[user104658]

Swings and roundabouts. Before I had kids I was a straight-up anarchist at heart; I'd have seen the world torn down around me and called that justice. I thought the capitalist system, the whole concept of government really, was an unnecessary sham and a joke. Not very conservative.

At the same time, I had very little sympathy for those on benefits, the disabled, immigrants, or really anyone who wasn't me which is Conservative-with-a-big-C through and through isn't it?

Age and experience have made me far more sympathetic and thus far more supportive of socialist policies, because I understand that the world is the way it is and thus they are necessary. On the same note - recognising that the world is the way it is - I understand that various systems of capitalism are necessary for the world to continue to function as well. We need a balance of both. Is the system still trash? Of course it is, absolutely, but I suppose as you age what you gain is pragmatism over idealism; you start to realise that just shouting "OMG the system is trash lol" and tearing it down over night actually means poverty, misery, and the absolute destruction of millions of lives.

I've sort of lost what I'm saying here.

I guess what I mean is, as you get a bit older you (hopefully) lose some of the naivety and idealism. But that could go either way, depending on how that looked when the person was young? Some young people believe that a totally fair and equal utopia is possible and age/wisdom, on them, probably looks like a slide towards conservatism in realising that the world is never going to work that way. On the other hand, some naive people - often those born into financial comfort - think all benefits should be scrapped and that taxation is terribly unfair, and that if poor people "only worked a bit harder" they'd have plenty of money. Age and wisdom on those people... the ones who actually gain it... would look like a slide to the left, as they begin to understand that taxation and social support is the glue holding their comfortable world together.