Lets be honest, the majority of the American Conservative movement doesn't believe in individual liberty, economic achievment, and small levels of government involvement in one's life.
I do not argue your point, but I will take issue with the wording:
A goodly portion of modern-day
Republicans do not follow lowercase-c-
conservative principles. Just because the word "conservative" is used as a synonym(even a pejorative) for "Republican" does not make it so. As makattak said, the 2000-2006 years were led by "compassionate conservatives", which is another way of saying "center-right moderates". G.W. Bush and Congress did little during those years to cut spending, enforce ethics and control abuses, or advance individual liberties - each of which are unarguably conservative values.
Again, don't get wrapped around the axle here, all I'm saying is that the threat is not MORE credible simply because a leftist made it. In fact, on average I think a random APS member is much mor likely to have the ability to carry out a threat (not the motivation, mind you, but the ability) then the entire DU combined.
An angry fool is a thousand times more dangerous than a level-headed man with ability.
Now just based on my own experiance, those of us here on APS that care strongly for limited governmnet and individual liberty seem to be a limited subset of american "Conservitives". John McCain and George W. Bush tend to personify the majority of conservitive that I see in central and north florida, as well as what I see written in national op-eds.
I can hear your keyboards spinning up with versions of "They're not conservitive", to which I'd answer that they think they are, most conservitive voters think they are and the liberals think they are, so for all intents and purposes they're part, a large part in fact, of the American Conservitive movement. You can throw the RINO label around as much as you'd like. The cold fact is outside of APS we're the fringe wacko conservitive, and the RINO's are the ones leading the movement.
Well, you asked for it. McCain(spit) and G.W. Bush do NOT represent conservative American values. Just because the news media says do, does not make it so. Republicans are AT THIS INSTANT attempting to hijack the conservative movement in America, by playing along, but as has been discussed above, many of the incumbents who are trying to ride the TEA party wave are the same jackasses who pissed away their power in 2000-2006 through corruption, big spending, etc.
On the point that public perception of Republicans makes them conservative - that is simply not true. Apply that line of reasoning to the Second Amendment debate. Suppose that SCOTUS decided that "the militia" means the National Guard, because the militia in the 18th-century sense no longer really exists, and people don't use the word in the same way anymore. That would irritate you, right? 2A means what it meant in 1787, right? Conservative values are, for the most part, what they have been for a hundred years(i.e. what used to be just "American values"). Those who claim to embrace them, for the most part, do not.
Life (except abortion doctors and fed agents), Liberty (except for the fags) and the pursuit of happyness (as long as beer on Sunday doesn't make you happy). Small levels of government (after we use it to block a church in a place we don't like).
The America that abortion-doctor killers would like to see is not an America where I would wish to live.
Gays have the very same rights straights do.
Just because some backward county or state restricts alcohol consumption does not make it a conservative value.
the leaders tend to be as well or better educated then us around here.
It has been my observation that the more "educated" a person is, the less connected with reality he becomes. I suppose that confirms your point :)
Most still don't mind the Patriot Act, G-Bay's fine, use the .gov to shut down the GZM, Sure the cops can GPS tag your car, send SWAT after thos nasty weed dealers, and make sure my Social Security gets paid on time.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety..."
So basically, ALL liberals are communists because a few liberals believe in communist principles. Makes sense to me. 
You seem to be employing sarcasm, but your statement is truer than you think.
You are not what you say, or what you think. You are what you do, what you vote, and what you publicly support. The modern liberal who voted for Obama(or Pelosi, Boxer, Reid, etc.) and will vote for him again is effecting change toward the enactment of socialist(not communist) principles. Just because they don't consider themselves socialists, communists, or whatever else does not make them innocent. For the same reason that the early-2000s Republican majority is not conservative - because of what they did - the majority of liberals is advancing the socialist cause, one feel-good safety-net program at a time.
On an aside, someone needs to do a comprehensive tally of deaths resulting from right-wing nuts and left-wing nuts. I'm so very tired of hearing Islamic terrorism excused/marginalized by the claim that "
people walk into post offices, they walk into schools, that's what Columbine is"(Tavis Smiley interview, PBS). I am similarly sick of hearing that rightists are dangerous and leftists are not.
