Liberal v. conservative: real or illusion?

We talk about this division all the time as though it represents a fundamental difference between people.  As it turns out, it's not so easy to figure this one out.  The only real personal difference in outlook between liberals and conservatives is the liberals' (1) heightened empathy and pessimistic feeling that individual responsibility (and a free market) just can't solve anything, (2) distrust of authority figures and organizations and therefore societally dictated morality, and (3) willingness to change institutions without much sentimentality.  In other words, conservatives are more likely to like social structures just the way they are and to believe that "internal" ingenuity and personal relationships are enough to invigorate the society and keep life worth living.  Liberals are much more likely to try to revolutionize the structures in order to solve injustices to individuals, because they believe these structures dictate a lot.

But when I'm talking to my conservative friend, do I ever feel uncomfortable?  Only when I think I might offend some structural value that she has -- such as religion or patriotism.  But other than that, we can hash out a lot of these fundamental differences quite rationally.