I tend towards the conservative/libertarian end of the spectrum, not because I hate poor people or want small children to die of leukemia or think only rich, straight, white dudes should run the world (not saying anybody here thinks or said that, but that's the stereotype
), but mostly because I favor very limited government, with minimal regulations and interference into people's lives. I tend to think that, in general, government "solutions" tend to do nothing at best, or (more commonly) exacerbate the problem at worse. For me, the idea of subsidiarity tends to come into play here, which is basically the notion that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralized competent authority and that political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority. I think that, especially in a country like the United States, which is geographically huge and very regionally and ethnically diverse, trying to come up with a one-size-fits-all, top-down federal solution to things is just not going to work in the vast majority of cases. For example, what works to fix a failing school in, say, an inner-city school in Chicago is not necessarily what is going to work to fix a failing school in a West Virginia mining town or one in rural Montana.