I am neither on the "left" nor the "right". I actually find these terms quite meaningless because they are neutral on the most important aspect of our political system: freedom versus tyranny. I do not understand how Thatcherite economic "conservatives" can ally themselves with theocratic absolutists like Jerry Falwell. I similarly do not understand how an ACLU lawyer can be considered on the same "left" as Stalinist.
The words "Liberal" and "Conservative" have been twisted into being synonyms for Left and Right so it is similarly impossible for me to use them without qualification.
Left and Right are no longer meaningful ideological divisions (if they ever were). They are tribes that people join for all of the usual reasons that people self-organize into tribes. First and foremost it must be possible to recognize friends and foes based on their uniform rather than their ideas. For some people, they also make it simpler to know what the "right" opinions are on particular issues. But my observation is that the great thinkers do not fit easily into these categories. George Orwell called himself a Socialist but wrote books that warned of the potential dangers of socialism misapplied.
This confusion is exaggerated in bipolar political systems and then mixed with a healthy dose of genteel corruption. If neither party will stand up for freedom then the question is merely whether they will submit to the tyranny of the masses who vote or the elite who pay for their campaigns.
Labels can nevertheless be useful...
I am a Progressive: I believe that society can get much better than it is (though never perfect). I also believe that careful, judicious governance can greatly improve the lives of citizens. I understand that very often government power is badly applied. I believe that this is due to the fact that there is so much confusion about the role of government. One of the most egregious examples of this is the "war on drugs": goverment setting up organized crime monopolies in order to protect citizens from their own mistakes. Nevertheless, we cannot abandon the beneficial power of government. Government is necessary to protect us from each other, mediate our disputes and maintain the conditions necessary for free-market competition.
I am Liberal in the nineteenth century sense. I believe that the best economic system is one in which people choose their own jobs, their own bosses, their own employees and their own trading partners. I think that Hayek conclusively demonstrated in "The Road to Serfdom" that meaningful freedom is incompatible with a planned economy. Given that a planned economy is also terribly inefficient, the arguments against it are overwhelming.
I am partially a Conservative in that I believe that the freedoms that were won in the nineteenth century need to be protected from the forgetfulness and fashions of today. We live in a good economic and political system. It is flawed, but fundamentally on the right path. Our failures of the past (e.g. limitations on suffrage) are deviations from the Enlightenment path that we have been on. We must fix the flaws without forgetting what makes it good.
I am an Internationalist: I believe that a few, limited powers must be delegated above the national level. I also believe that people should have the right to live and work in whatever country they wish. I understand that this is not practical yet but think that we must work towards a world in which this is practically feasible. This should be done through a variety of programs designed to help poor countries "catch up". The majority of this should not be done through foreign aid, however. We could focus on helping them set up effective governmental systems. If you don't know what I mean by this, pick up Hernando De Soto's the Mystery of Capital or almost any issue of the Economist.
I believe that the problems of an African bush farmer should be as immediate and important to a North American as the urban decay around the corner. Nevertheless, I strongly believe that most of the problems of the world's impoverished countries are home grown (again, see De Soto and the Economist for good analyses). We cannot fix them from afar. At best we can advise and cajole. In the most extreme cases we can intervene militarily but that should be rare.
I am a Secularist: I believe that the mixing of government and religion harms both. The one half of this can be clearly seen if you compare the vigor of America's independent churches to the decaying state churches of Europe. The other half can be seen in the Inquisition!
What political system would I advise? I reject all forms of coercive and totalitarian government, including socialism/communism, theocracy and fascism. The times being what they are, I do not think I need to go into this in any greater detail. I also reject "libertarian" or "laissez faire" governance. I think that Hayek lays out a fairly clear and rational system where the market is used for the things at which it excels and the government does the rest. The times being what they are, I think I should emphasize this issue more. I will do so with a quote from Hayek's "The Road To Serfdom":
It is important not to confuse opposition against [socialist] planning with a dogmatic laissez faire attitude. The liberal argument is in favor of making the best possible use of the forms of competition as a means of co-ordinating human effort, not an argument for leaving things just as they are. It is based on the conviction that, where effective competition can be created, it is a better way of guiding individual efforts than any other. It does not deny, but even emphasizes that in order that competition should work beneficially, a carefully thought-out legal framework is required and that neither the existing nor the past legal rules are free from grave defects. Nor does it deny that, where it is impossible to create the conditions necessary to make competition effective, we must resort to other methods of guiding economic activity. Economic liberalism is opposed, however, to competitions being supplanted by inferior methods of co-ordinating individual efforts. And it regards competition as superior not only because it is in most circumstances the most efficient method known but even more because it is the only method by which our activities can be adjusted to each other without coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority. Indeed, one of the main arguments in favor of competition is that it dispenses with the need for "conscious social control" and that it gives the individuals a chance to decide whether the prospects of a particular occupation are sufficient to compensate for the disadvantages and risks connected with it.
The successful use of competition as the principle of social organization precludes certain types of coercive interference with economic life, but it admits of others which sometimes may very considerably assist its work and even requires certain kinds of government action. [deletia]
[Economic Liberalism does not necessarily preclude] measures merely restricting the allowed methods of production so long as these restrictions affect all potential producers equally and are not used as an indirect way of controlling prices and quantities. Though all such controls of the methods or production impose extra costs (i.e., make it necessary to use more resources to produce a given output), they may be well worth while. To prohibit the use of certain poisonous substances or to require special precautions in their use, to limit working hours or to require certain sanitary arrangements, is fully compatible with the preservation of competition. The only question here is whether in the particular instance the advantages gained are greater than the social costs which they impose. Nor is the preservation of competition incompatible with an extensive system of social services -- so long as the organization of these services is not designed in such a way as to make competition ineffective over wide fields.
[deletia]
There are, finally, undoubted fields where no legal arrangements can create the main condition on which the usefulness of the system of competition and private property depends: namely, that the owner benefits from all the useful services rendered by his property and surfers for all the damages caused to others by its use. Where, for example, it is impracticable to make the enjoyment of certain services dependent on the payment of a price, competition will not produce the services; and the price system becomes similarly ineffective when the damage cause to others by certain uses of property cannot be effectively charged to the owner of that property. In all these instances there is a divergence between the items which enter into private calculation and those which affect social welfare; and whenever this divergence becomes important, some method other than competition may have to be found to supply the services in question. Thus neither the provision of signposts on the roads nor, in most circumstances, that of the roads themselves can be paid for by every individual user. Nor can certain harmful effects of deforestation, of some methods of farming, or of the smoke and noise of factories be confined to the owner of the property in question or to those who are willing to submit to the damage for an agreed compensation. In such instances we must find some substitute for the regulation by the price mechanism. But the fact that we have to resort to the substitution of direct regulation by authority where the conditions for the proper working of competition cannot be created does not prove that we should suppress competition where it can be made to function.
To create conditions in which competition will be as effective as possible, to supplement it where it cannot be made effective, to provide the services which, in the words of Adam Smith, "though they may be in the highest degree advantages to a great society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals" -- these tasks provide, indeed, a wide and unquestioned field for state activity. In no system that could be rationally defined would the state just do nothing. An effective competitive system needs an intelligent designed and continuously adjusted legal framework as much as any other. Even the most essential prerequisite of its proper functioning, the prevention of fraud and deception (including exploitation of ignorance), provides a great and by not means yet fully accomplished object of legislative activity.
So there you go, Hayek essentially describes our current system. But if you read his writing you will see that he describes why it works. This helps us to understand what can be improved without destroying its key fetures: freedom, inefficiency and a rising standard living for the poor and middle class.