I agree with everything you say, Humbug, but would add a religious dimension to it.
Not every conservative is religious. But the conservative worldview itself comes from a religious worldview, specifically the Judeo-Christian worldview.
I have a God, and a heaven. Liberals don’t. So they’ve got to invent these things. Their god is government, and they tend to invest “messiahship” in whoever rules their government utopia. Whereas we don’t put our ultimate stock in government - or even particularly trust it - liberals invest EVERYTHING into their god surrogate. Government and their government messiah - and the utopia they want these to create for them - is very simply all they have.
To be fair, though, i would say it is still a small although very influential group on the far left who don't believe in God. There are many who probably do hold sincerely religious views but who are being manipulated/misguided by those who hate organized religion, by those who want to water down religion so that it becomes simply a feel-good, deeply-private, self-centered shallow thing that is hardly distinguishable from secular entities.
And there is another liberal god besides government, and that is science. Science in their view has or will have all the answers, and scientists (along with psychologists and hollywood celebrities) have become the secular priests in our society,where what they say is often taken as gospel truth by many. It doesn't matter that yesterday they tell us there will be global warming and today an ice age. It doesn't matter that one day they say to avoid coffee and then the next they say that it is actually good for you. It doesn't matter that the population seems to have far more emotional problems than ever before despite being overrun with psychologist and overflowing with psychiatric medications. Science is powerful and does many great things but too often is being manipulated to further the leftist agenda on things like global warming.
But getting back to religion, i don't know if you are Catholic but even you aren't i recommend checking out this site: Thinking Catholic. Lot of good stuff there about the left.