Burke certainly thought so. Many of the things he wished to conserve were quite contrary to his spoken principles, and his defense of them in his Reflections was that these customs and usages served purposes other than that which they were instituted to address. It was, if you like, the first treatment of government on biological, rather than mechanical, modeling.
That's the real challenge to conservatism that progressives do not share - one must, while one is choosing and defending one's principles, recognize that the world is more complicated than the hoped-for result, and that "progress" may be backward as well as forward, and that principle must acknowledge its own inadequacy in the face of what really is. That does not mean that principle is to be dispensed with, it only means that it has limitations. Many libertarians find this uncomfortable. Many ex-libertarians who are still conservatives find this difficult to explain. Edmund Burke did as good a job at it as anyone has to my knowledge. For those curious as to why this fierce defender of the American revolution should speak in defense of the ancien regime, that's why. IMHO, of course.
I think if you take Walter Williams approach that any law passed by congress has to apply to the government, you will get pretty close. Semantic discussions about what is libertarianism and what is conservatism don’t really help much. What we need is limited government, a peeling away of the onion, layer by layer. We need the government to stop picking winners and losers. Eliminate totally most government agencies not specifically provided for by the constitution. And finally and perhaps most importantly, a return to sound money, the classical gold standard, That way there is no back door lending to the government by the fed which allows it to print money to pay for programs that the majority of citizens would not willingly pay taxes for. Once the dollar becomes a true warehouse receipt for an amount of gold or silver on deposit with the fed, that can be freely exchanged, that’s the end of big government.
The unfortunate part is that for this to occur there must be a complete collapse of the existing fractional reserve system. Then one county needs to bite the bullit and adopt a gold standard.
This was the problem with the Reagan Revolution, it never got to the underlying problem of expanding government, which is caused directly or indirectly by an expanding money supply. During Reagan’s term, and I am large fan of his, Milton Friedman lamented that not one single government department was eliminated. After the initial high interest rates started declining, the money supply started increasing again and large deficits were run.
It may seem unlikely that a gold standard will be reimplemented, however, the current fiat money systems in an advanced state of decline all over the world. And there is really no way to save it.
>>It all comes down to what it is you wish to conserve. <<
How about
Life - from conception to the natural end;
Liberty - Freedom from government overregulation and
The Pursuit of Happiness - Success breeds rewards.
How’s that for starters?
Good comments and I appreciate the mention of Burke. He’s a pleasure to read.