Good background on the history of conservatism in America. It’s true that what constitutes “liberal” and “conservative” in America has very different meanings in Europe, just demonstrating the fluid nature of terminology. That’s really why I try so hard to be clear about how I define conservatism. We also have to keep in mind, since we’re looking at this from the standpoint of secular conservatives, that the Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, purposely set up the United States as a secular government. Every time a call to officially endorse or include religion in the government came up, and it did several times, it was voted down. Having religious influence in the government is, like it or not, a violation of the design of the Founding Fathers.

You have to remember that all political movement really have two components, fiscal and social. You refer to Libertarianism as a “conservative” movement, yet they are only fiscally conservative, they are very socially liberal.

Likewise, the Constitution Party fails in that they ignore a big component of conservatism, keeping government intervention out of your life, not to mention ignoring the separation of church and state. Strict interpretation of the Constitution indeed. Neither qualify as true conservatives in my opinion.

You also bring up neoconservatism, which is a gross contradiction in terms. As you say, the origins of neoconservatism lie in the disenfranchised Southern Democrats and in fact, you can see what their influence spawned. Instead of being a movement of fiscal responsibility as required by true conservatism, they’ve simply shifted from the tax-and-spend philosophy of the typical liberal Democrat to a borrow-and-spend mentality. Basically, they’ve taken an unabashed Dominionist/Reconstructionist Christian social worldview, combined it with a modified liberal fiscal policy and as a consequence of the two, a few elements of traditional conservatism have appeared, although not because of conservatism, rather simply coicidentally. There is nothing conservative whatsoever about neoconservatism.

A worse problem, however, and one that most of the public is utterly unaware of, is the ultimate goals of Dominionism. They want to bring about the end of the world. Ultimately, they are trying to set up armageddon so that Jesus can come back and establish his kingdom and whisk away the faithful to eternal paradise. That’s one of the biggest reasons George W. Bush is spending money in the Middle East like water, he couldn’t care less about what he’s doing to our children and grandchildren because he honestly believes the world won’t exist in a relatively short span of time. It’s some seriously scary stuff.

I suppose one of the biggest problems with trying to define conservatism is that everyone has their own definition. I suppose I have to go back to your original list, with some modifications, for what I personally define as conservatism, although everyone’s mileage may vary.

- smaller government, less taxes, fiscal responsibility
- free-market capitalism (within reason), free trade, no unnecessary regulation
- self-reliant, privately managed welfare policy
- strong, responsible foreign policy
- deference to values that work and a willingness to change as the world around us changes
- complete separation of church and state
- personal responsibility and no unnecessary government intervention in the private lives of citizens
- strong view of responsibility toward society as a whole, not the typical hedonistic “gimme gimme gimme” entitlement view that is so common today

Given that, there simply isn’t a single political party in the United States today that supports a conservative point of view. The days of Goldwater conservatism are long since dead and Goldwater himself knew about the dangers of intertwining religion and politics, he warned the Republican party about it many times and everything that he warned about has come true.