Sadly I think the term conservative has no defined meaning today. I have heard too many statements such as, “Now I am as conservative as anybody you will ever meet but I think”...followed by support for such things as free medical care for every American to whatever you can think of. If conservative means believing in the constitution interpreted to reflect original intent there are probably no more than five percent max of American citizens who are conservative. In my view the idea that fifty percent or more are true conservatives is as realistic as believing in the Great Pumpkin. In fact if you support the TRUE meaning of the constitution I suspect that a majority of “conservatives” will recoil in horror and look at you as if you crawled from under a rock. Try telling people that social security is unconstitutional, which it most certainly is and see what they say. Yes, I am a social security recipient but I had no choice in whether to pay the taxes so I don’t feel like a hypocrite for drawing it. I am still convinced that we would be better off now by far if it had never been started and the same goes for medicare. Please, let no one respond with, “What do you think would happen if we stopped social security and medicare now?” It is very likely to happen at some point anyway but it is the wrong question to ask. The proper question is, what would things be like if the government had never decided to act like parents for a nation of children?
No income tax and steep protectionist import tariffs is historically the conservative position.
Totally agree with you. It's a word I no longer use. Everyone seems to have their own definition. And the worst offenders, in terms of trying to redefine and twist the word to their own agenda, are the GOPe types in congress. They constantly claim to be "conservative" while promoting globalism, crony capitalism, big government, amorality and general corruption.