Evil One: I have always maintained that one of the basic differences between left and right is that the left seems to value idealism over pragmatism and with the right, the opposite is true.
I used to more or less agree with this, but now I think it’s much more of a toss-up. Liberals are idealistic about some things, true, sometimes to the point of impracticality, but so are conservatives.
Who argues that invading Iraq was definitely worth it, even if the alleged casus belli was completely unsubstantiated, even if the Iraqis wind up in the end with a theocratic government allied with hostile Iran (or worse, a prolonged civil insurgency and instability), just because we overthrew a tyrannical dictator and tried to encourage freedom? Conservatives. (Not all of them, of course, maybe not even most of them, but you can definitely find plenty who do.)
Who argues that we need to cut taxes, or pile up massive Social Security privatization costs, even when it produces tremendous budget deficits, just because there’s something “unfair” about the current system? Conservatives.
Who argues that the death penalty or the war on drugs is a moral necessity, even if it’s financially more expensive than the alternative, because the importance of punishment outweighs the practical disadvantages? Conservatives.
I used to think that conservatives really did have an advantage in the hard-headed pragmatism department, but we have seen over the past several years that many conservatives can be just as ideologically blinded and impractical as the starriest-eyed liberal ever minted.
(IMO, though, most of what the OP’s linked article has to say about them as a group is just inchoate blather. Somebody owes me the five minutes it took to read that thing.)