What is the definition of "Conservative"? No one seems to agree. - Page 2

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Posted: 2/19/2016 9:49:51 PM EDT

[#1]

A conservative wants to protect how things are, because he or she believes that what has been put in place is based on generations of experience and wisdom, and that it shouldn't be torn down in favor of something else just because something else is novel or people have cool new theories.

There are conservative Islamists, there are conservative communists. They want to protect those established regimes and way of doing things. That's the general definition of the word conservative. At the beginning of the American revolution, the conservatives were the loyal Tories (there were plenty of them). The radicals were the Founding Fathers.

Conservatives in American politics today generally think the Founders had it mostly right at the time of the birth of the United States. If changes are to be made, they should be made through legal process delineated explicitly in the Constitution as faithfully as possible.

What America conservatives want to conserve is the republic of the USA. They generally tend to be white, religious, richer etc but anyone who believes in the US as founded and preserving it is a conservative in my book.

Posted: 2/19/2016 9:53:38 PM EDT

[#2]

Quote History

Quoted:
An American conservative is a mixture of classical liberalism and conservatism. An American Liberal is a mixture of classical liberalism and socialism.

Neither of the ideologies that make up American conservatism or American liberalism mesh perfectly together, which is why there is such debate about what constitutes a "true conservative", or "true liberal".

ETA: Salon.com is staffed by functional retards who would fail an introduction to American government class due to their inability to construct a coherent argument. I hope their entire staff swims with an AIDs infested dolphin wearing a rusty cock ring.

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Classical liberalism and conservatism are on the same side of the political spectrum and have some positions in common, but are otherwise rather different creatures. Conservatism in the West has a basis in tradition, Christianity, etc. Its roots are more medieval, although there have certainly been some Enlightenment influences.

Classical liberalism is much more strongly rooted in the Enlightenment, especially that of the English-speaking world (most other Enlightenment ideas drove people away from freedom, rather than towards it). Not only does it have a non-religious and non-traditional basis (utility is the main basis on which liberty is justified), but it is even anti-ecclesiastical in nature, which drove away many natural allies during its heyday, including many conservatives, and this contributed majorly to the collapse of the movement (most classical liberals converted to progressivism; in the U.S. they clung to the liberal title, hence the semantic confusion found here; to a lesser extent, this happened elsewhere in the English-speaking world).

Posted: 2/19/2016 10:03:53 PM EDT

[#3]

I don't know, but I'm told by several avowed conservatives that I'm not one, mainly because I don't care if gays get married and don't care if women kill their unborn children.

I belong to the "Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose" party.

Posted: 2/19/2016 10:09:46 PM EDT

[#4]

It's amazing to me how much this question is asked here considering how thoroughly it was answered for decades. This is my response from another thread describing in brief (as briefly as possible, anyways) what conservatism is. I make use of three different conservative thinkers, who each had a somewhat different strain of thought (one is not even an American), and yet ultimately a common philosophical foundation that shows in the way the quoted areas tie together (and one of the Americans makes use of a statement from the European in his description of what conservatism is and is not). It is something that has a specific basic meaning, resulting in a short spectrum of ideas. Most Americans have strayed to some degree from conservatism, and you'd probably have to go before the Great Depression to find a time when a large number of Americans were truly conservative. The fight for the cause has always and will continue to be an uphill battle. That's just the nature of mass democracy, a system inclined against liberty, tradition, virtue, etc.

So from the other thread:

"Conservative" is a term which has been given a less traditional meaning in the political context on account of the Left's perversion of the language and also the degree to which the Left has succeeded, which makes those opposed to their changes seem conservative in the older sense (such as F.A. von Hayek criticized while making it seem, falsely, that that older sort of conservative was what conservatism was in the modern sense in the essay discussed in this thread: http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1765734_Why_I_am_not_a_Conservative_.html&page=1).

In the post-war era, it mainly refers to liberals with a more conservative temperament and traditional foundation for their respective political philosophies; this is true here, it is true in the other English-speaking countries, and it is true in Continental Europe (and in fact conservatives from both sides of the pond have often cooperated in their political efforts).

Objective absolutism, the idea that there are transcendental truths which apply to everybody, is a key component of a conservative philosophy, and it largely derives from a Judeo-Christian origin, even in cases where the conservative might not be a Jew or Christian, although history and tradition, with their demonstration of what works and what does not when it comes to the state and society, also are an important component of this foundation. Man has been around a long time and recorded much, and as such has had many opportunities to try things and discover success or folly, or even outright disaster.

