06-29-2021
If the first casualty of war if the truth, then does the absence of truth mean we’re at war?
Please don’t allow anyone to define a conservative and put them in a box until you’ve thought about what conservatism is. Don’t get scared. Conservatism is not a bad word. It’s just a word. A very, very misunderstood word.
You can hardly say the word “conservative” without invoking images of old men gathered in a cigar shop or a crooked finger hanging out from a rocking chair scolding a younger person. It carries an overtone of outdated ideas, rules to be followed, and punishments for less than acceptable behavior. It’s nearly impossible to be a conservative if you’re under 30. But there is so much more to the philosophy than meets the eye, and while conservatives understand, or try to understand liberals; most liberals do not even care to understand conservatives.
You also cannot talk about conservatism without mentioning Rush Limbaugh. Rush made a career in explaining it. He created an entire industry called “conservative talk radio” and liberals have nothing that even closely resembles slot gacor gampang menang it. Ask yourself, “Why is this?”
Rush taught conservatives what it was they supported. So many of us cannot articulate the points, yet we feel them in our bones, our guts. And his talent made it easier to understand, easier to talk about, and more meaningful than we ever thought possible. Thus the term “Ditto head” coined in the 1980s and 1990s.
God bless Rush Limbaugh.
Yet Rush was not the first conservative, nor was he the most powerful. In fact, conservatives believe that power should be shared among many tributaries of government, localized as much as possible, and checked by other authorities, constantly under watch by the people. That’s why transparency is so important to us.
Conservatism wishes to “conserve” those things that have proven to work. It is slow to adopt new ideas until they have been properly scrutinized and tested; and this is where liberals begin to disagree. Liberals want change. They want it now, no matter the repercussions or cost.
Conservatism insists on maintaining our Constitution, conserving it. Conservatives recognize the miraculous work of our founding fathers and believe that nothing superior in the way of principles has ever appeared in the realm of man situs slot gacor unless you delve into religion – which conservatives believe should be separated from politics.
Liberals, on the other hand, want the founding documents to serve as a baseline; and they believe that those principles do not hold up over time and changing circumstances. They wish for a “living” Constitution; something easily modified as new problems emerge and populations evolve. This term “living” Constitution always confused me. I want the Constitution to be as “alive” today as it was in 1800. But that is not what they mean by that. What they mean by “living” is that our Constitution should be changing all the time, as attitudes do.
This is the fundamental disagreement between the two philosophies and we should all step back in respect to admire it. There may be times when the Constitution should be changed. It has been. But the founders made it a difficult task so that a overwhelming consensus (two thirds of the Senate – sometimes called the fillibuster) would be required and all 50 states could participate in the debate before ratifying the amendment.
Conversely, the foundation to our legal system makes it fairly simple to pass legislation and new laws. This facilitates the relative morality of the times, something the intellectuals call “post modernism”. You can see that by the crushing size of the legal code. But fundamental changes to the cornerstone of this country’s values are most difficult to achieve. The founders’ aim was to conserve the principles of a free and democratic republic. Ironically, or maybe not so, this difficulty and requirement for a broad consensus is exactly what has allowed us so much progress and made for a relatively consistent economic environment. Our overall stability is largely due to conserving those freedoms established by the Bill of Rights, which are a list of changes made to the original Constitution and adopted by the states through the ratification process.
Today, we are a divided nation. The split is so even that we need our Vice President to be within range of the Senate in order to pass a bill. This is no time to change the Constitution primarily because there is no overwhelming consensus.
Conservatism goes much deeper than simply the mechanics of government, however. Conservatives wish to conserve liberty, a most misunderstood term in itself. Liberty, of course, is unrestrained freedom. It is the freedom to succeed or fail, go north or south, choose what to do with your life. It allows stupidity to be respected, and offensive language spilled into the town square. Liberty is all encompassing freedom with the only stipulation that the person respects the liberty of others. There is an essay in this site where “boundaries” are explained in more detail. Liberty does have boundaries.
Conservatism also believes that what a person earns because of his talent and hard work, belongs to that person. Private property is a principle of liberty that is mentioned nearly throughout the Federalist Papers. The two are intricately connected, not because of economic principles, but rather a spiritual one. To partake in the act of creation, we cause to improve our world. We are entitled to enjoy those improvements and “own” them because an individual is a sovereign entity. In a sense, the money we earn enables our liberty too; and those who would take it infringe upon our liberty.
In the words of James Madison in Federalist #54:
“ It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot well be separated. The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right. “
According to David Uham: political writings of the period suggest that they (referring to the founders) understood the right to property to be a form of liberty rather than liberty a form of property. Fmd:-> https://fee.org/articles/the-primacy-of-property-rights-and-the-american-founding/
Liberals rarely take on this conversation at all. They would like private, personal property to be defined on a case by case basis. The communists tell us it belongs to the collective.
This conservative believes that nearly every law passed in the last 20 years has encroached upon our liberty. Taxes themselves are an assault against liberty, but that’s an awful complicated subject for another day. The mere increasing size of the federal government – made possible through taxes – is also a direct assault to our liberty.
Liberals wish for the government to help the civilian population in every way possible. Short of changing the Constitution, they lobby for new laws, new programs, new ideas to be financed by the tax payer. They see this as a moral duty and believe that compassion is right. In its purest form, who could argue that to be compassionate is to be righteous? And just how many bills have been passed since FDR’s administration in the name of compassion? The liberals cannot say they have not won their fair share of battles. They have won most.
Contrary to popular opinion, conservatives do have hearts. They wish to be compassionate also, but compassionate in different terms. Firstly, they want to be practical. What can we afford? At what point does our desire to help begin to intrude upon the liberty of others? Will the good offset the bad?
Secondly, does this helpful bill truly help? Is it a short term patch job? Or does it promote long term prosperity for all? These are questions that require great debate and scrutiny. What will be the repercussions? They should not be passed in haste or in a midnight vote on Friday night.
It’s easy to see how good intentions can lead to bad decisions and righteousness can lead to dependency. Conservatives may seem heartless, but they keep the liberals from overreaching through caution and prudence.
Conservatives believe that teaching a man to fish is more valuable than just giving him a fish. Liberals reply that fish are cheap.