What and who is a conservative?

Who or what the hell is a conservative these days?

I'm currently at a loss to figure this one out.  What I thought made a conservative was the following:

• Fiscally conservative spending (Spend what you have, and no more)
• Getting out of personal decisions
• Slow to go to war
• Constitutional Originalist
• Minimal government involvement in economics

Seems today's conservatives are anything BUT the above.  They spend like drunken sailors with a credit card (No offense to you Navy guys out there); they want to regulate all sorts of personal decisions such as women's vaginas, or who can build a church somewhere; they rush to war like a mob with bloodlust; separation of church and state need not apply; and inane subsidies to giant corporations.

I even had a talk with Mike Madigan's stumpers.  They're notion of a conservative is "He's a Republican", and if they are pro-woman's choice, anti-corporate spending, anti-war, or believe in a solid constitutional foundation, then they are "Ebil commie libs!"

Did the conservative concept get flipped upside down or something in the past 30 years?  I'll tell you, it's nigh impossible to have a rational discussion with conservatives in this area.

Over on their Secret Squirrel meetup group, it was said that in order to be a conservative, the following criteria must be met:

• Must be "born again" (What?  I wasn't good enough the first time?)
• Must listen, and like Rush Limbaugh (I know a few conservatives who can't stand him)
• Must love Wendy Long (Don't know what there is to love, she has yet to detail a platform really)
• Must Love GW Bush (Who racked up at least 3 trillion on the deficit with wars alone)

What the hell does any of this have to do with being conservative?  This is just a symptom of the "Low Information Voter" disease.  Everything is pre-chewed, and regurgitated to be spat out at random by the sycophants.

Reminds me of the Newspeak term "duckspeak":

Duckspeak is a Newspeak term meaning literally to quack like a duck or to speak without thinking. Duckspeak can be either good or "ungood" (bad), depending on who is speaking, and whether what they are saying is in following with the ideals of Big Brother. To speak rubbish and lies may be ungood, but to speak rubbish and lies for the good of "The Party" may be good.

Wow, sounds rather appropriate, huh?  Is this what conservatives have basically turned into?  The Party?  Time will tell if the conservatives come to their senses.

What do you think?  Am I painting with an overly large brush here?  Are there better examples of today's conservatives?  If so, who?