They are, but the reason I say "cant" is that you're making what's fundamentally a moral (albeit dramatically incorrect) argument in this thread--that putting systems in place to ensure that poor people don't needlessly die of treatable chronic illness is something that makes other (richer) people "less free"--while trotting out the profoundly anti-moral "conservatism is an ideology of the strong" excuse in another thread.
FYI, I'm not really that much more convinced by the equality argument than by the liberty one--on certain points of theory, I actually prefer Red Toryism to the mainstream left. What I'm concerned about is justice--which entails upholding contextually appropriate degrees of liberty, contextually appropriate degrees of equality, and so forth. To the extent that the terms on which American political debate takes place and the political philosophy on which American institutions were founded deviate from that, it's those terms and that philosophy that are in moral error and ought to be discounted. In that sense I'm actually in agreement with Trump that we should be patriotic because America is the country we have and pointedly not as a form of assent to its ostensible principles or values. If you and I have any common ground at all, it's probably on that.
-I see conservatism as expressly justifying inequality. Thus, it is an ideology of the strong. It's not an excuse; it's a description of conservatism. My brand of conservatism is also rather accepting of liberty. The moral argument here is my actual one.
I see. That's uncommonly repellent, but I guess I can retain a sort of grim respect for it.
Perhaps you can, but I certainly can't. Anyone who elevates an ideology over humanity is not simply amoral, but immoral. I can't even respect it on the grounds of logical consistency to one's principles, lest I be willing to offer a "grim respect" for principles Nazis and other ideological zealots.
Liberty does not come before humanity. Nation does not come before humanity. Democracy does not come before humanity. We may disagree on the how of ensuring that every human being is properly and sufficiently tended to, and even what balance must be sought between negative liberty and the necessary rights to meet basic human needs, but to disagree with that altogether is abhorrent, repugnant, and, ideally, socially reprehensible.
