It is obvious to me that you're either young and idealistic and/or you've had little personal interaction with actual conservatives. In my city I'm outnumbered 4-1. I often encounter liberals with bigoted, preconceived notions of what conservatives actually believe. But the fact of the matter is, most conservatives want to live and let live - unlike RR "conservatives" who disregard individual rights when it suits their agenda, or liberals who seek to regulate every detail of our lives.
That said, an increasing number of Americans consider themselves to be conservative (approximately 37%), while liberalism continues to shrink (less than 20% according to nearly every survey). Sorry to burst your bubble, but welfare state liberalism is a dying ideology in America.
And middle class America is dying as liberalism shrinks. I'm not young but my liberalism has never waned. It's because as a liberal, I put human beings ahead of material things. I've been around since Harry Truman was President, so I lived through a good portion of the liberal era that started with the New Deal and ended with the Great Society. It was America's finest moment. It was an era with huge economic growth and shared wealth, fantastic successes in technology, vast expansion of citizen freedoms and liberties and the growth of a middle class that defined this country and made America the 'city upon the hill', the envy of the world.
That era ended at the close of the 1960's and the conservative era began. It has continued ever since. It has been a negative mirror image of the liberal era our nation was founded on. We now lead the world only in the dubious like incarcerating human beings, killing innocent people and launching Hirohito sneak attacks on sovereign nations.
You are more that welcome to defend conservatism, but I have yet to meet anyone who can do it without diminishing others or requiring some group of human beings to evaporate. It is a negative form of thought that is incompatible with a free and open society. It is anti-democratic in nature and builds nothing, it can only tear things down. The last 30 years are a prime example of the failure of conservatism.
Conservatism throughout human history always tries to create an aristocracy, plutocracy, or some form of oppressive society where there is a ruling class or hierarchy. Today's aristocrats and hierarchy are the CEO's, corporations, free marketeers, and the business elite. Conservatives will defend to the death McDonalds right to slowly poison our children, but they never defend our children's health and well being.
I've lived to see the total failure of two revolutions of extreme ideology. The Bolshevik revolution and the Reagan revolution. Unfettered communism and unfettered capitalism creates the same end...failure.
Conservatism has no investment in human capital. It believes everyone is basically evil, so it treats people accordingly. Conservatism creates fear of 'others', some group of people that must be excluded or ostracized. Liberalism is faith in human beings and a trust that the human spirit can solve all man-made problems. Liberalism is a belief that everyone is basically good, and all most people need is a fair opportunity to succeed.
Liberalism is trust of the people, tempered by prudence; conservatism, distrust of people, tempered by fear.
William E. Gladstone
