John H, I enjoy quite a few of your posts as well, and that long conservative/liberal philosophy post is extremely interesting and does answer some puzzling questions.

You might consider, when reading my more political posts, that I live in Canada. Conservative and Liberal here, as well as philosophies, are mainstream political parties. Our present Conservative government is more 'conservative' than were the old Progressive Conservatives whose party imploded a few years back. The Liberal party here is almost as 'conservative' as the so-called Conservative government party.

However, both parties are far more 'liberal' than the US Democratic party, certainly by the standards of your post, and certainly by the results we see south of the border. This is why some Canadians, particularly those of us with even more socialist philosophies than our Liberals and Conservatives, and I am one of them, really do find it confusing to sort out the American political philosophy behind the great piles of bombastic flag-waving rhetoric of your politicians and media figures.

I think it is a mistake for either Canadians or Americans to think that we are really philosophically similar. Certainly there is some overlap, in that we (Canadians) have a conservative minority in our population that would support anti-abortion legislation, a return to the death penalty, banning of ss marriage, more health care privatization, and less red tape wrt gun ownership. But that minority is far too small to take a federal party to power, and in fact has proved to be a liability for the present government, which having some of these types in party ranks, has had to continually put out small fires when one of its members has been outspoken about such views.

None of our parties in reality support a smaller federal government with less control over provinces and territories. Nevertheless, provinces do have considerable independence in certain areas. Health care, for example, must meet federal standards, but the system is administrated by individual provinces, and social services are almost entirely handled provincially and to some extent by municipalities, as is infrastructure.

All this just to try to explain why American conservatism has been difficult for me to grasp, as the philosophy behind it is mostly alien to the political system I've spent my life with.