Define conservatism

Self

[GB]

Define conservatism. List some basic conservative values. List what you consider to be legitimate exercises of governmental and law enforcement authority under a government which is operating with a conservative philosophy, and in particular legitimate exercises of said authority when it comes to children.

[GB]

The reason I ask this question ... and some may consider it a vanity since this is me talking, but I think because of the subject matter it is quite on topic; and I'm posting it to News/Activism because I think it is of such importance that I don't want to bury it in General Interest, but the moderator can move it to wherever he sees fit or delete it if he sees fit ... has to do with the thread about the woman who was taped beating her child and has been arrested for it.

I and others have taken the stand that this was inexcusable and the authorities are within their rights to jail this mother and take the child away from the family until this thing gets sorted out. And I am of the strong opinion that this has nothing to do with politics.

However, we have been taken to task by other folks who see this as the first step in some eeeevilll left-wing plot to liberate children from their parents, who see our support for this action as an example of liberal rot beginning to fester in the conservative movement and are invoking the names of the usual bogeymen like Hillary and Geraldo to reinforce their case.

As I said, this is not a political issue for me, and if you want to see what I've said about this specific situation you can search out my posts, there's no sense in revisiting it here, but such reponses have made me curious. I have considered myself a conservative activist since junior high school, some three decades ago. I ask for these definitions to see, has the conservative movement left me or have I unknowingly left the conservative movement?

I reserve the right to give my definitions after I see what everyone else says.

[f.Christian]

Creation/God...Christianity---secular-govt.-humanism/SCIENCE---CIVILIZATION!

Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives(no govt religion--none) who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality... UNDER GOD---the nature of GOD/man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values(private/personal) GROWTH(limited NON-intrusive PC Govt/religion---schools)!

Evolution...Atheism-dehumanism---TYRANNY(pc-religion/rhetoric)...

Then came the SPLIT SCHIZOPHRENIA/ZOMBIE/BRAVE-NWO1984 LIBERAL NEO-America---

[boris]

Conservatives are the people who can read the Constitution and have the nerve to believe that it means exactly what it says.

--Boris

[Mark Felton]

A conservative is one who believes in traditional American values of a strong military, highly regulated trade, heavy taxation, and massive social welfare programs.

The conservatives have shared power equally with the leftist Democrat party for over 50 years and have supported all of the aforementioned agenda items.

[Darheel]

The Conservative is the stalwart advocate of Republic, while the Liberal is in active oppostition to it. It has always been so.

[beckett]

My definition, which I wrote a few years ago and keep on file just in case somebody asks, and which borrows heavily from moral philosopher John Kekes' The Case for Conservatism, goes as follows:

Conservatism is based on four components: skepticism, pluralism, traditionalism, and pessimism. Each component is a mean between two rejected alternatives.

Conservative skepticism encourages a healthy distrust of the two forms "the nightmare of reason" may take: the rationalist dream of reconstructing the human world on the basis of "the latest metaphysical or utopian certainties," and the "fideist" spurning of reason in favor of irrational enthusiasms, whether religious or nationalist in inspiration. Skepticism leads conservatives "to want reasons for action to be concrete, tried and true, and attested to by experience."

Pluralism argues that a society cannot maximize all good things all at once: there are always trade-offs between, say, liberty and equality or privacy and public spirit. Pluralism acts as a via media between absolutism and relativism. Absolutists declare that there is but one good form that all lives must struggle to approximate; relativists proclaim that good lives are just what each society, or perhaps each individual, say they are. Pluralists are more sensibly awake to the variety of political arrangements, conditions, traditions, and conceptions of the good life that human nature legitimately allows. But they are aware, too, that that variety isn't infinite.

Conservatives are traditionalists. Like Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Oakeshott, conservatives defend traditions because they carry tacit knowledge, various and sundry excellences, and resources for building meaningful lives. Where the well of tradition runs dry, human impoverishment inexorably follows. A strong society will harbor many traditions. A social world thick with traditions is better than a liberal one devoted to individual autonomy, since autonomy by itself leaves us sad and empty. After all, what’s the worth of choice if choice is all there is? A social world thick with traditions is also better than one where social authority crushes traditions into authorized shapes, as the Soviet Union once crushed civil society with all the weight its merciless centralized power could muster.

