The irony of the "modern" conservative movement

I have a lot of friends who identify themselves as conservatives. I used to call myself a conservative, but that's no longer the case. My views haven't changed, but the definition of conservative has. I stand for smaller government and personal liberty. That means you can marry whomever you want, you can carry whatever kind of gun you want, you can smoke whatever you want to, and we shouldn't be giving handouts to oil companies, farmers, or solar panel hippies. That's not what conservative means today though. In 2014, "conservative" means "I believe in Jesus, and I believe Fox News tells the truth, handouts to farmers are ok but handouts to poor people are shameful, and legalizing pot and gay marriage would ruin the moral fiber of our country. I believe that my religious views should be applied universally, to everyone, regardless of what the constitution says about the separation of church and state."

Today we have the tea party and a rising libertarian movement. These groups are mostly good people, but what they fail to understand is that while they might seem "purist" in their views, they couldn't be further from purists in practice. I don't know a libertarian who supports gay marriage. I don't know a tea partier who thinks we should stop giving tax breaks to farmers, oil companies and the coal industry. These folks are more aligned with the modern definition of conservative than the niche movements where they claim membership. They claim to be Reagan Republicans, but forget that Reagan raised taxes, restricted firearms sales and granted amnesty to over 3 million illegal immigrants.