Are conservatives actually conservative, or do they just want what they want and call it conservative? originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

Conservatives are far from a monolithic hive mind, since even in my few decades on this planet I have found a very wide variety on what one can call conservatism.

I have found dyed in the wool conservatives who sincerely believe anyone to the left of them, even by the barest amount, is a raging communist at worst and a RINO at best. Yeah, you and they may both believe in cutting taxes, privatizing most governmental services, and maintaining a strong military, but that you feel National Parks should stay in the public realm means means you are a socialist and are voting conservative to upset elections. Or something like that.

I have met Libertarians who believe they are the only true conservatives and I have found Republicans who believe the same.

I know and am related by marriage to New England conservatives who respect but do not agree with Bernie Sanders, support economic conservatism, and will happily greet the new homosexual couple down the street with baked goods and honestly believe they deserve equal rights because that maximizes individual liberty.

I’ve chatted with old school Southern California conservatives who are dedicated sportsmen, and yes they are mostly men, who feel semi legitimately cut out of environmental decisions on the part of the state, though they too support conserving natural spaces.

I have also met similar ones who feel California DNR is trying to force them to stop panning and even mining for gold in state parks and shouldn’t because that is public space and open for all to do anything they want.

I’m colleagues with conservatives in PA who drive hybrids and can’t wait for affordable long range electric vehicles, but who feel government is too big and needs to be scaled back.

I have met conservatives who honestly believe it’s important for government to either expel minorities or keep them segregated from white folk. Or the regular occurrence in my life of moving into mixed and poorer neighborhoods and meeting a random old timer who never left congratulating me on helping make the neighborhood white again.

And I have met some incredibly fair and just conservatives who are lovely company in my life.

And this is just skimming the surface of people I have met who self-declare as conservative.

Because, here’s the thing about humans: We self-identify as the position we think most identify’s with our views. Which means the variety of people who hew to said views has incredible variation and cannot be said as any one thing. They can be generous and mean, welcoming and closed off, fair and miserly, just and immoral. And they can claim to have the more positive aspect while actually being the negative, or a mix, or the complete opposite.

So humans are human, and believe it or not, conservatives are human too.

I want to end on an anecdote of one of my in-laws. She is in her 60s and has been working as a RN for much of her life. She believes sincerely in evidence based medical science and reads up on it as part of her work. She is sincerely dedicated to the ideals of being baby friendly as part of her work in perinatal care and it extends into her feeling and understanding about social aspects of society. As such, she believes that a great deal of hate in the world and the US could be fixed by greater expressions of parental love in childhood and that the government should help promote that.

She believes her tax dollars are wasted and heavily go to fund people on welfare. She believes that the government is too large, too powerful, and in her state, heavily influenced by trust fund money. She feels her state drove industry from it and should do everything to welcome it back since it will automatically bring 1950s levels of jobs back with it.

She feels that the rich are too rich and should do more in patronage and philanthropy. She sincerely believes the wealthy of today should emulate the Carnegies, Rockefellers, and other famous philanthropists of the last century and do more to fund cultural institutions so she and other citizens can attend such institutions for free. And by doing so, become more educated and aware of people on Earth.

I offer all of the above with no criticism, just observation of my fellow humans of that persuasion.

Thank you for reading.

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