Are we confused?

[slamlander]

In the US there is no true difference between a Conservative and a Liberal. In the US, a la Webster’s, a conservative is simply one who resists change. Do NOT apply this equally to political and moral conservatism. The are NOT the same, however much the Religious Right likes to conflate the two.
A political conservative is someone, like myself, that seeks to resist changes to the US Constitution, which is still the single most liberal political document ever written and enacted.
The Religious Right seeks to change the US Constitution, or it’s interpretation, to suit Puritan moral values. That makes them radicals, by definition. Radical is not Conservatism. To a true Constitutional Conservative, the Radical Social-Religious Right is anti-Liberty and therefore anathema. We must defend our holy document from such heresy as DOMA and Prohibition 1 . The War on Drugs is a tool of the Puritanical Religious Right.
I am Constitutionally an extreme conservative but socially, I am also a bit of a Liberal because the US Constitution is. Puritan moral values and social mores are incompatible with the US Constitution. In short, you cannot be both an American and a religious moralist.
Too many call themselves conservative when they are actually religious moralists. We cannot fight the enemy as long as our terms are confused. Allowing the Religious Right to also call themselves the Political Right is conceding the war to the enemy, let alone the battle. It’s allowing wolves to call themselves sheep dogs. This is what has been happening to the GOP for years now. Palin and the Tea Party would like nothing more than to shred a document that they do not understand and do not even want to read, the US Constitution.
Remember during this election that the Political Right is NOT the same as the Moral or Religious Right and they will be trying to confuse us all by conflating the two.

1. Note precisely that, there is no mention of banning substances or even controlling them in the US Constitution and before the amendments on alcohol, such were even considered unconstitutional. Most US Founding Fathers would today be in jail as drug users and abusers. [ ↩]

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