Still searching

I am still trying to find a label for myself. I know I am conservative. In some ways I get more so every day. But when a person goes to vote, they don't vote conservative, they vote Republican or Democrat or sometimes as an Independent.

When I was a kid I decided I wanted to be a part of a religious group. I had never been baptised, although we went to church off and on and I attended Sunday school at a Presbyterian church when I was five or six. I considered myself a free agent. I was in fourth grade, maybe fifth, when I decided to go to church with friends. Kind of scope out the options. I attended non-denominational, Latter Day Saints, Catholic, Lutheran and a few others. I sang in a choir for a while. All the while I was developing a sense of what I was going to believe in. I had no prior indoctrination. For all I knew, I would convert to Judaism. There were no preconceived ideas. So after several years of going to different churches and hearing the different doctrines I started sensing in myself a system of belief. I sat with it for a while and figured out what it best fit. Lo and behold I was baptised into the Catholic Church three days after I turned 18. I figured which Church best fit what I had found to be "The Truth" as I saw it. Did the Church fit 100%? No. There were some things that I could not reconcile myself to. I was a young, single female and there were ideas I thought I had to stick with. I swept them under the rug because, well, don't we all suspend disbelief just a little when it comes to religion? Well, I do. I have been asked to explain Church doctrine enough to know that sometimes all I can say is "just because". I do not try and cross science and Church beliefs. I get as confused as the most confused about religion. I believe the 'Apostolic Creed' and that is really all I need to say, as it says it all for me.

What does this all have to do with politics? I find myself going about this whole label thing in the same way I did with religion. I am reading. I am watching and I am trying to figure out what I believe in. Let me tell you something. I find it a whole lot easier to believe in the infallibility of the Pope than to believe a politician when his lips are moving. My biggest problem is that my political belief system is not falling so easily into a category as my religious beliefs did. What do I believe? Today I am an Isolationist. North Korea is scaring me. I am Pro-Life, but at the same time, I find it difficult to make someone take on my sensibilities. I believe "marriage" is more of a religious obligation, that should be sanctioned by churches. Civil unions, male or female or any mix you care, should be allowed, but, as a civil union for legal purposes. I believe government is too big and we need to overhaul the tax system. We should not have National health care, but our current system is flawed. We need to work on getting people off welfare and into supporting themselves and their families, whatever form they take. I believe in personal responsibility and think that our court system needs to start booting frivolous lawsuits. I believe that we should be able to make our own choices as to how we live as long as we do not infringe on others. So where do I fit? I am not anywhere near the Left. I have been a registered Republican for over twenty years and I feel a little abandoned by them. So am I Libertarian or Independent? Independent or Libertarian? Or am I still a Republican? I hope someone or something speaks to me like it did when I was seventeen. I have choices to make and this is not the time to be making wrong ones.