I think it should read:

. . . if you're against those perversions, but practice them, then you're a conservative . . .

The real difference between conservatives and liberals is that conservatives what to tell people how to live their lives but are above being told themselves, while liberals think there is space for everyone. For example, Rush decrying drug offenders while he was an addict himself, that guy from the first Bush administration who wrote ‘the book of virtues’ while gambling away losing tens of thousands of dollars, etc.

Yep. Kurt Rocks

The basic premise of conservatism (individual examples of hypocrisy aside) is to keep the government OUT of our lives, to keep it OUT of our bedrooms and OUT of our decisions to buy property, own a business, and make decisions for our own families.

I find it fascinating that you can make those kind of gross simplifications and generalizations and actually believe them. Well now it's my turn to generalize:

Liberals love to claim the term "pro-choice" as their own. Problem is, while "pro-choice" when it comes to the decision of whether you should be able to kill your own baby, liberals are not pro-choice when it comes to taxes (whether citizens or the government know best how to spend the citizens hard-earned money), regulation, education (liberals vigorously oppose any attempt to give parents, particularly low-income ones, choices in education, and elect to keep them imprisoned by their government school masters), and have absolutely no problem forcing their brand of sex education, forced multi-culturalism, and approval of "alternative lifestyles" on children in schools whether it contradicts what parents have chosen to teach their children at home or not.

In addition, the same people who say they favor choice when it comes to abortion, and want the government out of the bedroom, seem to have no problem with the hundreds of millions of tax dollars (federal and state) that flow freely to the abortion industry (and Planned Parenthood in particular...the largest provider of abortions in the nation...and a multi-billion dollar corporation). Seems to me that they really DO want the government in the bedroom, and involved in the personal decisions of citizens. Where is the CHOICE for the taxpayer who opposes these things their money is funding?

The emphasis on morality in many conservative schools of thought is not borne out of a desire to "tell others how to live their lives", but quite the opposite...out of a desire to keep them free. The founders knew that freedom was a dangerous double-edged sword...as it is the nature of government to grow like a weed and take control.

[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
-John Adams, 1798

If you take out the word "religious" and leave the word "moral", the implication is the same. My brand of conservatism involves leaving the government out of religion (meaning, as the 1st amendment states, that the federal government should not endorse a religion, while at the same time, NEVER restricting it's reasonable expression). This means that we can encourage one another (as the "Book of Virtues" does) to be good, decent, and moral...and if we chose religious...with the goal of keeping the government from having to ever force morality on us, as is now often the case.

Incidently, The Book of Virtues is a fine book, and not political at all. People I know often encourage their children to read it when they reach a certain age because focuses on things like character, courage, conviction and honesty. It has nothing to do with "telling others how to live", have you even perused it? Bill Bennett, it's author made a mistake...an unfortunate personal mistake. If we can never encourage others to do what's right in this world, simply because we are human and make mistakes ourselves, then we might as well give up.