I've been playing around with the idea of publishing a creed, something that might help to explain me.
Here is what I have so far:
1 - The idea of total human fulfillment is a chimera. There's no real resolution to most important problems, and the idea that once upon a time all people more or less agreed about everything that mattered is a joke. Conflicts of value are an irremovable past of human life, and a world where those conflicts are resolved isn't a world we'd recognize. Orthodox Judaism tends to blur over this reality. Perhaps, this is why words like "authentic," and "Torah True" make me reach for my revolver.
2 - Too-much liberty is always preferable to the alternative. I know the current fad is to trade liberty for security, but I really do think that's a mistake. Implicitly, conservatives agree. After all, they've sent 2100 Americans and counting (not to mention 45,000 Iraquis) to their deaths, ostentatiously for the sake of bringing more liberty to Iraq.
3 - I feel the pull of history and tradition. A ruling from Moses himself isn't enough to make me eat pork, and the Pope on his knees begging forgivness for the sins of his Church and his culture aren't going to make me forget 2000 years of anguish.
4 - The underdog deserves our attention, and often our sympathy I know there have been vile underdogs, but there have been many more vile overdogs. The surest way to increase human happiness is to limit human power, and the underdog often helps to keep power in check.