The final component of conservative political morality is pessimism. Pessimism leads conservatives to reject the "Enlightenment Faith" in human perfectibility. Evil and contingency stain all human affairs, as should be clear to anyone who looks out the window or in the mirror. Yet conservatives don’t go to the opposite extreme of viewing human nature as irredeemably corrupt. Even thoroughly evil societies witness acts of decency, generosity, and sacrifice. Pessimism acknowledges both angel and brute in man's permanent constitution.

[cicero's_son]

Conservatism is the practice of adding ice cubes to the water pot in which the frog is boiling.

This must always be done without any thought of actually removing the pot from the flame.

[DainBramage]

Concervatives see the glass as half empty because the Liberals

want the government to take bigger and bigger drinks.

[brothersjudddotcom]

Here's Russell Kirk on the matter: Any informed conservative is reluctant to condense profound and intricate intellectual systems to a few portentous phrases; he prefers to leave that technique to the enthusiasm of radicals. Conservatism is not a fixed and immutable body of dogma, and conservatives inherit from Burke a talent for re-expressing their convictions to fit the time. As a working premise, nevertheless, one can observe here that the essence of social conservatism is preservation of the ancient moral traditions. Conservatives respect the wisdom of their ancestors...; they are dubious of wholesale alteration. They think society is a spiritual reality, possessing an eternal life but a delicate constitution: it cannot be scrapped and recast as if it were a machine. [...] I think there are six canons of conservative thought-- (1) Belief that a divine intent rules society as well as conscience, forging an eternal chain of right and duty which links great and obscure, living and dead. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems. [...] (2) Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of traditional life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems. [...] (3) Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes. The only true equality is moral equality; all other attempts at levelling lead to despair, if enforced by positive legislation. [...] (4) Persuasion that property and freedom are inseparably connected, and that economic levelling is not economic progress. Separate property from private possession and liberty is erased. (5) Faith in prescription and distrust of 'sophisters and calculators.' Man must put a control upon his will and his appetite, for conservatives know man to be governed more by emotion than by reason. Tradition and sound prejudice provide checks upon man's anarchic impulse. (6) Recognition that change and reform are not identical, and that innovation is a devouring conflagration more often than it is a torch of progress. Society must alter, for slow change is the means of its conservation, like the human body's perpetual renewal; but Providence is the proper instrument for change, and the test of a statesman is his cognizance of the real tendency of Providential social forces.

[Satadru]

In light of your definition, I will see a conservative is someone who is not in government and has to pay his/her way through.

[Mark Felton]

"Conservatives are the people who can read the Constitution and have the nerve to believe that it means exactly what it says. "

You have no evidence to support this claim. The "conservative" party has no more respect for the Constitution than the Leftist/Dem party.

[DainBramage]

Conservatives

[Grut]

The federal government has the right to come down heavy on anyone I disapprove of; it is entirely wicked, and against the wishes of the Founding Fathers, for it to do so against anyone I like. ;^)

[Mark Felton]

"Conservatism is the practice of adding ice cubes to the water pot in which the frog is boiling. "

They add ice only to keep the frog from jumping out of the pot. They are equally desirous of consuming the stew.

[f.Christian]

To: f.Christian

Now I follow, thank you. Actually, I don't disagree with this at all since I see the left as abandoning the uncertianty of democracy and majority rule for the assurance technocracy and expert rule.


152 posted on 9/10/02 12:17 PM Pacific by Liberal Classic

[chasio649]

There are consequences in life...pretty much sums up conservatism for me.

[Mark Felton]

You speak of a much older tradition that predates the current generation. Modern day "conservatives" support the culture that replaces "rugged individualism" with "subordination to the group".

Your idea of conservatism might be called classical conservativism, perhaps. But it is not modern conservatism.

[f.Christian]

Creation/God...Reformation(Judeo-Christianity)---Constitution/secular-govt.-humanism/SCIENCE---CIVILIZATION!

[RAT Patrol]

Off the top of my head (so don't expect anything profound, lol)...

