re: Can you be fiscally conservative and socially liberal?

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The "no externalities" thing is as close as I can approximate to an objective standard. It doesn't require any sort of subjective judgement, and hence no morality.

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My point is that even the "no externalities" standard you have provided is your own standard, and therefore, is subjective. It sounds better to you than all other standards, but not all people agree with you, and even if all people did agree, it just means that all people agree with a singular subjective standard.

For example, who says that standard is better or worse than a standard that says "God says thus"? If there is no objective standard bearer that has given us this standard and said that it is the right one, then by default it's just one standard that lives in the minds of some people while not in others.

In other words, the origin of the standard is what determines whether or not it is subjective or objective. If there is no God, there are no objective standards, even religious ones. What that means is that the "no externalities" standard is on equal footing with a standard that says "might makes right".