[kipita]

BTW, the best definition I’ve heard to describe what unites conservatives is……….

“conservatives view life as a social contract between the dead, the living and the unborn”.

I don’t know who said it first.

[donna]

Here is an interesting description of two types of conservatives. It doesn’t exactly answer your question but it is interesting.

The Long March of Newt Gingrich
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newt/newtintwshtml/weyrich.html

[garylmoore]

I don't think that it matters where you live, if your conservative, your conservative. Being conservative is completely opposite of being liberal, your not violent, pig headed, immoral, unsupportive of our troops, do not hate America, and so on.

[MNJohnnie]

Easiest way to understand it. Conservatives are generally suspicious of Govt intervention in people’s lives. Therefore they tend to look for non Govt, or limited Govt solutions in dealing with problems.

Liberals or Democrats tend to believe every problem can be fixed by expanding, or creating, a Govt program.

People say “ah but what about Moral issues”. Well what about them? On both Gay Marriage and Abortion the Left wants to use the Govt to impose their view of what is correct on everyone. The Right says “Um, NO the Govt should not impose a one size fits all view on everyone on those issues”.

The reason it gets confusing is that a loud vocal portion of the “Conservative” movement aren’t really Conservatives. They are Reactionaries.

You can recognize the Reactionaries. They are the ones who oppose any change ever. They never support anything, they merely complain about everything.

[lesser_satan]

You left out Midwest and Great Lakes conservatives (blue-collar, libertarian-minded, Chrysler-driving, domestic-beer-drinking gun-nuts like myself)