Most people just don't know what the fuck they are talking about even when defining their own beliefs.

I don't think alt-right and classical liberal mean the same thing. But they are both right-wing positions.

They are all shitheads who deserve to be exterminated, so what’s the difference

I've just noticed, mostly through working on conservative AM radio, that people who are clearly alt right in their views paint themselves in terminology that makes you think they're more classical liberal or traditional center right. And I think that leads to people like LV thinking the two are closer in ideology than they really are.

Good lord man, how do you do that? Yeesh.

Okay now we're on the same page. I agree with you.

This is a position that can only lead to a reasonable exchange of ideas.

To be fair, most of my work done these days is on the news side of things, not the talk side. We're actually not a traditional conservative am news/talker that has hannity in the afternoon. We do news all day until 8pm and we do a good job keeping ideological slants out of that. But then 8-midnight we have the guy who pretty much got Scott Brown elected in Massachusetts doing his talk show.

What politics does Peterson ever even espouse, other than his common sense clash with compelled speech and SJWs, and how does any of it make him necessarily conservative and why does it matter?

I think this is mostly true, although it depends on issues you're discussing. A liberal and classical liberal/libertarian should get along on social issues quite well. In fact, the classical liberal is often more liberal on these issues than the liberal.
On economic issues, they obviously favor freer markets which is on the right economically.

So while I don't think they fit on a left/right spectrum so much, I would absolutely agree that most "classical liberals" in the U.S. come to that position from a right-wing starting point, therefore it ends up as more right-wing position. Additionally, the ardent anti-collectivist nature emphasizes the economic axis more than the social one, further reinforcing the right-wing nature.

And there are a lot of the fake classical liberals as Chud mentioned that voted for Trump/Republicans, again reinforcing the right-wing position.

But if you examine the ideology itself, I think a left/right distinction is mostly meaningless in this case.

Would people consider the Weinsteins (not the famous, rapey one and his brother) to be conservative? They are basically social democrats.

Classical liberalism is a somewhat broad set of beliefs with proponents across the spectrum, but I don't know how anyone could consider it a strictly right wing position except through ignorance.

It seems that both the modern right and modern left have moved wildly from their positions a decade ago (and away from each other.)

Classical liberalism largely fills in the gap left over, which is probably why both sides hate them and can't see them as anything other than alt-right or cucks. It's all they can see.