The confusion comes from the rather simple historical fact that American conservatives, unlike those in other places around the globe, have a libertarian political philosophy in some of their country's past, and when they wish to conserve some of those libertarian elements, they seem to be championing individual liberty. But if this historical fact were otherwise, as it is in Iran or even France, conservatives would not care much about liberty at all. The conservative's tour de force is not individual liberty but tradition. Outside a few countries around the globe, tradition favors some variety of tyranny, despotism and theocracy. Conservatism is not some idea of how to govern but a method for how ideas are supposed to be validated.
Conservatives say that the trial and error process of history shows what is true.
And, certainly, no individual has the rightful power to quarrel with history. Marx was notorious in having anointed only communists to be able to see clearly what is good for us all. Just recently this was a theme of Bill Bradley's presidential candidacy. Never mind if the very attempt to impose such economic security leads to the opposite, mainly because it is in fact impossible to know in general what is good for people. They are individuals and very, very few things are good for them in general.