Rather than assuming a silly little test would capture my conservatism, I have chosen to rate myself on a 10-point scale where 10 would be the most conservative. I will rate myself on several factors, post a brief description and provide a link for more information.
Paleoconservatism =8
Paleoconservatism (sometimes shortened to paleo or paleocon when the context is clear) is a term for an anti-communist and anti-imperialist political philosophy in the United States stressing tradition, civil society and anti-federalism, along with religious, regional, national and Western identity.[1] Chilton Williamson, Jr. describes paleoconservatism as "the expression of rootedness: a sense of place and of history, a sense of self derived from forebears, kin, and culture—an identity that is both collective and personal."[2] Paleoconservatism is not expressed as an ideology and its adherents do not necessarily subscribe to any one party line.[3]
Paleoconservatives in the 21st century often highlight their points of disagreement with neoconservatives, especially on issues like immigration, affirmative action, U.S. funding of its allies abroad, foreign wars, and social welfare.[1] They also criticize social democracy, which some refer to as the "therapeutic managerial state,"[4] the "welfare-warfare state"[5] or "polite totalitarianism."[6] They see themselves as the legitimate heirs to the American conservative tradition.[7]
Paul Gottfried is credited with coining the term in the 1980s.[8] He says the term originally referred to various Americans, such as conservative and traditionalist Catholics and agrarian Southerners, who turned to anticommunism during the Cold War.[9]
Paleoconservative thought has developed within the pages of the Rockford Institute's Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.[10] Pat Buchanan was heavily influenced by its articles[9] and helped create another paleocon publication, The American Conservative.[11] Its concerns overlap those of the Old Right that opposed the New Deal in the 1930s and 1940s,[12] as well as American social conservatism of the late 20th century expressed, for example, in the book Single Issues by Joseph Sobran.
traditional conservative score =7
Traditionalist conservatism, also known as "traditional conservatism," "traditionalism," and "Burkean conservatism" (and in non-American English-speaking nations, Toryism) describes a political philosophy emphasizing the need for the principles of natural law and transcendent moral order, tradition, hierarchy and organic unity, agrarianism, classicism and high culture, and the intersecting spheres of loyalty.[1] Some traditionalists have embraced the labels "reactionary" and "counterrevolutionary", defying the stigma that has attached to these terms since the Enlightenment. Having a hierarchical view of society many non-American traditionalist conservatives defend the monarchical political structure as the most natural and beneficial social arrangement.
Traditionalism—not being an exact political model—has existed since the inception of civilization; its contemporary expression, however, developed in the Eighteenth Century (particularly in response to the English Civil War and the French Revolution). Not until the mid-twentieth century did traditionalist conservatism in the United States begin to organize itself in earnest as an intellectual and political force. This more modern expression of traditionalist conservatism began among a group of U.S. university professors (labeled the "New Conservatives" by the popular press) who rejected the notions of individualism, liberalism, modernity, and social progress, promoted cultural and educational renewal[2], and revived interest in what T. S. Eliot referred to as "the permanent things" (those perennial truths which endure from age to age and those basic institutions that ground society, such as the church, the family, the state, local community, etc.).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist_conservatism
cultural conservative =7
In the United States, the term cultural conservative has increasingly been used as a replacement for the terms Christian right or religious right. In the US, the term cultural conservative may imply a conservative position in the culture wars. An example of a cultural conservative in the broader sense is Allan Bloom, arguing in The Closing of the American Mind against cultural relativism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_conservatism
social conservative =6
Social conservatism is a political or moral ideology that believes government and/or society have a role in encouraging or enforcing what they consider traditional values or behaviors based on the belief that these are what keep people civilized and decent. A second meaning of the term social conservatism developed in the Nordic countries and continental Europe. There it refers to liberal conservatives supporting modern European welfare states. Social conservatism is distinct from cultural conservatism which focuses on cultural aspects of the issues, such as protecting one's culture, although there are some overlaps.
The accepted meaning of traditional morality often differs from group to group within social conservatism. Thus, there are really no policies or positions that could be considered universal among social conservatives. There are, however, a number of principles to which at least a majority of social conservatives adhere. Social conservatives in many countries generally: favor the pro-life position in the abortion controversy and oppose public funding of embryonic stem cell research; oppose both Eugenics (inheritable genetic modification) and human enhancement (Transhumanism) while supporting Bioconservatism [1]; support a traditional definition of marriage as being one man and one woman; view the nuclear family model as society's foundational unit; oppose expansion of civil marriage and child adoption rights to couples in same-sex relationships; promote public morality and traditional family values; oppose secularism and privatization of religious belief; support the prohibition of drugs, prostitution, premarital sex, non-marital sex and euthanasia; and support the censorship of pornography and what they consider to be obscenity or indecency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_conservatism
economic conservative =8
Fiscal conservatism is the economic philosophy of prudence in government spending and debt.[38] Edmund Burke, in his 'Reflections on the Revolution in France', argued that a government does not have the right to run up large debts and then throw the burden on the taxpayer:
...
t is to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the first and original faith of civil society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition or by descent or in virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the creditor's security, expressed or implied...[T]he public, whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism
