A Conservative is someone who agrees with me on 100% of everything. If you do not agree with me on everything, no matter how big or small, then you are a flaming Communist heathen.
and politically speaking, a conservative conserves the original idea of America ... personal liberty, freedom with property ownership ... armed.
The rest is all superficial protections for those rights
Bump!
Ping to read later.
The definition certainly seems to be stretching beyond any boundary it ever once had. We have so-called “conservative” talking heads in the media who are not just pro-amnesty, pro-dope, and pro-fag marriage... but all three!
If conservatism has ‘evolved’ into embracing that kind of crap, then let’s just say it’s no longer a club I want to be included in.
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
For years Dennis Prager used to remind his listeners that he is/was a patriotic 1960s anti-Leftist cold war liberal who takes religion seriously. He still is but don’t try telling that to the gaggle of silly conservatives who can’t tell the difference.
E pluribus unum used to refer to the creation of the national government out of the 13 colonies, but good liberal Dennis thinks it should instead mean the diverse multi-ethnic stew that has resulted from the mass third world immigration that he dearly loves.
Thanks for that. I think it defines very well how I feel about it.
Too bad most republicans are not true conservatives.
And imagine how many of our problems would go away if that trinity of values was had by all.
This also echoes the reflections of Os Guinness and his Golden Triangle of Freedom:
"... the conviction that freedom requires virtue, which requires faith, which requires freedom, which in turn requires virtue, which requires faith, which requires freedom and so on.”
Freeper Definition:
"Whatever it is, it sure as Hell ain't YOU!!!"
This is true. There have only been two conserative Presidents in the last 100 years. Coolidge and Reagan. Coolidge was more effective than Reagan because the Congress he had to deal with wasn’t as leftist.
Two... That’s it! Get off the George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Chris Fatboy, Mike Fatboy, , et, al moderate Democrate train. It’s a time for chosing, once it’s gone there’s no where else to go.
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.
Good read, Calvin Coolidge a true conservative. I’ve bookmarked this thread.
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 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. “
That sounds to me like a big government, big enough to spread lots of welfare all around.
Not “personal,” but rather “societal.”
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.
Ask three conservatives and you'll get four different answers.
Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t gonna resign.
I’ve always described conservationism as a trinity:
A conservative is one who consistently and constantly strive to conserve The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and The Bill of Rights. These three when kept safe, protected from harm, decay, loss or destruction will continually result in a Free Republic.
All of which are dependent upon “We The People” and frankly we the people are failing to conserve, we point fingers of blame towards individual political officials, towards political institutions and the press, but the bottom line is they are what they are because WE ALLOW THEM.
Some nations have order without justice or freedom; these we usually call tyrannies. Other nations have freedom—for a while—without justice or order; such conditions we call anarchy. The founders of the American Republic, equally detesting tyranny and anarchy, determined to establish an enduring political constitution that would recognize the claims of justice, order, and freedom, and that would allow no excessive demands upon the part of any one of these three principles. Such a state, in which interests are balanced and harmonized by good laws, Aristotle had called a “polity.” Our American polity is a regime of ordered liberty, designed to give justice and order and freedom all their due recognition and part.