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This is intentional on the part of America. As Charles Kesler points out, "In the 1760s and early 1770s American citizens and statesmen tried out different arguments in criticism of the mother country's policies on taxation and land rights. Essentially, they appealed to one part of their political tradition to criticize another, invoking a version of the "ancient constitution" (rendered consistent with Lockean natural rights) to criticize the new one of parliamentary supremacy, in effect appealing not only to Lord Coke against Locke, but to Locke against Locke. In the Declaration of Independence, the Americans appealed both to natural law and rights on the one hand, and to British constitutionalism on the other, but to the latter only insofar as it did not contradict the former. Thus the American creed emerged from within, but also against, the predominant culture. The Revolution justified itself ultimately by an appeal to human nature, not to culture, and in the name of human nature and the American people, the Revolutionaries set out to form an American Union with its own culture."

http://www.claremont.org/writings/crb/fall2005/kesler.html

Similarly, Harry Jaffa pointed out in his article (offline) "Equality as a Conservative Principle" more than 30 years ago, the soul of American conservatism (and thus Americanism) is:

"Certainly, if American Conservatism has any core of consistency and purpose, it is derived from the American Founding. The uncertainty as to the meaning of American Conservatism is, as we shall see, an uncertainty as to the meaning of the American Founding. But this uncertainty does not arise from any doubt as to the status of the Revolution. So far as I know, there has never been any Benedict Arnold Society of American Patriotism. Nor do American Conservatives meet, either openly or secretly, to toast "the King (or Queen) across the water." The status of feudalism and monarchy are for American Conservatives exactly what they are for American Liberals or Radicals. Perhaps the best description of the Ancien Regime from the American point of view is still that of Mark Twain in "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court".

American Conservatism is then rooted in a Founding which is, in turn, rooted in revolution. Moreover, the American Revolution represented the most radical break with tradition - with the tradition of Europe's feudal past - that the world had seen. It is true that the American revolutionaries saw some precedent for their actions in the Whig Revolution of 1689. But that revolution at least maintained the fiction of a continued and continuous legality. The British Constitution that resulted from the earlier revolution may have had some republican elements. But the American constitutions - state and federal - that resulted from the later revolution had no monarchical or aristocratic elements. They were not merely radically republican, but were radically republican in a democratic sense. The sovereignty of the people has never been challenged within the American regime, by Conservatives any more than by Liberals or Radicals. The regime of the Founders was wholly devoted to what they understood as civil and religious liberty and was in that sense a liberal regime. But the Founders understood themselves to be revolutionaries, and to celebrate the American Founding is therefore to celebrate revolution. However mild or moderate the American Revolution may now appear, as compared with subsequent revolutions in France, Russia, China, Cuba, or elsewhere, it nonetheless embodied the greatest attempt at innovation that human history had recorded. It remains the most radical attempt to establish a regime of liberty that the world has yet seen."

In other words, America is founded on some distinctly classical liberal ideas. Thus it is in fact much closer to the European notion of classical liberalism (as Hayek pointed out). Modern day ideological soulmates of American conservatism is more like Germany's Free Democratic Party. In fact, from the Americans' point of view, Anglo conservatism is more like a watered down concept of European paternalist conservatism as represented by Metternich of Austria or Otto von Bismarck's Prussian conservatism.

What you expressed in your post is what we would call historicism - meaning that we collectively is a product of our historical circumstances. Society evolve or regress, but it is impossible to establish a unified principle. I understand it is accepted as obvious and common sense in our countries or indeed almost everywhere in the West. But importantly, not in the United States.

Evangelical Christianity's influence on political discourse is more muddled. As I pointed in some other posts that pinged you, there is such a thing as "evangelical Christians leaning left". Poeple like Ron Sider, Jim Wallis or Tony Campolo would be almost like your own personal ideological flip side on each and every issue you support or oppose. You support market forces? They support socialism. You support fighting against Islamic terrorism? They are pacifist. You support gay marriage? They are against it. But it is another matter, and the likes of Acton Insuitute point out socialism does not fit with Christian morality.

In the Declaration of Independence, the Americans appealed both to natural law and rights on the one hand, and to British constitutionalism on the other,...

The very idea that human beings have individual rights not subject to the whims of an earthly monarch, but subject to the laws of Yahweh, is directly from Moses.

Mosaic Law (of which the Ten Commandments is just a part) is the foundation of Western Civilization. Genesis is the primary focus of the Declaration of Independence, from where our Constitutional rights are derived.

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...”
“We, therefore, the Representativers of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our intentions,...”

The Ten Commandments are the foundation of our judicial system.

(P.S. John Locke got most of his stuff from Thomas Hobbes, as did Ayn Rand.)

To further back up what I wrote in post 906 this is what I read this morning:

http://www.claremont.org/weblog/004835.html

American Conservatism

As we contemplate the character of American conservatism, it’s worth considering a couple of comments by America’s premiere Anti-Jacobin and, at least according to Russell Kirk, America’s first conservative.

“Locke taught them [the Philosophes] principles of liberty. But I doubt whether they have not yet to learn the principles of government.”

And he wrote his grandson, George Washington Adams (how’s that for a name?): “there is, George, a cause of mankind and there are Rights of Men. Study them without enthusiasm, and be cautious how you act.”

In other words, Adams did not think that the French Revolutionaries were wrong to think that there are rights of men. He suspected that their understanding of those rights was imperfect, and he knew that their understanding of government was poor. Hence he predicted that oceans of blood would flow once the revolution started.

I have long suspected that the creeping historicism to be found in Burke’s conservatism is somehow connected to the reality that he was living in a land that had a sovereign legislature. Parliament’s will was law. That being the case, law and justice were distinct. Hence, Burke could only counsel prudence, and caution when dealing with change.

America’s constitutional tradition, by contrast, retains the connection between law and justice. (In that sense, as John Phillip Reid points out, American law has much more the character of common law than does modern English law). Our constitutional tradition is oriented toward the rights of men.

The upshot of all that is there is a reason why America’s first conservative was also the premiere defender of the Declaration of Independence in Congress. If conservatism acknowledges the importance of particularity, it should accept the Declaration as the foundation of America's constitution tradition.