Political labels

Political labels are used to characterize people, organizations and ideas. Many of these labels are misleading, although enough of them are accurate that people generally grant them some credence. The problem, therefore, lies in deciding when a label is accurate and in choosing when to go beyond the label and dig deeper to find the truth.

Conservative

A conservative is someone who wants things to remain the way they are, or to restore them to the way they used to be. He desire to preserve the goodness of traditional values and share these with others.

• Sometimes conservatives provide obstacles to progress, as when conservative Democrats in the deep South blocked desegregation, or when conservatives in Congress voted against raising taxes to pay for the medical bills of World Trade Center First Responders

The term conservative has been abused by proponents of anti-Christian or pro-socialist movements, who argue that certain proposals are "progressive" and but that criticize of these proposals in motivated only by an obstinate backwardness of traditionalists refusing to recognize the value of the proposals

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0710/House_GOP_leaders_911_first_responders_aid_bill_a_massive_new_entitlement_program.html