enjoyment, then proper building codes must be adhered to.

Endive Wombat: As a conservative, It is astounding to me how I am becoming more and more alienated by the Republican Party, especially during this past election cycle. Yeah, I am a registered Republican who voted for the Democrats this time around.

I am a conservative registered Republican (for the moment, more down-comment). I voted for Obama and did not vote for a single Republican. Where I could, I voted for Libertarians. I found Romney morally repugnant in ways I didn't think possible, since I don't hold politicians in high regard to start with. Obama, in spite of being called a Marxist-Communist-Socialist, seemed to be a moderate choice, so I went with him as a compromise. When the only other choice is the not-crazy half-way decent guy standing over there without a spittle covered face, you make the only choice you can make.

The 47% comment offended me in so many ways. To get to 47%, Romney has to include soldiers who are in war zones (combat pay is tax exempt); people who have literally worked for half a century who are now on Social Security; and the working poor. The GOP had worked to expand the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) many times. The EITC is why many poor people don't pay federal taxes, and has always been treated as a giant step up from welfare. We'd rather people work than be on welfare, and if they make very little, we won't tax them to below welfare levels.

One of the largest expansions of the EITC was under Reagan. The GOP has traditionally been for the poor working as a way to help themselves, rather than getting welfare. Now, with the 47% comment and the "Gifts" comment, Romney has thrown decades of GOP policy down to toilet. He's now saying, "No welfare, no EITC, screw you, poor people. Go starve in the streets. You're not getting a step up, you're not getting shiat.

For a bunch of God fearing, church going folk, they sure do not care much about social welfare, the poor, and the disenfranchised. I am starting to get sick of them focusing on shiat like women's access to abortion when they should be focusing on why she is needing one in the first place and fixing that - poor, young, uneducated, forced into prostitution, whatever...

When Romney was caught back in June talking to the business owners, telling them that it was legal to tell their employees who to vote for, I got a whiff of "Eu de Robber Barron", which I found most distasteful. Romney is not my better. Romney isn't worthy to spit shine my shoes or the shoes of any American who goes to work every day. It was at that point that I decided that the GOP n' me were no longer a good fit.

Maybe it is because I am almost 30 and now with a little bit of life behind me, and have escaped my hometown - Orange County, SoCal...I am starting to see things a little differently...but the amount of crazy in the Republican Party is horrifying. While it is my own anecdotal observation...and don't get me wrong, the Dems have their mixed bag of far left cray cray too, I see the Dems as a lot more mainstream than anything else...it appears to me that they have done a pretty good job distancing themselves from the mega crazy and the Republicans need to do the same with the extreme religious right.

For me, it's the fact that the GOP was 100% confident that they had this election sewn up, and it finally didn't matter what they said or who they said it to. It didn't matter if they made enemies. What were our alternatives? Were we really gonna vote for the blah guy over Romney? Of course not. Now do what you're told and vote for Mitt.

One of my proudest moments as a conservative was watching the election results. Knowing that a lot of other conservatives did what I did, and voted for Obama. Or they did nothing and stayed home, knowing that Obama would get in by default. I don't think that anyone in the Republican Party has any idea yet what they wrought with this election. I don't think they know or could even guess how many conservatives they've turned away, many for good.

I have the paperwork here to re-register with another party. I wanted to wait until after the election so that there would be no confusion and my vote against Romney would count. It'll either be independent or Libertarian. Not sure, but I am no longer a Republican. They left me. I didn't leave them. Sounds like they've left you, too.