Conservative Epiphany?

"I had a heretical thought for a conservative - that I have got to teach my kids that they must never, ever take Presidents and Generals at their word - that their government will send them to kill and die for noble-sounding rot - that they have to question authority.

On the walk to the parking garage, it hit me. Hadn't the hippies tried to tell my generation that? Why had we scorned them so blithely?"

This is an excerpt from an commentary by a conservative author named Rod Dreher. Glenn Greenwald has some more of his thoughts and some good comments on it.

It is fascinating to see conservatives admit this, but what is really strange is that they ever got to where they are in the first place. I always thought the basics of conservative philosophy was not to trust the government and to always be critical of those in power, which is the reason they are always for "small" and "limited" government, don't want to meddle in others affairs and don't want to get involved in foreign "entanglements" and so on.

Can Right Wing Authoritarianism explain what has happened to the conservative movement?

I will let you be the judge.