Okay, I have a lot of respect for that approach (opinions based on reason and logic....) and since you lean conservative maybe you can help me understand something. I don't mean to offend but it seems to me that many socially conservative policies reflect rather short term thinking fiscally. And since conservatives are all about hanging on to their money it seems to be a contradiction. For instance, it makes sense to me to provide people with a quality education and keep them healthy (preventative care). It seems like it would lesson the odds that they will develop a long-term dependency on government assistance, not to mention less loss in some private industry (ie: healthcare). Educate me.
It does reflect short term thinking, lol. At the same time we can't consider 'conservatives' and 'progressives' or 'Republicans' and 'Democrats' to be fully consistent. Each group is a summation of millions of different political viewpoints, which when combined, don't make coherent sense. A fiscally-minded person could want preventive care while a hands-off person could oppose preventive care; both are conservative, it only happens that the hands-off person is louder on this particular issue. In another issue, he could be drowned out by a contending viewpoint that is also considered 'conservative'. We work with a black-white political system in a gray world.
Anyhow, a conservative believes that everyone ought to be looking after herself and her loved ones. That she is the best to know about her life condition (which is true) to make her own life decisions. That trumps most everything. If she chooses to live an unhealthy lifestyle or avoid educating herself, we may chide her for doing that, but it her right to do so. And I think most conservatives believe that to be the ultimate understanding of what personal freedom is and ultimately what will allow for people to empower themselves.
I don't believe that to be universally true.
Progressives, I feel, take that too far in the entirely opposite direction. That the community, government, experts or "you choose the authority" know how to shape a person's economic or personal success, and that the authority can also be successful in implementing that vision. Generally that leads to an intrusive government, which more often than not mucks things up because of unpredictiability, false assumptions, faulty policy implementations, screwy incentives or a want to micromanage. (Of course, companies and other organizations do that as well.) What may work for someone to encourage preventative care (e.g. 'tax credits for a healthy lifestyle') may in fact be detrimental to another person; or perhaps at its worse cause harm because one activity deemed as 'healthy' by the legislation might be discovered as cancerous, or in another case might prove for an incentive to fraudently claim tax credits.
It's a no win situation. But beyond that, mandated education and preventive care makes sense to me as well. We're social being that do not live in isolated bubbles.