I like the way Richard M. Weaver put it in his article in The Individualist, "Conservatism and Libertarianism: The Common Ground" ((May 1960 ed., pp.5-8)(bolded emphasis mine):

...there is, in fact, a concept of conservatism filled with disparagement which needs to be fought by everyone who believes that a conservative philosophy is useful and constructive. There are some people who appear to believe that conservatism means simply lack of imagination. The conservative, unable to visualize anything else, just wants to sit down with the status quo. There are others who seem to think that conservatism means timidity. The conservative is a person who has a sneaking presentiment that things might be better but he is simply afraid to take the risk of improvement. There are some who seem to think that conservatism is a product of temperamental slowness. If your mind or reflexes don't work as fast as other people's, then you must be a conservative. In these conceptions, the conservative is always found behind, whether from mental or physical deficiency, or just plain fearfulness. Naturally, nobody looks to that kind of person for leadership.

But this is very far from my image of a conservative. A conservative in my view is a man who may be behind the times or up with the times or ahead of the times. It all depends on how you define the times. And this brings us at once to a matter of essential definition.

It is my contention that a conservative is a realist, who believes that there is a structure of reality independent of his own will and desire. He believes that there is a creation which was here before him, which exists now not just by his sufferance, and which will be here after he's gone. This structure consists not merely of the great physical world but also of many laws, principles, and regulations which control human behavior. Though this reality is independent of the individual, it is not hostile to him. It is in fact amenable by him in many ways, but it cannot be changed radically and arbitrarily. This is the cardinal point. The conservative holds that man in this world cannot make his will his law without any regard to limits and to the fixed nature of things...

...The conservative...I see as standing on terra firma of antecedent reality; having accepted some things as given, lasting, and good, he is in a position to use his effort where effort will produce solid results.

Radicals and liberals sometimes try to knock the conservative off balance by asking, "What do you want to conserve anyhow?" I regard this question as by now substantially answered. The conservative wants to conserve the great structural reality which has been given us and which is on the whole beneficent.

I might make this a little more precise by saying he wants to respect it, but although of course respect must carry with it the idea of conserving. There is a famous saying of Francis Bacon which can be applied with meaning here...Bacon declared that man learns to command nature by obeying her.

The same holds for the moral, social, and political worlds. One does not command these by simply trying to kick them over. One commands them as far as is possible to do so by obeying them--by taking due note of their laws and regulations and by following these and proceeding to further ends. Of course, the conservative does not accept everything that is as both right and unchangeable. That is contrary to the very law of life, but the changes that he makes are regardful of the forms that antedate, overarch, and include him. The progress that he makes, therefore, is not something that will be undone as soon as his back is turned.

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That last point refers to the fact that conservatives prefer growth and change to be evolutionary, to evolve in an organic manner out of best of culture, tradition, and present practices, always deriving from what has come before, and building upon it to gradually create something better. Only when forces act against this and try to push it back or radically alter everything is a more forceful and sudden effort required.

Earlier I stated that the conservative is a liberal. This is because part of the "great structure of reality," part of those laws of the moral, social, and political realm which govern man, many being part of his essential nature (natural law is an idea pervasive among conservatives, but often the more medieval kind concept than the enlightenment concept), is the idea of liberty, of the right of a man to be free within reasonable bounds necessary for the good and order of the commonweal. Liberty is necessary for the proper pursuit of virtue, because man is typically seen by the conservative as being a spiritual being as much as a physical one (a basic tenet of Jewish and Christian philosophy), and his proper end is connected to the transcendental part of his being, the spiritual part. That end is to seek the good and reject the bad, but as Jesus said, the heart matters as well regarding such matters. One must be free to choose virtue for the act to be truly virtuous; to coerce it beyond what is needed for the good and order of the commonweal is to cause a man to act in a good manner without his heart following. Man's end is virtue, in this world, in preparation for the next. Only in a state of liberty is man truly able to seek the good without restraint and to engage in moral suasion with respect to his fellow men. Virtue, of course, also has many practical benefits, and mutually supports the state of liberty and its continued existence; virtue undergirds liberty, and liberty enables virtue to the fullest. A good society is one that is both free and virtuous. If either is lost, the other soon follows, and the conservative knows that in liberty it is possible for virtue to decline because people are also free to choose the wrong, up to a point.

