If it works for me

Every time I try to understand conservatism as a dogma I fail. Don't get wrong, I know where it comes from. I simply fail to sympathize with it. 

It should never really be left versus right in the first place but rather a stance which uses common sense principles to improve life for as many people as possible using reason. We understand it's never going to be perfectly fair but systems built to only benefit the few are not moral.

Conservatism at its core is firstly about fear of change which doesn't always have the best intentions. Slave owners were not happy to give up their property to the pleas of goody abolitionists who wanted the freedom and welfare of their captives.

Many conservatives of today might readily scoff that they aren't like that but then they have the benefit of hindsight from which they can laugh at what we now recognize as blatant lack of judgment. Except that in the mid 19th it wasn't so clear cut for everyone.

In general, the sentiments of conservatives seem to come from a place which ostensibly says "Don't change what works especially if it benefits me and please don't bother me with any inconvenient details"

I cannot sympathize.