Isn't it usually the liberal democrats who want to pass laws to tell people how to live their life? Laws to tell people not to buy plasma TVs, not to buy incandescent light bulbs, laws not to eat salt, laws not to eat saturated fats, laws not to eat at McDonald's etc.? They don't mind their own business, do they?
I'm going to take this in a different direction and say there are two political theories that advocate the government do NOT interfere with how people live their life (by Mill's Harm Principle in his book On Liberty) and that is liberalism and libertarianism. Rawls (liberal egalitarian) advocated a Kantian respect for the person as a rational, autonomous, individual capable of choosing their own ends (their own conception of the "good life"). Conservatives, in my opinion, might tell people how to live to protect the "social order" or to protect "how things are always done."
Now, with that being said, democrats tend to regulate environmental affairs because left to individual rationality and cost/benefit analysis, the environment would be in ruins (Tragedy of the Commons mentality). I may be wrong but I don't think there are laws that say you cannot eat salt, or saturated fats, or mcdonalds.
Needless to say, some registered democrats who are elected into public office might not abide by these principles.
