The problem with the classification "conservative" is that it doesn't always refer to the same status quo being conserved. Those who would return to the social mores of the 1950s, for example, would probably have a claim to that name, but to those for whom that era's post-FDR federal government constitutes a terrible inflation of power over that of the Founders' day, they wouldn't be "conservative" at all. Making it worse, libertarians are referred to as "conservative" because the status quo they are trying to conserve most resembles the original plan (or more properly, an more or less fuzzy idealization) of the Constitution. But to return to that era's laissez-faire attitude toward, say, drugs, appears to many latter-day "conservatives" as "liberal" or even "libertine" (for those who prefer looser usages of the English language).
As you point out, it gets worse still when European definitions are used, wherein "liberal" means adhering to the policies most Americans would classify as "conservative." Worse still when "conservative" applies to old-line Communists in, say, the ex-Soviet Union, whose economic and political stance is diametrically opposed to "conservative" in the U.S.
I think, therefore, that if it isn't merely a relative term, it doesn't have a great deal of meaning at all.
Worse still when "conservative" applies to old-line Communists in, say, the ex-Soviet Union, whose economic and political stance is diametrically opposed to "conservative" in the U.S.
I always thought it amusing when the NY Times would refer to the forces in the Soviet Union that clung desperately to communism as the “conservatives” while those fighting for individual liberty and freedom from state power were the “liberals.”
I realized then that in NY Times-speak, political terms were fungible, mostly sticking to the formula “conservative=mean” and “liberal=nice”.
I tend to be a paleoconservative under this definition. I think there are many others on this board who would fit this definition.