To me, the difference between a liberal and a conservative is centralized in how each defines "freedom." The left defines it as freedom FROM responsibility (and religion is bad because it promotes conscience and every good liberal knows conscience is just a manufactured thing--by white males--and it is to blame for all wars); freedom to be immoral; freedom to steal my money and give it to other liberals; etc... Good government is defined by them as "social justice" and class differences are all brought about by bad government rather than bad individual choices.

The right (conservative right) defines it as freedom plus responsibility. You can only have maximum freedom if you have a moral society who REGULATES THEMSELVES. There is a big difference between local government and federal government to the conservative. Each community can choose what they want their government to look like, and what they want to value as a whole. The Federal government makes sure local gov't adheres to the U.S. Constitution and individual rights (life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness; not, lust, lewdness, and the pursuit of lawlessness and chaos). This MUST be based on the desire of the people to govern morally and justly.

On the issue of the woman beating her child...this isn't about government control. This is about justice, rightness, and morality. The lady committed a crime in public. She got what she deserved. If we value "privacy" (in quotes because it was not private--though child abuse is not a privacy right anyway) more than we value our children, decency, and morality, then we have abused our freedoms and are on the fast track to self-destruction.

The liberal will be too busy feeling sympathy for mommy and seeing all the shades of gray (?) in this black and white event that they will be incapacitated.

The libertarian wants nothing to do with any kind of regulation and they should go live in a prison for a month and rethink their view on that. A libertarian defines freedom as everyone gets to act out their own urges all the time. Everything public is a privacy issue. If the conservative sees things in black and white (clarity) and the liberal sees things in shades of gray (confusion; blurred vision), then the libertarian sees things as all white (no definition to anything whatsoever).

[RAT Patrol]

Okay, your answer is much better than mine.

[beckett]

Okay, your answer is much better than mine.

Not better, just maybe shot with a wider lens. You make lots of good points in your definition too.

[GB]

Thanks, your definition and Beckett's pretty much encapsulate my philosophy, although I see myself in some of the other definitions as well. Of course I've always told folks to read Bob Bork's "Slouching Toward Gommorah" and they'd have a pretty much down-the-line synopsis of where I'm coming from politically.

I just wondered if because I was horrified at this woman's actions toward her child and felt that the authorities were justified in removing the child from the woman until this thing could get ironed out, I ought to join the Democratic Party or drop my membership here and sign up for whatever the left-wing counterpart to FR is, if one exists.

[ex-snook]

If one wonders about the confusion over 'conservatism' today, take a look at what passes for 'conservatism' in today's so-called 'conservative' magazines. As Buchanan says about his new magazine, the American Conservative:

"Why is this the right time for our magazine? Because there is a void and a need. No one else in this city says what we say: that neoconservatism is a counterfeit. It is not conservatism at all but a hybrid of Wilsonian-FDR globalism and Rockefeller Republicanism. Free trade, interventionism, empire, eternal alliances, foreign aid, moral imperialism-- these are not conservative traditions but the antithesis of those traditions. As for neocons who bray that we "won the culture war," they deceive themselves and the rest of us. And because neoconservatism has no deep roots in our history or in America's heart, the American people will repudiate it when they learn that the price is permanent war, lengthening casualty lists, ever-expanding government, and endless bailouts of bankrupt regimes in the name of Global Democracy.

Do you seriously believe that conservatism is now wholly encompassed by Norman Podhoretz, Jonah Goldberg, Ramesh Ponnuru, Rich Lowry, our virtuous Teletubby William Bennett, Charles Krauthammer, and the Kristols, pere et fils?"

Pat Buchanan
The American Conservative
http://www.amconmag.com/

[dts32041]

Refer to this thread you will see the definiton of conservatisim defined on this forum.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/754610/posts

Yes I know I started that post, but only made four comments after it started.

Still like the flush toliet answers.

[Drammach]

I note that many here are confusing "conservative" with "republican".
They can be, and usually are, two different things.

I consider myself conservative.
But I am not and will never be, a republican. (not Democrat either. )

While many will probably "flame" me for saying it, I consider myself a Libertarian, or Constitutionalist, on the basis of adherence to the the constitution.
Neither major political party has any idea what the constitution is or what it stands for.

I think a true conservative does, whatever party affiliation they may have.