Knowing the fallen nature of man, knowing the history of man, and holding the above principles, the conservative tries to structure his social and political institutions to preserve a virtuous and liberal order with organic, evolutionary positive growth over an extended period of time. It affects his choice in government. Common law, written constitutions, the idea of rule or law respectful if fixed meanings and intent (against relativization, which renders law meaningless), a skepticism towards democracy, a more elitist attitude skeptical of mass power (the conservative recognizes that hierarchy is natural, on the whole good, and has moral and practical value; he is no egalitarian), and a structure of checks and balances are all elements of this effort. The pinnacle of this effort regarding the basic structure of government the regimen mixtum, which ideally combines tempered democratic elements, monarchical elements, a judiciary, and aristocratic elements as well as the principle of subsidiarity (from which federalism is derived) under a written constitution subject to the traditional view of law (such a government, though, can exist, less ideally, with more centralization, an unwritten constitution, and more strongly democratic elements). Our Constitution is a representative of this type of government, but it is not the only one, and a conservative can ultimately be either a republican or monarchist; neither is inherently repugnant to the conservative position. The reasons why this form of government is best underlie why the American conservative so respects the Founders and the Constitution they gave us; it is an effort to conserve the form for the higher end of conserving a liberal government in which virtue, justice, and prosperity can thrive and be passed down to our posterity, and the preamble is very representative of the conservative position. This, however, also carries with it a desire to oppose changes made or proposed which alter the constitution so as to render it a different form less conducive to an ordered, liberal, federal, and just government. It is not blind adherence to the law.

Finally, I'd also like to put forth another good description of conservative principles by Frank S. Meyer, which in summary form were the original principles of the American Conservative Union (that they no longer are and contrast a lot with the current principles shows how much that institution has strayed over the years). From his essay, "The Contemporary American Conservative Movement" (notes in brackets mine):

A. Conservatism assumes the existence of an objective moral order based upon ontological foundations. Whether or not individuals hold theistic views--and a large majority of them do--this outlook is derived from a theistic tradition. The essential point, however, is that the conservative looks at political and social questions with the assumption that there are objective standards for human conduct and criteria for the judgment of theories and institutions, which it is the duty of human beings to understand as thoroughly as they are able and to which it is their duty to approximate their actions.

The Liberal [Meyer used capital "L" Liberal to refer to the false liberalism of the Left] position, in contrast, is essentially operational and instrumental. As the conservative's world is, in Richard Weaver's phrase, a world of essences to be approximated, the Liberal's world is a world of problems to be solved. Hence, the conservative's concern with such questions of essence as individual liberty and civilizational tradition. Hence, the Liberal's concern with the modes and operations such as democracy (a mode or means of government which implies that what is right is what 50 percent plus one think is right [Meyer is paraphrasing the great Austrian conservative Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn here; look at his Principles of the Portland Declaration for another conservative statement of principles]) or progress (a concept that derives norms from the operation of historical events, establishing as the good the direction in which events have been moving and seem presently to be moving).

B. Within the limits of an objective moral order, the primary reference of conservative political and social thought and action is to the individual person. There may be among some conservatives a greater emphasis upon freedom and rights, as among others a greater emphasis upon duties and responsibilities; but whichever emphasis, conservative thought is shot through and through with concern for the person. It is deeply suspicious of theories and policies based upon the collectivities that are the political reference points of Liberalism--"minorities," "labor," "the people." There may be tension between those conservatives who stress individual freedom and those who stress community as a fabric of individual rights and responsibilities, but both reject the ideological hypostatization of associations of human beings into entities and the collectivist politics based upon it.

C. The cast of American conservative thought is profoundly anti-utopian. While it recognizes the continuing historical certainty of change and the necessity of basic principle being expressed under different circumstances in different ways, and while it strives always for the improvement of human institutions and the human condition, it rejects absolutely the idea that society and men generally are perfectible. In particular, it is perennially suspicious of the utopian approach that attempts to design society and the lives of human beings, whether in the light of abstract rationalist ideas or operational engineering concepts. It therefore rejects the entire Liberal mystique of "planning," which, no matter how humanitarian the motives of the planners, perforce treats human beings as faceless units to be arranged and disposed according to a design conceived by the planner. Rather, the conservative puts his confidence in the free functioning of the energies of free persons, individually and in voluntary cooperation.

