Conservatism 101: Who is Really a Conservative?

Most Americans, including most Republicans, do not understand what “conservative” philosophy, principles, and policies are.

Merriam-Webster defines conservative as “believing in the philosophy of conservatism,” which it defines as “belief in the value of established and traditional practices in politics and society; dislike of change or new ideas in a particular area.”

However, this definition is wrong. The root of conservatism lies in the concept of “ordered liberty” and the fundamental truth that human rights are God-given, not man-made and that individual liberty and freedom are birthrights.

Calvin Coolidge, America’s 30th president—perhaps the most conservative president of the last century—emphasized the underpinning conservative principle of the rule of law rests solely on “the divine origin of mankind.”

In his speech, The Price of Freedom, Coolidge emphasized that in America’s founding documents “there resulted the recognition that freedom was a birthright. It was the natural and inalienable condition of beings who were created ‘a little lower than the angels.’ With it went the principle of equality, not an equality of possessions, not an equality of degree, but an equality in the attributes of humanity, an equality of kind. Each is possessed of the divine power to know the truth.”

Likewise, conservative commentator Dennis Prager defines conservatism by what he calls “The American Trinity,” which preserves three fundamental truths. First, “In God We Trust” is the foundation for the rule of law. Manmade laws are designed to protect God-given human rights. From that, “E Pluribus Unum,” a unified and diverse people are encouraged to live peaceably, with “liberty” in their pursuit of happiness.

Within the American Trinity and republican form of government, the electorate determines the moral and ethical decisions and laws through representatives acting on their behalf. In theory, the electorate governs through limited local, state, and federal governments that restrain and punish the malfeasant and enable ingenuity, personal responsibility, entrepreneurship, creativity, and a range of its citizens’ pursuits.

The electorate may redefine and change moral and legal constraints but conservatism does not.

Because conservatism fundamentally values life, conservative policies will seek to protect it. Pro-life policies include economic, racial, and societal freedoms regardless of circumstances or socio-economic and political climates. Conservative policies are dictated by conservative principles, not the reverse.

Dividing conservatism between social/fiscal policies is a false dichotomy. The root of conservatism is not laissez-faire economic policies that create personal financial profit and power, but principles that value life-giving activities that improve societal welfare.

Conservatism guided Coolidge to relieve a country crippled by debt and severe economic depression, institutionalized segregation, and class warfare to eliminate the progressive policies Woodrow Wilson and Congress created. Progressives devalued life by institutionalizing oligarchy in America through the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, segregating federal employees, and making illegal interracial marriage.

Coolidge evidenced fiscal responsibility by significantly reducing tax rates and the national debt by nearly one third. Debt, he argued, stifled freedom, limited entrepreneurship and economic growth. He advocated for personal responsibility and accountability through the rule of law, attempting to make illegal lynching and racial segregation, and hate crimes. He also sought to create national commissions to help bridge racial divides—yet progressives fought him at every step.

Contrary to Merriam-Webster’s definition of conservatism, that it “dislike(s) change or new ideas in a particular area,” conservatives have consistently opposed the status quo. Instead, seeking to change the law in order to protect human rights, especially when the law seeks to eliminate equality of natural rights and regulate equality of outcomes.

In this way progressivism replace ordered liberty, the American Trinity, and the principles “No God, No Liberty” and “the divine origin of mankind” with “No God/Morality,” and “No Unity,” and “No Liberty.”

“In God We Trust” is replaced by a Godless society that teaches children the state, not God, creates rights and defines morality. “E Pluribus Unum” (of the many, one) is replaced with divisive policies (of the many, many) and “Liberty,” with regulated inequality. In response to this approach Prager reasons, “I can’t think of anything more demeaning than to tell a group we will change the rules and lower the standards just for you.”

In the name of “progress” individual exceptionalism, ingenuity, creativity, successes and failures and the lessons learned from them are restricted and penalized. Yet, as history has shown “equating” economic or social outcomes results in repeatedly failed consequences that devalue life and eliminate human rights.

Conservatives support policies designed to safeguard the principles of the American Trinity and ordered liberty and thwart attempts to weaken and ultimately destroy them.

Webster’s definition is the correct definition of conservative as applicable world-wide. American conservatism is peculiar in that much of what we wish to conserve is actually classical liberalism — the American Founding being the quintessentially classical liberal event in all of history — free markets, free speech, freedom of religion,... all being seen by the Founders as part of a natural (and humanly beneficial) whole. European conservatism, by contrast, is often monarchist and supportive of a paternalistic state.

Incidentally this is the reason the American left hijacked the word “liberal” when the populace rejected anything labeled “socialist” or “progressive” — they want to seem (or even claim to themselves) to uphold the American Founding, which the American people as a conservative people, wish to conserve. In Australia the party that upholds the same ideals as American conservatism is called the Liberal Party (while the left-wing party is the Labor Party — yes, the Aussies also dropped the u from labour).

Incidentally, I want the word “liberal” back. The left can have “fascist” as a descriptor, since they actually have no regard for liberty and since history has proven communism to be a non-viable expression of the left’s totalitarian impulses, the left, world-wide, has a program essentially identical to that of Italian fascism — the state should control everything broadly, some aspects of life minutely, while enough of a semblance of a market economy remains that the rich can be coopted rather than looted or killed.

Perhaps a re-reading of Dr. Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind might be in order for this year preceding a National Primary Election. Too many potential candidates call themselves "conservative" without giving meaningful form to the idea.

Clearly, America needs now a visionary Constitutional statesman as its leader if ordered liberty is to be "conserved" for future generations.

Such a leader is not likely to come from the so-called "progressives" of the Left, nor from those currently labeled as "conservatives," who see no problem with using the coercive powers of government to legalize "taking" the hard-earned wages of the citizens' labor from some in order to fulfill their own version of "doing good."

Such a Constitutional leader would vow to hold fast to the principles of liberty stated so eloquently by the Author of our Declaration of Independence and President of the U. S., Thomas Jefferson, in his 1801 Inaugural Address--wherein Jefferson laid out what might be considered to be "qualifications" for the American presidency:

(Excerpt, "Our Ageless Constitution," p. xiv, reformatted)
"Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation;
- entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them;
= enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man;
- acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter
—with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people?
- Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
- This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
"About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you,
- it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations.
- Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;
- peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none;
- the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies;
- the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad;
- a jealous care of the right of election by the people—a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided;
- absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism;
- a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them;
- the supremacy of the civil over the military authority;
- economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened;
- the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith;
- encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid;
- the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason;
- freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.
These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."

The writer has confused Conservatism as a concept, with some of the philosophic roots that many American Conservatives share. That is not the same thing--not at all. Those ideological roots did inspire the culture that emerged from the Revolution; and hence they remain sacred to rooted Americans; but they certainly do not define Conservatism for those who do not look to those roots to justify policy.

Put another way, they do not define Conservatism for all peoples; put yet another, they do not define Conservatism for all who consider themselves Conservative even in the American context--there being many who simply abhor the alternative in our politics, even though they do not necessarily even understand the philosophy of the Founding Fathers.

And while I certainly consider Coolidge largely a Conservative; the writer has cluttered his analysis with an effort to define the concept too subjectively.

Why is this important? The point is not merely academic. It leads to misunderstanding of what motivates people in other lands who would be our natural allies, if we understood that what is Conservative to them may not be the same thing as that which we desire to preserve for America. Failing to appreciate this--or deliberately ignoring this, if you are a militant internationalist--has led our State Department on many a fallacious path over the past two generations.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.