[elephantlips]

Interesting question. At first I thought this was a waste of time after all, don't all conservatives know what it is that they profess? After reading the replies (through 26 when I looked) I realized that as a group, we don't have a definition. My stab at it would revolve around what it is we're trying to conserve. The Constitution is the root of conservatism. Although a compromise document, the Founding Fathers agreed to stand as one behind it and went ahead with the ratification. Now, the values represented by the Constitution have been warped beyond recognition. Those who wish the original values reinstated or maintained, are conservatists wishing to conserve the Constitution and the philosophy behind its creation.

[society-by-contract]

Unfortunatly, we humans need to label and categorize; I'm as guilty as everyone else so here goes: I see a distinction between cultural and philosophical conservatism. Generaly, but not always, I have a great respect for wisdom which is time-honored. This includes elements of the common law, honor your mother and father and yes, even the way silverware is set-out on the table. Cultural conservatism is a critical morter in civilization, that is a social group of *individuals*. These customs obviate the need for as many government-enforced laws---a good thing. Hayek speaks to this often and you might like his essay: Why I am not a Conservative.

Philosophical conservatism in the united states I am unable to pin down, probably because I am not in that camp, but the contemperory labels Paleo-con and Neo-con should be defined. I have common ground with some paleo-con thought such as America-First-type isolationism, a distrust of the central bank, a gold standard, strict construction of the U.S. Constitution and a certain subversion embedded in a culture born of revolution.


Neo-Con anyone...?

[RAT Patrol]

I just wondered if because I was horrified at this woman's actions toward her child and felt that the authorities were justified in removing the child from the woman until this thing could get ironed out, I ought to join the Democratic Party or drop my membership here and sign up for whatever the left-wing counterpart to FR is, if one exists. Oh gosh no! You're a great asset to FR. It sounds like you just got cornered by the libertarian wing of FR. Freedom minus responsibility and morality is the road to self-destruction. (see countless quotes by our founders like: "Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." -Patrick Henry) I don't know why they can't see that.

[KingKongCobra]

You need to realize that those keepers of the 'true' conservatism who attacked you are not conservatives. They're limpertarians and you should ignore them. There's very little that separates them from anarchists. Hmmm, there may not be anything that separates them.

[justsomedude]

someone once said, 'the conservative thinker eschews extremes of the right or left.'

[AAABEST]

Define conservatism

Science, God, Freedom, Morality, Constitution

[KingKongCobra]

Clarification: I did not intend to slander the average Libertarian, just the six or so kooks that claim the CPS is always wrong and that no harm was done to the girl so no offense occured.

[f.Christian]

He contrasts these core beliefs with those of conservatism's opponents on the Left, the radicals of all stripes, who believe in :

(1) The perfectibility of man and the illimitable progress of society: meliorism. Radicals believe that education, positive
legislation, and alteration of environment can produce men like gods; they deny that humanity has a natural proclivity
toward violence and sin.

(2) Contempt for tradition. Reason, impulse, and materialistic determinism are severally preferred as guides to social
welfare, trustier than the wisdom of our ancestors. Formal religion is rejected and a variety of anti-Christian systems
are offered as substitutes.

(3) Political levelling. Order and privilege are condemned; total democracy, as direct as practicable, is the professed
radical ideal. Allied with this spirit, generally, is a dislike of old parliamentary arrangements and an eagerness for
centralization and consolidation.

(4) Economic levelling. The ancient rights of property, especially property in land, are suspect to almost all radicals;
and collectivist radicals hack at the institution of private property root and branch.

Thus, the playing field. He then goes on to an erudite, idiosyncratic and altogether beguiling discussion of the chain of men who have defended conservative ideas and resisted radical impulses from Edmund Burke, the sine qua non of the Right, to T.S. Eliot, the great poet and critic. Among the others whose thought he surveys are : John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Randolph, John Calhoun, James Fenimore Cooper, Alexis de Tocqueville, Orsestes Brownson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Benjamin Disraeli, Cardinal Newman, Henry Adams, Irving Babbitt, Paul Elmer More, and George Santayana. Their styles, their particular concerns, their errors, their failures, their successes all vary widely, but the core principles that they seek to vindicate remain, unchanging. Pluck Edmund Burke from the mists of time and plop him down on Meet the Press this Sunday and he'd voice the same concerns about our society as he voiced about his own in the 18th Century. On the other hand, put Karl Marx on the Today Show and even Katie Couric would tear him apart. The enemies and the fetid ideologies that the conservative mind had to contend with were ever changing, a vast array of utopian daydreams discarded one after another by a Left that never admits the error of its ways, but merely moves on to the next destructive iteration of radicalism, secure in the delusion that this next attempt will achieve a "perfect" society, right here on Earth, while instead leaving piles of corpses in its blood-soaked wake.