D. It is on the basis of these last two points--concern for the individual person and rejection of utopian design--that the contemporary American conservative attitude to the state arises. For the state, which has the ultimate power of enforcement of its dictates, is the necessary implement for successful Liberal planning and for effective control of the lives of individual human beings. Conservatives may vary on the degree to which the power of the state should be limited, but they are agreed upon the principle of limitation and upon the firmest opposition to the Liberal concept of the state as the engine for the fixing of ideological blueprints upon the citizenry. There is much difference among them on the manner and mode in which the state should be limited, but in opposition to the prevailing Liberal tendency to call upon it to act in every area of human life, from automation to social relations, they are firmly united upon the principle of limitation.

E. Similarly, American conservatives are opposed to state control of the economy in all its Liberal manifestations, whether direct or indirect. They stand for a free economic system for two reasons. In the first place, they believe that the modern state is politically so strong, even without controls over the economy, that it concentrates power to a degree that is incompatible with the freedom of its citizens. When to that power is added control over the economy, such massive power is created that the last defenses against the state becoming a monstrous Leviathan begin to crack. Second--though this is subsidiary in the conservative outlook to the danger to freedom--conservatives in general believe, on the basis of classical and neoclassical economic theory, that a free economy is much more productive of material wealth than an economy controlled directly or indirectly by the state.

F. American conservatism derives from these positions its firm support of the Constitution of the United States as originally conceived--to achieve the protection of individual liberty in an ordered society by limiting the power of government. Recognizing the many different partial outlooks that went into its inception, adoption, and execution. the conservative holds that the result was a constitutional structure concerned simultaneously with limiting the power of the individual states and of the federal government, and of the tripartite elements in both--through the careful construction of a tension of separate powers, in which ultimate sovereignty rested in no single part, but in the tension itself. Conservatives believe that this conception was the closest that human beings have come to establishing a polity which gives the possibility of maintaining at one and the same time individual liberty, underlying norms of law, and necessary public order. Against the Liberal endeavor to establish sovereignty nominally in the democratic majority, actually in the executive branch of a national government, they strive to reestablish a federal system of strictly divided powers, so far as government itself is concerned, and to repulse the encroachment of government, federal or state, over the economy and the individual lives of citizens.

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For the complete principles of the Portland Declaration mentioned above, go to: http://anarcho-monarchism.com/2012/12/26/portland-declaration/

A summary is as follows:

The Portland Declaration: A Summary

In the Free World it has become imperative to formulate a vision based on a coherent outlook which can be shared by most of us. These, then, are the main points of such a creed in a short version:

1. Our immensely complex universe can only be the result of either mere chance or a conscious design. We believe that it has an Originator as well as a "Designer,” God.

2. Only to man can this world be meaningful in every respect: spiritually, morally, aesthetically, economically.

3. Only man is a transcendent creature. He realizes that, if there is a personal God, everything is possible, if there is no God, everything is permissible.

4. Every man or woman is truly a person and unique. No two persons are identical or equal, least of all in the eyes of God.

5. With the beasts we share a craving for sameness, but the delight in the variations of creation distinguishes man from beast as much as religion and reason do.

6. Sameness and with it the dislike of otherness is the hallmark of leftism: it is an evil totalitarian instinct which fashioned the French, Russian and German revolutions with their gaols, guillotines, gallows, gas chambers and Gulags.

7. In all languages, whether dead or modern, "Left" stands for negative, "Right" for positive principles.

8. Men and women are equally important, but their innate characteristics favor (and sometimes rationally preclude) certain occupations and vocations.

9. The family is the living cell of every society. (Man is the creature who knows his grandfather.) It is based on sex, eros. friendship, affection and charity, friendship being the most important factor because loyalty pertains to it rather than to sexuality or Eros.

10. A healthy society is not a monolith, but consists of various well correlated lasers and groups with different qualities and functions. However, neither society nor state should be permitted to become absolutes.

11. The state is the result of man's frailty and incompleteness, Its legitimacy rests not only on authority but, due to Man's fallen nature, also on exterior power. Authority rests on love, or respect, or rational insight, it is an interior force.

12. The state has an "annexationist" character tending toward centralization and the development of a Provider State. We must uphold the principle of subsidiarity. Action should always be taken by the smallest possible unit. starting with the person.

13. What we now have is maximal government of the lowest quality; what we need is minimal government of the highest order.

14. There is no escape from "technocracy." Reason, knowledge and experience must reenter government at the expense of popularity and passions. Parliaments should faithfully mirror public opinion and might have purely legislative powers, but they must not become policy-forming bodies. Government should rest on first-rate expertise and respect for personal freedom.

