[T]

Tht is, what is the most powerful determining factor in making someone a conservative? I ask because I get the impression that advocating limied government isn't as important to rank-and-file rightists than pushing conservative social values.

[Freedom]

Tht is, what is the most powerful determining factor in making someone a conservative? I ask because I get the impression that advocating limied government isn't as important to rank-and-file rightists than pushing conservative social values.

You are mixed up, the rank and file conservative is all for Limited Government, its the Higher ups that dont push these ideals forward. go to any rank and file right wing site and you will find reference to the need for a limited government.

With every political ideal, there is some inherint social values that make it so different from another.

[MB.]

Ergo: Crush big 'government' and make room for the market, da?

Since we're talking ideologies here, why not throw in the economic beliefs of conservitives (ie, Taxes = Bad)?

I'm not saying that this link is found only in conservitisim, but it does seem more pronounced therein rather then in other realms of the political spectrum.

[T]

You are mixed up, the rank and file conservative is all for Limited Government, its the Higher ups that dont push these ideals forward. go to any rank and file right wing site and you will find reference to the need for a limited government.

Rank and file voters don't have websites!

[Freedom]

Rank and file voters don't have websites!

What the hell i'm aware of about 100 Conservative blogs. and many other more intellectual conservative pages.

Thats absured. Just like there is many left wing websites there is equally as many right wing websites.

Bah

[T]

My point is that bloggers aren't a representative sample of Americna conservative voters. I'm wondering whether most people who vote republican do so mainly because they favor limited government, or mainly for other reasons.

[Demosthenes]

Limited government, Pro-2nd Amendment, Strong Militarily, Less Taxes, Pro-state's rights, Use of common sense more often. (note- I said more often not all the time) Sound economic policy, among other reasons...although I'm not always wild about some of the exteme conservative's social agendas...

[T]

I first started thinking about this when I read this piece in The Atlantic a while ago. It quotes two former Clinton advisors that the best predictors of who someone will vote for, other than party affiliation and race, are how they answer five questions:

Do you believe homosexuality is morally wrong? Do you ever personally look at pornography? Would you look down on someone who had an affair while married? Do you believe sex before marriage is morally wrong? The fifth question was whether religion was very important in the voter's life.

If it's true, this is a worrying development. It means that the American political spectrum is increasingly divided along these idealogical lines, increasingly polarized and contentious. This erodes the quality of political debate in the country, and makes it herder to achieve a consensus on important issues. Maybe I'm just worried because I've spend the last hour and a half watching people shout at each other on Fox News, but I think that there may be something to the criticsim anyway.[/quote][/url]

[enLight]

Someone once said, "Conservatism is the philosophy of preserving what's good and virtuous."

I think that hits the nail right on the head.

LowLife

[briansmith]

And awful ambiguous, which leaves "good and virtuous" up to being decided by folks who are usually neither good nor virtuous.

It might be better to identify whether or not you're talking about neo-conservatism (PNAC, G.W. Bush, Carlyle) or "paleo-"conservatism (Pat Buchanan, G. Gordon Liddy, etc.). I think there's a HUGE difference, and it has the ability to split the conservative faction in this country right down the middle.