[sanderjd]

You are speaking exclusively of the fiscal side of the current use of the word "conservative", which currently makes no sense from the point of view of the non-political definition of the word "conservative", because it would take a fairly radical set of policy changes to achieve those goals. This is why "libertarian" is a much better word for that type of "conservatism" - it refers to the goals themselves, not to the amount of policy change necessary to achieve them. However, on the social side of modern "conservatism", it truly is about conserving status-quo in many cases, even when that approach is at odds with "freedom and choice", (gay marriage, drug laws, etc.)

tl;dr; Yegge's use of the word "conservative" is not wrong, but rather the use of the word "conservative" to describe the (usually exclusively-) fiscally libertarian portion of the modern "conservative" movement is wrong.