Conservatives are much like paleontologists. They dig through prehistoric garbage heaps and anything they discover they define as a new find.
A long long time ago there were two caves overlooking a valley populated by similar people. Winter was in the wind and the leaders of each cave went out to hunt. Leader Wolf came by a buffalo, killed it, and with his fellows dragged it back to the cave for his people. From the other cave, Leader Weasel and his men also killed a buffalo, but he and his fellows sat down and devoured it on the spot.
Back at their respective dwellings, Leader Wolf and his people, with bellies half full, celebrated with a song and dance while Leader Weasel and his fellows returned with bellies distended and a speech.
Leader Weasel told the hungry crowd of mostly women and children that they needed to be more responsible and accountable for their own lives, that as Weasel people, they were rugged individualists and should act as such. If they wanted to eat, they would have to reach down and yank on their sandal straps. A few women and children still strong enough to bend down that far understood and asked The Weasel for a few spears and hand skinners. The Weasel and his fellows owned the equipment. Good Weasels knowing that property rights transcended human rights did not have giving things away as was part of their makeup. So instead the Weasels gave yet another speech about how the Great Weasel Spirit wanted them to help themselves, for if these women and children became dependent upon free food, that lack of self reliance would soon turn them all into horrific child murdering cannibals.
Thus it was that the women and children of Weasel went out into the valley to suck on old bones and eat grass while The Weasel and his fellows sat full and belching, telling each other how smart they were.
One day, Leader Wolf took his fellows over to the Weasel clan to learn what could be learned. They saw the women and children gnawing gristle and eating bark while Leader Weasel and his fellows sat fat and farting. The Wolves saw the benefits and immediately joined up. On that day so long ago, conservative ideology become the overriding aspect of human interaction.
The History of Politics for Dummies – part I