According to Lilla, the distinction between conservatives and liberals is philosophical.  Conservatives like Edmund Burke “have always seen society as a kind of inheritance we receive and are responsible for; we have obligations toward those who came before and to those who will come after, and these obligations take priority over our rights.”  But liberals like John Stuart Mill “assume that societies are genuinely constructs of human freedom, that whatever we inherit from them, they can always be unmade or remade through free human action.”

Given this understanding, however, Lilla concludes that, in current America politics, everyone is a liberal: “We take it for granted that we are born free, that we constitute society, it doesn’t constitute us and that together we legitimately govern ourselves.”  This seems right, but if it is, why do we still find talk of liberals and conservatives inevitable in describing our political differences?

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/liberty-equality-hostility/