It seems certain that the Left will never bring itself to reckon with the conservative critique of the whole liberal impulse, but after Russell Kirk's book, no one can honestly argue that such a critique does not exist. The very endurance and continuing relevance of conservative ideas suggests that, in fact, when the intellectual history of the West is written, it will be conservatism that is found to have been the most powerful philosophical tradition that our culture created. Whether that history is written by a free and decent human being may well depend though on the ultimate success of the conservative mind.

(Reviewed:05-Feb-02)

Grade: (A+)

Buy The Conservative Mind: from Burke to Eliot from Amazon.com

[f.Christian]

Mr. Kirk begins his survey of Anglo-American conservative thought (he is even credited with bestowing upon this philosophy the term conservative) by defining what it generally consists of :

Any informed conservative is reluctant to condense profound and intricate intellectual systems to a few portentous phrases;
he prefers to leave that technique to the enthusiasm of radicals. Conservatism is not a fixed and immutable body of dogma,
and conservatives inherit from Burke a talent for re-expressing their convictions to fit the time. As a working premise,
nevertheless, one can observe here that the essence of social conservatism is preservation of the ancient moral traditions.
Conservatives respect the wisdom of their ancestors...; they are dubious of wholesale alteration. They think society is a
spiritual reality, possessing an eternal life but a delicate constitution: it cannot be scrapped and recast as if it were a machine.
[...] I think there are six canons of conservative thought--

(1) Belief that a divine intent rules society as well as conscience, forging an eternal chain of right and duty which links
great and obscure, living and dead. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems. [...]

(2) Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of traditional life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity,
egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems. [...]

(3) Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes. The only true equality is moral equality; all other attempts
at levelling lead to despair, if enforced by positive legislation. [...]

(4) Persuasion that property and freedom are inseparably connected, and that economic levelling is not economic progress.
Separate property from private possession and liberty is erased.

(5) Faith in prescription and distrust of 'sophisters and calculators.' Man must put a control upon his will and his appetite,
for conservatives know man to be governed more by emotion than by reason. Tradition and sound prejudice provide
checks upon man's anarchic impulse.

(6) Recognition that change and reform are not identical, and that innovation is a devouring conflagration more often than it
is a torch of progress. Society must alter, for slow change is the means of its conservation, like the human body's perpetual
renewal; but Providence is the proper instrument for change, and the test of a statesman is his cognizance of the real tendency
of Providential social forces.

[boris]

"You have no evidence to support this claim. The "conservative" party has no more respect for the Constitution than the Leftist/Dem party."

You have no evidence to support your claim that there is actually a "conservative" party. And I did not mention parties at all. The question was about conservatives (plural) not parties.

--Boris

[ex-snook]

Thank you for your thoughtful post.

A dividing line of conflict is how to apply conservative principles to today's political decisions. Are these Yes or No? (Not asking you specifically, you to all in general).

(1)NAFTA (2) Kosovo - Near East war entanglements (3) Abortion (4) illegal immigration (5) growing government control (6) gay 'rights' (7) presciption drugs (7) privatize education (8) stock market social security (9) etc .

We have to move beyond the 'academic' or it becomes just a game of 'follow the money' or who 'controls the media megaphones'.

[x]

Good post. The problem though, is that skeptical, mellow, pluralistic conservatives sometimes get too caught up in the Zeitgeist. The more absolutist types keep them from making too many compromises and falling into relativism. One needs that skeptical, intelligent navigation between extremes, but sometimes it can become a merely conventional matter of expedients and convenience.

[beckett]

The problem though, is that skeptical, mellow, pluralistic conservatives sometimes get too caught up in the Zeitgeist. The more absolutist types keep them from making too many compromises and falling into relativism. One needs that skeptical, intelligent navigation between extremes, but sometimes it can become a merely conventional matter of expedients and convenience.

