Senator Al Franken recently gave an address at the American Constitution Society's annual convention in Washington, D.C. His thesis was that Conservative forces are manipulating our court system, and the Supreme Court in particular, to enact an agenda that most Americans would reject if it weren't so cunningly disguised. You can see the whole speech at this link but I wanted to yank out this quote…
What conservative legal activists are really interested in is this question: What individual rights are so basic and so important that they should be protected above a corporation's right to profit? And their preferred answer is: None of them. Zero.
I'm not sure the majority of self-identified Conservatives in this country realize this. Most of the folks they think are working in Washington to protect "traditional American values" (and even traditional Conservative viewpoints) have a higher mission. It varies slightly depending on who's paying them and the potential profit points…but it's all about the money.