Take a conservative and shore up his belief in restrictions on government power and meddling in the affairs of the people. Naturally following these principles, remove his belief that social conservatism should be enforced by the government
Well said.
Yeah, that about sums it up. Small-government conservatism is another shorthand.
There are a handful of "conservatives" around here who are anything but "small-government conservatives." *cough*nannystaters*cough*
Also there is a solid Libertarian argument aganist abortion. They libertarians are split on this. As for having religion back in school no problem if you get the government out of the school business. They just have not figured out how to state their ideas that make sense to most people at least socially conservative ones like me. They have to first beat back government before spouting off their social ideas. The social ideas only work if government in taken out of the picture FIRST. That should be what they work on.
Ah. But take a libertarian (like me 20 years ago--small and large L) and let him watch the social libertarianism of the 60's crash thru our culture, destroying everything in its path.
If he cares about how his philosophy jives with reality, he realizes that libertarian assumptions about human nature in regards to moral issues are fundamentally flawed. And it's pretty clear at this point that America's experiment over the last 40 years with social libertarianism has been a monumental failure in almost every regard.
OTOH, where libertarian beliefs align with human nature (in the economic sphere), it is a practical philosophical overlay to political decision making.
Libertarians who come to that realization become conservatives. The difference is we do not blindly apply one principle (small government) to every problem. It's a lot harder being a conservative. I no longer have a simple answer for every problem.