Seeing the " " used a LOT around conservative all of a sudden. For my thoughts on that, please go here
Thank you.
The reason for the quote marks is, that a lot of things have been claimed to be of the “old-fashioned values on which we used to rely”, have mutated into something that is equated with knuckle-dragging Neanderthals with minimal if any education, who have some sort of fascination with anyone who quotes scripture, keeps multiple firearms at easy reach, and is almost always engaged in a solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short existence. And THAT is not conservative in the least. Probably more accurately describes one of the legion of guerrillas that work for El Chapo, or with only a small stretch of the imagination, could include most of the irregular army of the Islamic State, or Palestinian jihadists.
So the term conservative, like the terms democracy or liberal, means pretty much what the speaker WANTS it to mean, often with the intention of totally obfuscating the meaning as understood by another. They use the same vocabulary, but are forever talking past each other.