Paid matchmakers and arranged marriages based on financial considerations are conservative.

Solve the problem by making the list of acceptable behavior so small that you can remember it?

maybe he means this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle

I thought you were joking (and maybe you are) but now that I think about it, that's a really good life philosophy. Tolerate behavior in others beyond what you would engage in yourself.

Of course, this works better for social conventions like "call me by my last name" or "pay for your date's dinner" than for stuff like "don't be gay", which is sadly what's more associated with conservatism in this country.

That's how I try to operate. Everybody should get a break but me. There's a word for giving yourself a break for bad behavior: rationalization.

I can't tell if you are being serious but it can't be a white list. We'll have too many false positives.

> My slow path to conservatism.

If you mean conservatism of the political kind, come live in Texas for awhile to get a taste of life in a conservative state; you're likely to reconsider how far you want to go down that path. I'm a lifelong Republican and always thought of myself as fairly conservative; in recent years, though, mainly because of the Tea Party -- and the life lessons learned from the challenges of, e.g., raising two kids to adulthood -- I've probably voted for Democrats almost as often as for Republicans. I have Republican friends who are so disenchanted that they've talked about switching parties.

Or alcoholism.