Thanks for your reply! What you're describing is very close to what Tocqueville describes in Democracy in America - that the US has achieved a balance between t

Thanks for your reply! What you're describing is very close to what Tocqueville describes in Democracy in America - that the US has achieved a balance between three parts of society: political society (the gov't), economic society (business) and civil society (social bonds that tie people together in their communities or the judiciary). I can appreciate your self-description as "conservative" vs. "Republican", because they're very different. The Republican party has tried to so simplify their message to "lower taxes", "let the market decide", and "small government" in such a way that they're only really representing economic society. That means that they're also ignoring important checks on economic society that Tocqueville noticed were key to avoiding something like the French Revolution. (Tocqueville also speaks at length at the need for a balance between complete equality and complete inequality to avoid unrest). Republicans have eviscerated taxes on business and created economic imbalances like lower taxes for capital gains, inability to discharge student loans in bankruptcy, bailouts to banks "too big to fail", restrictions on aspects of civil society like unions, "trickle-down economics", etc. These once added checks and balances to economic society and helped preserve civil society. Strong civil society is what lead to a Great America of small towns, family businesses, and general prosperity for hard working people....all of which are in danger today. Wal-Mart is the antithesis of a strong American Civil Society. You simply can't have a company propped up by government welfare and anti-union legislation like Wal-Mart and a culture of successful small businesses at the same time. It's an oxymoron. I think what conservatives are seeing is that the Republican ideal to simply remove all checks and balances on the free market has been poisoning the strong civil society they're trying to rescussitate. When you're feeling like the government is working against you, it's true. Civil society is getting eviscerated and your ideal "equality of opportunity" is getting b-slapped by the invisible hand of the rich and powerful capitalists. Even Adam Smith made great points for the necessity to check the invisible hand in the Wealth of Nations. He describes the necessity of gov't sponsored public works projects, of checking monopolies, and of public education to avoid the "torpor of the mind" that economic society would lead us to without any checks to it. Unfortunately few Republicans clamoring for lower taxes and free market economy know anything about the Wealth of Nations. Their one-dimensional policy opinions are creating more of a problem and hopefully more people will start calling themselves "conservatives" because they're trying to conserve equality of opportunity instead of simply parroting "Lower taxes", "Free market", and "Who is John Galt".