Holding on to the conservative label can be tough, especially if you have your own ideas that counter the mainstream, according to Paul Krugman.
The Nobel Prize-winning economist wrote in a blog post Saturday that people who identify as conservative, but take stances opposing the conservative mainstream -- acknowledging the connection between humans and global warming, opposing austerity and favoring tax increases, for example -- often find themselves disowned by the conservative movement.
“There remains essentially no room for independent thinking within the conservative movement,” Krugman wrote. “Being a good liberal doesn't require that you believe, or pretend to believe, lots of things that almost certainly aren’t true; being a good conservative does."
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith