Ross Douthat says Funny People is "the first Apatow film in which you get punished for your sins. In that sense, [it's] is the most conservative of all his movies."

Is that really what conservatism is about these days? Punishment for sins? If that's true, why is virtually the entire conservative movement against prosecuting those who've broken torture laws? And why, for that matter, do conservatives always fight efforts to increase penalties for corporations that violate consumer, labor, and environmental regulations? Heck, why do conservative administrations always refuse to enforce the corporate rules that already exist?

There seems to be a lag between how conservatives see their ideology and what their ideology has actually become. For conservatism is no longer about the things that its proponents would like to believe it's about. It's not about personal responsibility, or restraint, or accountability.

It is, rather, about free love. Not free love for everyone, mind you. Free love for the powerful. Free love for big corporations and political leaders.

This free-love conservatism isn't interested in establishing a set of rules and then ensuring all people pay the same price if they break those rules. It's interested in preserving power for those who've already got it. In this framework, freedom is a perk of privilege. And this framework is now the dominant one in contemporary American conservatism.

Sure, there are some honest conservatives out there who are less inclined to go along with the degradation of their political philosophy. Ross Douthat tends to be one of those good ones. But they are outliers. Generally speaking, conservatism now defends something that it pretends to loathe: consequence-free rule-breaking. At least when it comes to the rules that conservatives don't like.