My ideologies are 'what works' and 'justice', in that order. Currently it means I'm left-leaning in practice. The right seems to have a tendency to ignore nuances and complexities (not everyone, of course, but it seems too common), which the left seems to acknowledge much better. Of course the issue is that I'd have to be an expert in so many things to be reasonably sure I'm right in my assessment, and that's simply not a realistic option.

Is thing X going to be worth the cost? Makes sense that it would, but it's actually really hard to predict. The right often ignores the benefit of X altogether and simply says it's too expensive, whereas the left at least acknowledges the benefit, but I don't know if it's based on reasonable calculations. Regardless, at least acknowledging the benefits seems more trustworthy than simply ignoring them. Rinse and repeat for a lot of issues. Of course I don't assess the situation only based on who acknowledges and what, but with our economy not doing too great and there being talk of how we obviously can't afford certain things and not acknowledging the benefits of said things, the credibility of the right has certainly taken a hit in my eyes.

That said, I don't really consider myself to be left or right. It's the arguments that matter. I have some views that could be considered right-leaning or somewhat conservative too, but for the purposes of this thread, I'm definitely left-leaning.

What I really don't like is populist stuff. Everyone does populism, and I dislike it in both the left and the right, but for some, it's half of the whole thing. I wish we could do meritocracy instead of the current form of democracy so we could probably avoid much of the populism problem, but I also realize democracy might be our best option for getting rid of a bad administration that's bound to happen at some point. Sadly my faith in this aspect of democracy actually working as well as hoped has been shaken in the recent years.

https://www.newsweek.com/colorado-only-blue-state-10-places-americans-moving-2036075

always found it interesting that people are leaving blue states for red states...

You are missing the point.

Being in the center means you don't hold a bias for any policy just because it's conservative or progressive.

If you are progressive or conservative, then you tend to be extremely abrasive to competing points of view, rather than judge those particular points of view on their individual merits.

For example... I hold very conservative immigration/border policy views because I believe as a nation we shouldn't have unchecked migration, it needs to be controlled to keep cross-border crime to a minimum, but also allow us to plan and build infrastructure to support the increase in population and maintain one of the worlds highest standards of living.

But I also hold very progressive social views in regards to healthcare, universal health care has not only provided us with some of the best quality care in the world... But it's also one of the cheapest systems on a per-capita basis.

If I was stringently progressive or conservative, one of those would come into conflict... I'm not going to support something just because it's conservative or progressive, that would be stupid.

Consequently... The further left or right you go, the more they are the same. (Political horse shoe theory)

I am left-wing (in fact, leaning more and more to the left as the years go by, as some have already mentioned here) and I totally agree with you on this. To me, right-wing people come across individualistic people, who don't care about the social welfare. As long as they are fine, nothing more is important. In fact, if they could worsen other people's life just to make their lives a little bit better, they would do it without hesitation. Lack of empathy is the core element that ties them together and this characteristic can be seen in right-wing positions like being against the State provide public services like healthcare, education, or being in favor of laws that undermine minorities rights

Florida gets more federal bailouts than anyone with hurricane relief. Trump does want to cut Fema, so we'll see how that goes. Far left states like California, New York, Minnesota etc taxes bailout quite a few red states that would go bankrupt if they didn't get that sweet sweet federal money bailout every year. States like Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky, Alaska, Mississippi, and many others get a lot more money from the federal government than they pay in taxes.  Texas is one of the few red states that could fund itself.

I sometimes get confused when people say they are centrist so thanks for clarifying. To me, there are two types of centrists.

One is, “I support some things on this side, and some things on this side so I don’t belong to a particular side.” This seems like your perspective and I can understand that.

The other is, “The right wants this and the left wants this so let’s meet in the middle!” On some issues I can see the merit of this but on other issues it makes no sense and doesn’t lead to any improvement.

I guess I would sort of call myself a centrist, in the sense that I lean left on some issues and right on others, and find that there's a lot of off-putting extremism on both sides these days.

I'm left on maybe 70% or so of issues; I support equal rights under the law, protecting the environment, universal healthcare, gun control, a robust welfare safety net, unions, and such like.

On the right side, I support freedom of speech even if it offends, I oppose mass immigration, I don't believe in penalizing groups like say men or white people today cos bad things happened in the past, and I'm against affirmative action and other such programs as I believe people should be treated equally. 

A couple things about your right side examples. Is freedom of speech a right wing view? I don’t think the right gets to claim that after the current administration has defunded universities, deported students and sued networks. The right likes to complain about cancel culture but are just as bad about it, boycotting Carhartt during the pandemic for having mask mandates for employees, boycotting Bud Light for having a trans person in an advertisement, boycotting M&Ms because the female M&M started wearing sneakers instead of “sexy” boots, boycotting The Little Mermaid because “mermaids aren’t black!”……the list goes on.

Also, as a straight, white man, I’ve never once felt penalized for being any of those things. Things like affirmative action were put in place because women, minorities & LGBT people weren’t getting equal treatment. Even with policies and programs to help, these groups are still statistically more likely to be denied things like employment, wages, housing, loans, higher education, etc. Policies helping certain groups of people=/=other groups are being punished.

The alt right engages in cancel culture too, absolutely, nowadays though I find most of the restrictions on expression come from the alt left.

I simply believe people should be treated equally regardless of things like race or gender; the solution to discrimination is to stop discriminating.

I can definitely feel frustration about left wingers/liberals who are restrictive on expression.

But I can't agree that it's a left wing thing at all.

On plenty of topics, a lot of left wingers will be upset if you say certain things, and right wingers will be upset if you say the opposite of those things. I could probably get myself banned in 15 minutes on a right wing sub saying that trans rights are human rights, and a left wing sub where I say trans rights aren't human rights.

Different communities definitely push things further than others. Era can be fairly restrictive for right wing speech. r/conservative is very restrictive for left wing speech.