“Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.  Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general.  It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world.”  Philip E. Agre
 
A hallmark of the aristocrat is to keep their privileged positions and pass the positions on to their children.  
     Conservatism, in order to maintain the aristocracy, tries to dismantle those programs or institutions which would allow the people to become less dependant on the aristocracy. Examples of this are social security and welfare “reform”.  As Grover Norquist has said, the goal of conservatism is to shrink the government and drown it in the bathtub. An effective way that conservatives try to dismantle such programs is to denigrate those who are the beneficiaries of the programs, or to say they are a danger to the social order. (Example: Social Security is going to bankrupt the U.S). Conservatives would eliminate all government assistance programs, and would rely on charity and faith based programs to help the “underclass.”  The underclass would depend on the largess of the wealthy for their survival and thus be beholden the rich and powerful for their very survival.  (And you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.)  On the other hand, conservatives work hard to maintain those institutions that preserve or increase their power. 
     Conservatives use the term freedom as their rallying cry.  After all, the masses demand freedom.  Conservatives, on the other hand, try to limit civil liberties at every turn. (Gay Marriage, Flag Burning amendment, spying on Americans, internet legislation etc).  These limits allow the domination of conservatives.
Historically, it has been liberals who have fought for civil liberties such as racial equality, the voting rights act, and women’s rights to name three.
Conservatives decry “liberal activist judges.”  What they are actually decrying is the fact that these judges are acting against the aristocracy. 
    Conservatism works by destroying the conscience. In WWII, German soldiers hoped that should they have to surrender it would be to American troops rather than the Russians. They knew that the Americans would not torture them.  Now, some conservative adherents don’t think that torture should be banned and the Geneva conventions are “quaint.”  
   Conservatism seeks to limit free and open debate by demonizing those have different views.  Right wing radio/TV commentators use name calling to denigrate those who might have a different view.  They even go so far as to say that anyone who opposes their policy as those who “hate America.”  They invoke God to make their point, (they are more ‘right’ because God in on their side) and therefore anyone who is against them is ‘liberal’ and Godless. 
   Conservatism twists the language.  For example, John Kerry was explaining that the Iraqi occupation was causing the Iraqi people to fear and dislike Americans.  He said that our soldiers had to enter homes, which terrorized the occupants. Sean Hannity has repeated over and over that John Kerry called American soldiers terrorists. 
Agre says: Conservative remapping of the language of aristocracy and democracy has been incredibly thorough. Consider, for example, the terms "entitlement" and "dependency". The term "entitlement" originally referred to aristocrats. Aristocrats had titles, and they thought that they were thereby entitled to various things, particularly the deference of the common people. Everyone else, by contrast, was dependent on the aristocrats. This is conservatism. Yet in the 1990's, conservative rhetors decided that the people who actually claim entitlement are people on welfare. They furthermore created an empirically false association between welfare and dependency. But, as I have mentioned, welfare is precisely a way of eliminating dependency on the aristocracy and the cultural authorities that serve it. I do not recall anyone ever noting this inversion of meaning. “
   Here is the link to a very thought provoking article by Agre. It is a lengthy piece, but well worth the time.  http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html