15. Freedom is inseparable from personal property, socialism produces only equality in poverty.

16. The family can delegate its educational tasks to other bodies. Nobody should be taxed for educational facilities not used by them. It is, however, in the interest of the community that real talent (and diligence) should be fostered.

17. The identification of state and religion is pagan. Their separation, however, should not preclude cooperation because they have common interests and overlapping fields of action.

18. Ethnicity, race and citizenship are separate concepts, the first being cultural, the second biological, the third legal. They should not be confused. Legal discriminations or automatic preferences on account of ethnicity or race in the public-sector are plainly immoral.

19. Only a person with convictions has a genuine possibility to be tolerant. He who accepts no absolute values but clings to polite doubt cannot be tolerant but merely indifferent. He is morally defenseless in the face of evil.

20. Tradition, i.e., loyalty toward inherited convictions and institutions, which includes discarding obsolete or false ones, has a positive value.

21. The good man is a patriot and not a "nationalist," he delights in the human varieties within his country.

22. Foreign relations require an enormous amount of knowledge and experience. They are intrinsically connected with our survival. International institutions can be of great value, but the United Nations in their present form and in the present state of our globe has often produced more harm than good.

23. Professional armies are, for various reasons, preferable to armies based on conscription, but if the latter system is adopted by certain world powers, others might have to follow suit at least temporarily.

24. Legal positivism has no moral moorings. Justice is not equality but is based on Ulpian's "to everyone his due."

25. Man has rights as well as duties and these must be distinguished from acts of charity which might become moral, but not legal obligations.

26. Freedom is not an end in itself but a condition to live and to act in. "As much freedom as possible, as much coercion as necessary." The common good marks the limits of freedom.

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Posted: 2/19/2016 10:11:11 PM EDT

[#5]

Quote History

Quoted:
I don't know, but I'm told by several avowed conservatives that I'm not one, mainly because I don't care if gays get married and don't care if women kill their unborn children.

I belong to the "Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose" party.

View Quote

The former beliefs do not really comport with conservatism; they certainly do not emanate from it, and clash with its ideas regarding morality and the worth and dignity of the individual man.

Posted: 2/19/2016 10:16:35 PM EDT

[#6]

Our limited government days are over unfortunately. I don't object to more government in so far as I control it or it is more accountable locally or regionally....hence my strong state's rights position even when I disagree with the state or issue in question. At this point, the goal must be to use the government and its power to your benefit over theirs. In other words, if we are going to be authoritarian, then I am going to try hard to push my version of it. Of course my ultimate wish is a less cohesive nation (much weaker Central government) where states and regions control much more of their own destinies than presently.

Posted: 2/19/2016 10:17:31 PM EDT

[#7]

Mr. Conservative wrote a book on the topic.

Posted: 2/19/2016 10:24:41 PM EDT

[#8]

Leave me the fuck alone
Get the governement off my back
Don't spend my hard earned money on stupid shit
I can think or say anything i want to about anything or anybody
Eat what you want and allow me to do the same
Don't blame businesses for the failings of slackers and misfits
Don't soften the blow on pariahs by crafting soft language to describe their shenanigans
Take personal responsibility for your actions
Don't welcome criminals into your house just because they are willing to mow your yard
Have some fucking pride in being a citizen of the greatest country on the planet
If you come at me, prepare to die

Posted: 2/19/2016 10:35:36 PM EDT

[#9]

Quote History

Quoted:
It's amazing to me how much this question is asked here considering how thoroughly it was answered for decades. This is my response from another thread describing in brief (as briefly as possible, anyways) what conservatism is. I make use of three different conservative thinkers, who each had a somewhat different strain of thought (one is not even an American), and yet ultimately a common philosophical foundation that shows in the way the quoted areas tie together (and one of the Americans makes use of a statement from the European in his description of what conservatism is and is not). It is something that has a specific basic meaning, resulting in a short spectrum of ideas. Most Americans have strayed to some degree from conservatism, and you'd probably have to go before the Great Depression to find a time when a large number of Americans were truly conservative. The fight for the cause has always and will continue to be an uphill battle. That's just the nature of mass democracy, a system inclined against liberty, tradition, virtue, etc.

