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The Essence of Conservatism
The Imaginative Conservative ^ | Russell Kirk

Posted on 08/17/2013 8:04:57 AM PDT by ReformationFan

A conservative is not, by definition, a selfish or a stupid person; instead, he is a person who believes there is something in our life worth saving. Conservatism, indeed, is a word with an old and honorable meaning—but a meaning almost forgotten by Americans until recent years. Abraham Lincoln wished to be known as a conservative. “What is conservatism?” he said. “Is it not preference for the old and tried, over the new and untried?” It is that; and it is also a body of ethical and social beliefs. The word “liberalism,” however, has been in favor among us for two or three decades. Even nowadays, though there are a good many conservatives in both national and state politics, in neither major party do many leading politicians describe themselves as “conservatives.” Paradoxically, the people of the United States became the chief conservative nation of the world at the very time when they had ceased to call themselves conservatives at home. What with our stern opposition to the radicalism of the Soviets, however, and our national abhorrence of collectivism in all its varieties, a good many Americans now doubt very much whether they care to be called liberals or radicals. The liberals, for a good while, have been drifting leftward toward their radical cousins; and liberalism, in recent years, has come to imply an attachment to the centralized state and the dreary impersonality of Huxley’s Brave New World or Orwell’s 1984. Men and women who sense that they are not liberals or radicals are beginning to ask themselves just what they believe, and what they ought to call themselves. The system of ideas opposed to liberalism and radicalism is the conservative political philosophy.

(Excerpt) Read more at theimaginativeconservative.org ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: conservatism; essence; kirk; russellkirk
Very good blast from the past by Russell Kirk. A good reminder for us today.
1 posted on 08/17/2013 8:04:57 AM PDT by ReformationFan
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To: ReformationFan
“What is conservatism?” he said. “Is it not preference for the old and tried, over the new and untried?”

I.E Be a lazy bum and don't care about the contraconstitutional acts the government is doing, and has been doing for years.
I am coming to despise the word/label Conservative as it really means just keeping things the same*, no place is in it for eradicating injustice, for countering corruption, for loving liberty — not any more.

* This is a valid layman's/informal definition of conservative, from the word conserve.

2 posted on 08/17/2013 8:15:10 AM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: ReformationFan
essence?
3 posted on 08/17/2013 8:15:27 AM PDT by Drawn7979
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To: ReformationFan

What’s this? It’s not being Catholic?


4 posted on 08/17/2013 8:32:46 AM PDT by Alex Murphy ("Thus, my opponent's argument falls.")
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To: ReformationFan

The durability of Conservatism has depended, to a great extent,
on it being a disposition rather than a philosophy.
What marks Conservatives out, across the generations,
and whatever the environment they operate in,
is an attitude of mind rather than an adherence to dogma.

And that disposition
- skeptical, cautious, pragmatic, sensitive to the local and the particular
- has been politically successful because it has been in tune with human nature.

Michael Gove


5 posted on 08/17/2013 8:54:24 AM PDT by HangnJudge
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To: ReformationFan

Call us Rule of Law (as opposed by the lawless Bammy/H0lder cabal) logical (vs. emotional) Constitutionalists.


6 posted on 08/17/2013 10:05:57 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Paladin2

That’s a very accurate description.


7 posted on 08/17/2013 10:16:36 AM PDT by ReformationFan
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