Moderate is kind of a loaded word too. It implies some middle ground – however I would not consider myself moderate in any way – as you pointed out I am quite black and white about fundamentals. For many aspects of our two major parties there is no middle ground between the two views. As a generalization both republicans and democrats are in favor of big spending and wealth redistribution (that’s a reflection of the population as its what gets a person elected) – democrats tending to lean toward social programs and republicans leaning toward terrorism-paranoia as a cover for wealth redistribution from taxpayers to large defense contractors, and both take any and all actions to devalue the US Dollar (redistribution from the future to the present). That’s stealing. Stealing is bad.

The third party could be Libertarian, and it’s happy and lovely to support that, but in practice we are pretty darn entrenched in our two-party system.

1. You strike me as someone who has fundamental views. That is, as far as people I know go, you see things more in terms of “black or white,” rather than “shades of gray.”

2. You also have some outwardly conservative tendencies — mostly in terms of personal finance, but also, perhaps in terms of your life choices. See your pro-choice bullet point. Some people will conflate your personal choices with your broader worldview.

To me these two things don’t add up to “right winger” at all. But I can see how someone who wasn’t taking the holistic “you” into consideration might make that assessment.

I think it comes down to rejecting wealth redistribution, when I think about it. That is firmly entrenched in the right.

To me “right winger” lives in a world with “neocon” or “wingnut” Unfortunately, there’s a huge lack of moderate, financially conservative but civil liberty-supporting republicans at the moment. I’d support a third party with those values, seeing as the current republicans are imploding with religiousity and don’t tend to be financially responsible, to say the least.