What’s more, they think that those who disagree with them ought “to imprisoned—not to be debated, to be locked up on criminal charges and imprisoned,” said the citing stray calls from the right to “arrest abortion-breast cancer link deniers.”
Except no conservative has ever suggested such a thing.
The sexual/economic license contrast you make is more on point. It can seem weird to a conservative that some liberal who is concerned with setting policies that deal with how many calories people eat, or what kind of lightbulb people use, can be so adamantly hands off when it comes to sex. And it can seem weird to a liberal that a conservative who talks about small government is so focused on getting government out of the economy but doesn't seem to give certain invasions of privacy or restrictions on sexual autonomy a second thought.
It doesn't seem weird at all, when you recognize that the divide is between those who maintain that too much social inequality-broadly speaking-is a problem and those who think that vast inequality is not a problem at all.
Notice how tone-deaf (or even displaying outright hostility) many conservatives are on issues of civil rights-such as those for women, LGBTs, and minorities. They don't seem to recognize that some groups in society are favored over others, which contradicts their professed commitment to "equality of opportunity." They also seem to believe that the "isms" of racism, sexism, etc. are a thing of the past, something some bad people in Mississippi or whatever did in 1845 and who were total outliers in American history. Finally, they hold to a normative view of society that defends "traditional" power structures and hierarchies (Hence, the opposition to feminism or equal rights for LGBT Americans).
Modern American conservatism is historically rooted in ferocious opposition to the most radically egalitarian ideology of all (socialism). But in their absolutist, paranoid thinking, many conservatives are convinced that the Moderate Heroes of the Democratic Party (and the Republicans who they don't think are pure enough, or who are willing to work with Democrats from time to time) is equivalent to Marxism. That's a belief straight out of the John Birch Society kooky conspiracy file. Unfortunately, conservatives have not seriously repudiated these beliefs, and if anything they have become more popular than ever among self-professed conservatives.
