Well, the fundamental political choice is between animalism and humanism. At this late date, "conservatism" and "liberalism" only obscure the picture.

Humanism is about our differences from animals. Once we recognize that reason, freewill, imagination, and creativity give us godlike knowledge and power, compared to the other animal species, we should prefer to live in a society that doesn't treat anyone like an animal or a slave, and that enables us to fulfill our potential.

So-called liberalism comes closer to that than does a "conservative" society that amounts to a free-market plutocracy or a dictatorship, since those conservative societies enable only the wealthy or strongman elites to fulfill their human potential--and then only self-destructively, since the excessive power over others corrupts the elites. The masses are treated as drones and dupes.

There's a fine balance in a liberal society between having the freedom and the resources to develop ourselves and being burdened with a nanny state and with unions that likewise become corrupt. There are dead ends around nearly every political corner. But one sign we'd be on the right track, I think, is if the existential perspective on the human predicament were uppermost in all the citizens' minds.