because what they really mean is social CONTROL.
Those "conservatives" are authoritarians who love big government so long as it is aimed at "those people" however they define them.
Exactly! Yet their hypocritical stance fails to support them when it's something they think is right. Substitute guns for drugs, and the argument pretty much settles itself, IMHO.
I haven't figured out if they really can't see it [due to generations of public educational programming], or they just don't want too.