I am not arguing against conservatism, actually. I think Russell Kirk's Ten Conservative Principles are a pretty good jumping off point. Unfortunately so-called conservatives have a tendancy towards an orthodox doctrine [see T. Cruz], and thereby ignore many of Kirk's principles, in particular:
Principal 10 - the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.....Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.
BINGO!
This has been my complaint of ‘conservatives’ so many years.
Any person that calls them selves a ‘conservative’ does not understand what a conservative is.
The people that lead the conservative movement are WAY WAY WAY too IDEOLOGICAL, the exact 180 degrees opposite of what conservatism is.
Ted Cruz is an IDEOLOGUE. He is not a conservative. He in fact is an ideologue and has more in common with Bernie ‘socialist’ Sanders. BOTH are ideologues at each end.
I wish there were more people in the GOP and the libertarian/conservative side that understand what conservatism really is, and all its different colors.
But ideologues have no part in the conservative movement, and I’ve been so disgusted over the years.
An example was when Palin was announced as McCain’s VP and Rush Limbaugh declared “Babies, Jesus, Guns”. I cringed because although Palin was ok on those issues, that was NOT who she was. Rush, the ideologue, pigeonholed Palin and she and McCain were never able to campaign on her record of prudent, common sense governing in Alaska and as mayor of Wasilla.
Let me tell you something, if I gave you a choice of lowering the marginal corporate income tax rate from 39% to say 25%, and the other choice was lower it to 5%, which would you pick.
The conservative would select the first choice or use the second choice to short high but settle on the 25% rate as a prudent conservative reform to help the economy.
So many on our side are such purists. They remind me of the Ron Paul supporters of 2012, who were libertarian versions of the NOT prudent Sanders.
Prudence, and incremental reforms, and a strong reluctance to put into place changes that are just too gut-wrenching short-term.
Prudence in our immigration policy would be to stop immigration because the culture is being eroded and we are nowhere near assimilating immigrants at any rate. The % of the people in the USA who were born outside of the USA is simply too high. Prudence demands that we enforce current immigration law to avoid the destruction of the country.
you are arguing against conservatism on a conservative website that, at its very heart, DOES value social conservatism.
I am not arguing against conservatism, actually. I think Russell Kirk’s Ten Conservative Principles are a pretty good jumping off point. Unfortunately so-called conservatives have a tendancy towards an orthodox doctrine [see T. Cruz], and thereby ignore many of Kirk’s principles, in particular:
Principal 10 - the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.....Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.
I agree with you. Americans and so called conservatives have gradually accepted the bastard child of true conservatism, the GOPe, MSM, DEM operatives version.
Can you imagine any true conservative being willing to give away our sovereignty as with the TPP or the Alphabet soup agreements? Or increased immigration of any kind which destroys the Anerican social fabric?
I would like to addto your sentence “ Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.” I agree and would add that even that change should be within the parameters and under the umbrella of the Natural Law, as came to us through the Founding Fathers and back to the Common Law of England and further to Aquinas, the Greeks and Romans, especially Cicero. Further we must make those changes at the same time rejecting the French Revolution’s stepchild of that English Natural Law, with emphasis on rights without responsibilities, and license rather than a freedom to choose among various goods not evils.
We will have change and it will be to social conservatism or we will lose our country. No one can flim flam the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.