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"What’s wrong with being a Conservative?"

Nothing is wrong with being a Conservative, but to call me such would be at best approximately correct, by the most common readings in the US today, just as calling a libertarian a conservative would be a rather crude approximation.

To call me a libertarian would be closer, but many libertarians have a much greater aversion to government at all levels than I do. I do think that the US Constitution, properly read, would prevent many currently common exertions of federal power; I do not think it prevents most exertions of power at the state level. This makes me also a federalist. I am opposed to all sorts of things done by my state (Massachusetts), but wasteful state spending and intrusive state government would not bother me much in a system, as envisioned by the Founders, where states were free to compete and innovate largely free of federal power.

I am equally appalled that the federal government presumes to undermine California's approval of medical marijuana as that it presumes to tell the states what their abortion laws should look like -- and I would be equally appalled if the federal government took the equally presumptuous but opposite position on each (i.e., requiring states to allow medical marijuana, and forbidding states to allow abortion).