Point taken.

[Torie]

The definition is a bit too general to be useful. In the American context, conservatism is about smaller government, a faith in market mechanisms, a skepticism about redistributionist efficacy, a faith in American uniqueness (there is a better and more common word but it escapes me at the moment), a belief that effort is rewarded, and success is not so much due to luck, and a desire to go slow with respect to evolving cultural norms. Sometimes these factors are in conflict with one another. I don't subscribe to any of them whole hog myself.

[beckett]

The definition is a bit too general to be useful.

Well, it's a general definition, hence its generality. As I said somewhere above, it's a wide lens definition. IMHO, all the areas you touch upon fit comfortably under the general categories I outlined.

(I think the term you were searching for is "American exceptionalism.")

[Torie]

That's it. Thanks. I think I may be getting Alzheimers.

[Texasforever]

Explain what a "social conservative" is.

188 Posted on 05/21/2001 10:58:43 PDT by Twodees

Wow your question really brought me up short. I have never seen a real definition of a social conservative and yet I call myself one. I am not a particularly religious person so I guess I am, by definition, not a Religious Conservative. If I had to define a social Conservative as it applies to me, it would be a person that has lived long enough or had life experiences that taught them that:

Ÿ Old Dad was not just a dumb ass that did not understand “my Generation”

Ÿ Good times never last forever and the next lean times are just around the corner

Ÿ That there really was a simpler better time in the past and that it is not wrong to try to regain it.

Ÿ That good and evil are not just shades of gray and that there are some activities that are just so wrong that laws are required to restrain those that cannot restrain themselves

Ÿ That the “freedom of youth” is not a viable option to people that take on the responsibility for providing for a family that depends on them.

Ÿ That “total” freedom is not attainable much less desirable.

Ÿ That the moment the population exceeds 2 people, there will be someone telling the other one how to live.

Ÿ There is no such thing as political purity. There never has been and there never will be.

Ÿ That, like it or not, each person has an obligation to be a good citizen within the community they reside and that one obligation is to give some of his time, treasure and effort to that community in return for the benefits that community provides.

Ÿ With maturity, there comes a time when what we may consider a “right” to do something must be subordinated to the rules of the governing majority or to at least abide by those rules until we can gain the support to change them.

That pretty well defines what I believe. In no way would I presume to speak for anyone else.

[f.Christian]

bttt

[tacticalogic]

Is it possible to be a Social Conservative and a Political Liberal - ie to pursue a socially conservative agenda through politically liberal means?

[Satadru]

I also believe that there is a difference between conservatives and freepers. The most vocal freepers are simply towing the Republican party line, even when its policy is orthogonal to conservatism.

[beckett]

I thought of this quote today from Dartmouth prof Jeffrey Hart, which I think describes the difficulty you allude to quite well:

The educated man knows too much to be a relativist and not enough to be an absolutist.

[LiberationIT]

A Conservative knows the difference between a right and a power. A Liberal confuses the two.

A Conservative knows the only legitimate purpose of a government is protection of rights. A Liberal feels the only legitimate purpose of government is the conferring of rights (they are actually power conferred, but the Liberal is still confused.)

An example may help. The Liberal feels that people have a right to health care. In fact, the people have no more right to health care than plantation owners had a right to cheap labor. Both are/were powers used and rights abridged. Medical workers cannot be morally forced to provide services any more than slave can be morally forced to chop cotton. Hillary is woefully unaware of this.

Children have rights and the Conservative knows the Government can protect those rights. The Liberal feels there are no rights before birth and, that, post birth, all rights (education, day care, safety, health care, employment, retirement, ad nauseum,) are conveyed to the cherub by the government.

Note the verbs, they are important. a Conservative knows, a Liberal feels.

p.s. A liberal feels s/he is superior; intellectually and morally. A Conservative knows there isn’t a master race in spite of what Liberals think of themselves.

[f.Christian]

Russell Kirk!

[Liberal Classic]

Kirk's Six Canons of Conservative Thought

1."Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience."

2."Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems;"

3."Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes, as against the notion of a 'classless society'."

4."Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked: separate property from private possession, and the Leviathan becomes master of all."

5."Faith in prescription and distrust of 'sophisters, calculators, and economists' who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs."

6."Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress."