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The conservative caste of mind is different from the liberal caste of mind, and much of what we believe is dictated by temperament. For example, I've noticed that for most liberals, the greatest sin is murder. Liberals recoil at harming others. The fact that the Iraq war has physically harmed tens of thousands of Iraqis, not to mention many thousands of American soldiers, is the red letter immorality that defines that misadventure for liberals. If they reluctantly supported the war, those deaths and injuries are the hardest sticking point; if they never supported the war, those deaths are the most unforgivable horror.
Conservatives, though, don't really mind doing harm to others, even murder, especially if they add the phrase, "for your own good." After all, people get harmed all the time--the world, to a natural conservative, is a harmful place and a vale of tears. To a conservative, the greatest crime is betrayal of the tribe, and if worst comes to worst, better that those outside the tribe (often not even defined as human) come to grief (get injured, get raped, lose everything, get killed, let's be honest) in preference to oneself or one's allies. To a true conservative, it doesn't matter that Jesus's number one rule was to do unto others as you would have them do unto you--they somehow read this as do unto others before they do unto you. Conservatives, I think, have a stronger flight/fight response than liberals. They are both more fearful and more aggressive. It shows in their religion (God is someone to fear), it shows in their child-rearing techniques (beatings,whippings, spankings are to be administered, not avoided), it shows in their attitude toward marriage and sexuality (conforming to one's own strict moral standards isn't enough--others must conform, also, or the whole society is in danger). To the conservative mind, harm may be justifiably done to others who do not conform. Doing harm to others is a relative evil, not an absolute one. It is, you might say, an aspect of winning.
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