Conservatives have always been regressive, period. Their entire philosophy emerged from the “excesses” of the French Revolution. The forward “movement” (if you want to call it that) was from the “divine right of kings” to the “divine right of lords (chosen by the market)”.

To quote the infinitely quotable (Wilhout, from the top rope…with a fucking blog comment):

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

I understand the desire to take the positive aspects of a word, apply them to your political stance, and pretend that you’re part of a movement. But it isn’t true. It reminds me of when lefties (in often an USA centric thread) describe themselves as “left libertarians” all this crap does is confuse people and make you sound like a pedant.

If you think this is what conservative means, you’re basically just politically homeless…and have been since you started calling yourself that.