Conservatives do not wake up every morning expecting the government to fulfill their dreams. They go to work, care for their families and ask government to provide the basic conditions in which they can build their own lives.
They understand that society has problems. Education must improve, working conditions can be better and social ills must be confronted. But these are issues that government should not tell us how to fix, but we ourselves must work at doing so.
They do expect government to fulfill its essential responsibilities: build infrastructure, enforce the law and protect the nation from criminals and foreign enemies.
Conservatives are not perfect. Some are good people and some are not. What unites them is something much simpler: They value the lives, families, traditions and communities they already have. They want to repair society, not burn it down.