Like Confucius one should begin with a rectification of names. Politically the terms liberal and conservative are variables that take on given meanings in different historical times and circumstances. They are not rigid designators to use Kripke’s terminology. The end justifies the means political rationale become the end-in-themselves occasionally.
Imperialists may be regarded as conservatives by supporters of the crown. Those for free trade may be regarded as liberals. Nazi political philosophy was founded on national socialism. The Storm Troopers mostly were made of former socialists and communists who believed mistakenly that Hitler would lead toward a national socialist state after getting rid of the remaining aristocrats that were deposed in a social revolution after the loss/armistice of the first world war.
Fascism is more of a means of taking political power than a stable political condition. Like Marxism it works best as a revolutionary ideology rather than a stable economic system. Aristotle preferred particulars over universals. Applied to politics that might mean than functioning egalitarian economic and political structures can be arrived at through intelligent, particular measures rather than grandiose, King Canute declarations of a topical form as the Utopian state with bureaucratic loyalists filling in the details.
There isn’t a way that stupid, corrupt politicians and legislators will bring into actuality a smartly designed governing structure nor policies that are optimal. democracy fails because of stupid corrupt leadership and collapses into tyranny (or dictatorship in the modern world). At that point liberals seeking liberty from the junta, tyrant etc. Liberal and conservative are more like verbs than nouns.
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