Leftists/statists love what they control, though.
And they control quite alot. I'd go so far as to say leftists love the America as represented by the mechanisms of government and governmental control.
I'd go so far as to say both sides of the argument are about "control" in one form or another; and about "freedom."
Progressivism appears to be based on an innate distrust of individual agency, especially among those whom they consider to be a lower order of humanity. Because lower classes cannot be trusted to make their own, ill-conceived decisions, the enlightened class (i.e., progressives) must take it upon themselves to decide and enforce the choices people
ought to make. The inconvenient and persistent churnings of free will must be suppressed -- if necessary, by ever-more suffocating regulation.
What we tend to call "conservatism" seems to me an attempt to balance four basic concepts: the freedom to make one's own decisions, and the expectation that one is responsible for them; a responsibility toward others and to the general community; the necessity for self-control and self-regulation; and the recognition that humans are not, by nature, "good." As John Adams put it:
[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Hence, "law-and-order conservative" need not be considered a contradiction in terms.
The libertarian view of mankind seems to be that mankind is basically good. If people are allowed (within broad limits) the freedom to make their decisions, and are understood to be generally subject to (and not protected against) the consequences of same, then a stable, free, and happy social structure will spontaneously arise. I get a clear sense from libertarians that I've spoken with, that people should be allowed to make bad decisions; however, there is a rather strong animus against those who would band together to define community standards (e.g., against drug use or prostitution).
