One final note before I leave and I’m indirectly called a bigot and racist again. Conservatives make up some 30–40% of the population depending on whose numbers you use. The vast majority are not in these fringe “conservative” in name only groups. While the meaning of “conservative” continues to be under re-branding assault by said fringe, smeared by the ideological left and generally shit on regularly the vast majority of people who will identify as conservative are moderates and will align more closely with the first part of what I’m reposting below. They go to work, they have friends and family, many go to church, give to charity (in larger numbers than liberals I may add), they grow our food, raise our livestock and just like liberals they have good intentions and they want a better life for themselves and everyone else. If you find yourself flustered, angry and spiteful to someone simply because they happen to be conservative I think it’s time for a little introspection.
This is recopied from someone (a liberal) on Quora (where I’ll be spending the remainder of my online forum time) who said it better than me.
Conservatism, at heart, is a belief system founded on four articles of faith:
A belief in a speed limit on cultural change (where going over said limit weakens unity and triggers disastrous unintended consequences).
A belief that governance is best handled at a local level (with the exception of national security and some infrastructure).
A belief that intervention should be rare and decisive (there must be a compelling benefit, whether on a national or personal level).
A belief that the state has a responsibility to ensure order using the least restrictive means possible (balancing stability and liberty).
There are other beliefs often associated with conservatism (e.g., low taxation and the virtue of traditions), but all are really just corollaries of those first principles.
(As a point of clarity, I’m going to use the phrase “historical conservatism” as shorthand for the ideology outlined by thinkers like Jefferson, Burke, and Smith in the late 18th century. Though there are an unwieldy number of alternate labels and sister-systems out there, most schools of conservatism find their root there.)
Now, can we find anything positive in those ideas? Absolutely. They represent the synthesis of millennia of careful observation and introspection. In fact, to take the other side on any of those points as an exclusive position is intellectually untenable. The author of Ecclesiastes figured this out 3,000 years ago when he wrote the “to every thing there is a season” sermon — which, in short, noted that good politics is simply recognizing when the pendulum needs a nudge.
Thoughts of ideological dualism aside, we have the question of why liberals so often criticize conservatives. There are many layers here, but I’ll focus on the dominate one: a number of today’s self-styled conservative movements promote ideas that simply don’t line up with historical conservatism.
Just a few examples:
Historical conservatism would suggest that LGBTQ+ rights like marriage equality should be pursued gradually and thoughtfully in view of the disruption they represent to traditional mores. But this is not at all the same as suggesting that said people should be denied their rights to self-expression and discrimination protection in the interim (actively denying either would contradict principle #4, as the restriction would fail to increase stability or preserve liberty).
Many today hold the curious idea that deficit spending is somehow antithetical to historical conservatism. To the degree that such spending is indicative of an outsized federal government, this might be reasonable. But the idea that all deficit spending is somehow bad by its very nature isn’t conservative thinking in any historical sense — it’s just bad economics. Without it, we don’t have mortgages or productive investment. The one true hallmark of historical conservatism is simply that all spending ought to have a clear and reliable path of positive economic return.
Historical conservatism maintains a dim view of religion in politics. This isn’t to suggest that politicians must be atheists or agnostics, but only that private beliefs ought to have no influence on legislation (as that would inevitably lead to violations of principles #2 and #4). It follows then that a political party having a fixed relationship with one religious group is decidedly un-conservative by definition.
Anyone who can’t find something positive in historical conservatism and its living adherents is either tribally blind or politically ignorant. But the discrepancies between those original principles and some modern “conservative” movements are significant, opening the door for reasonable (if unproductive) accusations of hypocrisy and insincerity.