Writing a paper on conservatism

I sorry to take up space on here. I am working on a paper on media bias and people on here were helpful enough to help me find a book on it. In my introduction I am trying to come up with a succint definition of conservatism. Any ideas?

Old people, if they have not fried their brains on drugs, have what our progressive oppressors lack. Wisdom.

It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing. - Adam Smith
One of the great virtues of FR is that it enables us to pool our “incredulity.” That makes us wiser collectively than we would be individually. But we do not argue from the assumption of our own wisdom; that way lies the sophistry of the “objective journalist” who uses the claim of objectivity to shout down the careful analysis of facts and logic.

Liberals talk about “giving back” when a businessman is prosperous. Yet the prosperous businessman gave back when he provided the goods/services for which he was “given” (paid) in the first place.
Conservatives don’t give “back” so much as they give forward. I would never claim to have repaid my parents, but I do give to my children. My parents’s saving redounded to my benefit, and my saving - I could, after all, just dissipate the money - will I hope ultimately redound to the benefit of our children and grandchildren.
It’s an interesting point that liberals have fewer children, and continually load up debt to be repaid by our children. Even as they prattle about “for the children” and “if it saves the life of just one child.”

An interesting way of defining conservatism, and it is explicit in the Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Savings is a “Blessing of Liberty;” the marxist will say, “all private property is theft.” The marxist also promotes ingratitude, and condemns “dead white males” such as the framers of the Constitution.
Liberal Child Abuse
The American Thinker | 10/11/2013 | Tom Trinko

Ingratitude is unhappiness.
Happiness is a Serious Problem is an FR link to Dennis Prager’s speech on the topic of happiness, and contains the link not only to his book on the subject but a link to his first C-Span talk on his then-new book.
It is germane here because of his first premise: "Happiness is a moral obligation.”
Unhappiness is easy, any fool can be unhappy. Just be an ingrate, for example, and you can guarantee your own unhappiness.
Happiness is an obligation, in the sense that you never saw a happy suicide bomber.

On 22 Jan. 1908, in a Cheetham, Manchester speech entitled "SOCIALISM: 'ALL YOURS IS MINE!', with the grandson's introduction: "In the ranks of the Labour Party there were to be found many hard-line Socialist, to whose presence in the Liberal coalition Churchill took the strongest exception, while anxious not to alienate the working-class vote.", Churchill said: "The Socialist - the extreme and revolutionary party of Socialists - are very fond of telling us they are reviving in modern days the best principles of the Christian era. They consider they are the political embodiment of Christianity, though, to judge by the language which some of them use and the spirit of envy, hatred, and malice with which they go about their work, you would hardly imagine they had studied the teaching of the Founder of Christianity with the attention they profess to have given to the subject. - (Hear, hear.) But there is one great difference between Socialists of the Christian era and those of which Mr Victor Gray son is the apostle. The Socialism of the Christian era was based on the idea that "all mine is yours', but the Socialism of Mr Gray son is based on the idea that 'all yours is mine'. - (Cheers.) Id. at p. 27-29.

I am trying to come up with a succinct definition of conservatism. Any ideas?

This article piqued my interest considerably, as you can tell by the way I have returned to the subject multiple times. Most of the replies to the question - including, I confess, my own first effort - were radically too long to actually be responsive.
IMHO the preamble to the Constitution comes closer, but I now think that perhaps your reference Common Sense - Thomas Paine has a good candidate as well. as I noted in your thread, the opening paragraph plus of that book is a pretty good candidate:
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

That version is straight from the pamphlet - but reformatted for clarity.
The socialist’s likely rebuttal would be, “Government is evil? How about Social Security?” To which Adam Smith provides the reply:
The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.
The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter II
Because of its Ponzi Scheme attributes, Social Security actually represents a debt we owe our children, as much as it does a return on our own “contributions.”

Rush Limbaugh has noted that after the 1994 Gingrich victory, “we thought we could stop teaching.” AOC is a symptom of that failure.
I was subject to one HS teacher (back in the middle of the Eisenhower Administration) who tipped his hand as being a socialist. He gave an assignment which, it proved, was designed to allow him to make the assertion, “We like to say ‘society’ when we mean ‘government.’” I was utterly unconvinced but, at that time, unable to articulate my objection.
Much, much later this FR thread brought up the issue of how to succinctly articulate conservatism. In that format at that time I made some salient points, but nobody came up with a really succinct and pointed response.
The answer, IMHO, lies in the philosophical grounding of the American Revolution. We have all heard of the 1776 Thomas Paine pamphlet , Common Sense - but only the title is actually famous. Having studied the opening paragraphs of that document, I now consider it to be a powerful critique of tyranny, and can see how it might have been highly influential. The pamphlet begins,
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one . . . For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest . . .
Clearly the first paragraph takes dead aim at precisely the fallacy promoted by that (by now very old) HS teacher. Had I but known . . .
But the actual core of those paragraphs - the part that all the rest exist to justify - is the assertion that
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one
. . . and that is the core proposition of American “conservatism” (scare quotes around “conservatism” because we “conservatives” promote liberty at some risk to stability, and we believe in progress of, by, and for society. Albeit not of government).
American “conservatives” are skeptical enough of society that we readily admit the necessity of government - but we are skeptical of the idea of progress of or by government - and dead set against progress for government (and, if in fact government is an evil, rightly so).
American “liberals” (scare quotes around “liberal” because “liberals” are suspicious of, even hostile to, liberty) are cynical about society. And (in view of the contrast between society and government posited by Paine, it follows) are naive about government.

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