> It's perhaps that I've never really understood why "conservatism" means austere, balanced budgets and "conservatism" means bathroom police. I don't really get

> It's perhaps that I've never really understood why "conservatism" means austere, balanced budgets and "conservatism" means bathroom police. I don't really get the underlying connection I suppose. "Conservative" has the same root as "conserve," and I think that goes a long way towards explaining the latter "bathroom police" (e.g. conserve the traditional understanding an social convention). IMHO, the former "austere, balanced budgets" is harder to explain, but (in the American context, at least), I suspect that started as "conserving" the policies from before the New Deal, when taxes were less and the government was much smaller (relative to the rest of the country). But at a certain point, it just means what it's used to mean, and there's no sense trying too hard to derive it from first principles.