National security trumps economic efficiency. The world’s a big place, if we really need lots of cheap stuff, there’s Malaysia, India, Latin America (minus Venezuela and Cuba), the Philippines, Taiwan, Singapore, S. Korea and more. Now, if we get cut off in a conflict, we are in a bad way because we rely on a country that has nukes aimed at us, will only allow churches that recognize the Communist government as supreme, and tells people, with physical and extreme financial and legal coercion how many children they can have.
Absolutely right.
Also, IMO, conservatism is not defined as or by capitalism. Capitalism is simply the reality of goods and services traded for profit. It isn't tied to any political ideology, theology or philosophy of life.
My view of conservatism isn't compartmentalized into moral conservatism, social conservatism or economic conservatism. None of those things alone is conservatism to me. They are simply aspects of the whole which is the patriotism of defending, preserving and flourishing the founding principles of our Constitutional Republic. The principles expounded in the DoI of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Those principles, protected by the appropriate understanding and use of the Constitution, encompass all the basic necessities for allowing freedom that best insure the flowering of a moral, ethical and prosperous society. A society whose security is assured through its voluntary unity of common purpose. The purpose being to create an environment conducive to the flowering of all of man's nobler characteristics and desires.
If that is not conservatism then conservatism is not what my politics are about. But whatever terms are used; the pursuit of economic prosperity as a fundamental measure of the success of our society is not in line with my view of the potential or the intentions of our Founding Father's vision of a free self-governing society. It doesn't support or promote the noble characteristics of mankind. It just feeds the age old games of greed and lust for power and control. It may seem to take the game out of the hands of the government and put it into the private sector, and in some ways it does, but it's the same game with the same effects and government is still in the game up to its neck. It doesn't encourage mankind it encourages men.