So from the other thread:

"Conservative" is a term which has been given a less traditional meaning in the political context on account of the Left's perversion of the language and also the degree to which the Left has succeeded, which makes those opposed to their changes seem conservative in the older sense (such as F.A. von Hayek criticized while making it seem, falsely, that that older sort of conservative was what conservatism was in the modern sense in the essay discussed in this thread: http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1765734_Why_I_am_not_a_Conservative_.html&page=1).

In the post-war era, it mainly refers to liberals with a more conservative temperament and traditional foundation for their respective political philosophies; this is true here, it is true in the other English-speaking countries, and it is true in Continental Europe (and in fact conservatives from both sides of the pond have often cooperated in their political efforts).

Objective absolutism, the idea that there are transcendental truths which apply to everybody, is a key component of a conservative philosophy, and it largely derives from a Judeo-Christian origin, even in cases where the conservative might not be a Jew or Christian, although history and tradition, with their demonstration of what works and what does not when it comes to the state and society, also are an important component of this foundation. Man has been around a long time and recorded much, and as such has had many opportunities to try things and discover success or folly, or even outright disaster.

I like the way Richard M. Weaver put it in his article in The Individualist, "Conservatism and Libertarianism: The Common Ground" ((May 1960 ed., pp.5-8)(bolded emphasis mine):

That last point refers to the fact that conservatives prefer growth and change to be evolutionary, to evolve in an organic manner out of best of culture, tradition, and present practices, always deriving from what has come before, and building upon it to gradually create something better. Only when forces act against this and try to push it back or radically alter everything is a more forceful and sudden effort required.

Earlier I stated that the conservative is a liberal. This is because part of the "great structure of reality," part of those laws of the moral, social, and political realm which govern man, many being part of his essential nature (natural law is an idea pervasive among conservatives, but often the more medieval kind concept than the enlightenment concept), is the idea of liberty, of the right of a man to be free within reasonable bounds necessary for the good and order of the commonweal. Liberty is necessary for the proper pursuit of virtue, because man is typically seen by the conservative as being a spiritual being as much as a physical one (a basic tenet of Jewish and Christian philosophy), and his proper end is connected to the transcendental part of his being, the spiritual part. That end is to seek the good and reject the bad, but as Jesus said, the heart matters as well regarding such matters. One must be free to choose virtue for the act to be truly virtuous; to coerce it beyond what is needed for the good and order of the commonweal is to cause a man to act in a good manner without his heart following. Man's end is virtue, in this world, in preparation for the next. Only in a state of liberty is man truly able to seek the good without restraint and to engage in moral suasion with respect to his fellow men. Virtue, of course, also has many practical benefits, and mutually supports the state of liberty and its continued existence; virtue undergirds liberty, and liberty enables virtue to the fullest. A good society is one that is both free and virtuous. If either is lost, the other soon follows, and the conservative knows that in liberty it is possible for virtue to decline because people are also free to choose the wrong, up to a point.

Knowing the fallen nature of man, knowing the history of man, and holding the above principles, the conservative tries to structure his social and political institutions to preserve a virtuous and liberal order with organic, evolutionary positive growth over an extended period of time. It affects his choice in government. Common law, written constitutions, the idea of rule or law respectful if fixed meanings and intent (against relativization, which renders law meaningless), a skepticism towards democracy, a more elitist attitude skeptical of mass power (the conservative recognizes that hierarchy is natural, on the whole good, and has moral and practical value; he is no egalitarian), and a structure of checks and balances are all elements of this effort. The pinnacle of this effort regarding the basic structure of government the regimen mixtum, which ideally combines tempered democratic elements, monarchical elements, a judiciary, and aristocratic elements as well as the principle of subsidiarity (from which federalism is derived) under a written constitution subject to the traditional view of law (such a government, though, can exist, less ideally, with more centralization, an unwritten constitution, and more strongly democratic elements). Our Constitution is a representative of this type of government, but it is not the only one, and a conservative can ultimately be either a republican or monarchist; neither is inherently repugnant to the conservative position. The reasons why this form of government is best underlie why the American conservative so respects the Founders and the Constitution they gave us; it is an effort to conserve the form for the higher end of conserving a liberal government in which virtue, justice, and prosperity can thrive and be passed down to our posterity, and the preamble is very representative of the conservative position. This, however, also carries with it a desire to oppose changes made or proposed which alter the constitution so as to render it a different form less conducive to an ordered, liberal, federal, and just government. It is not blind adherence to the law.

Finally, I'd also like to put forth another good description of conservative principles by Frank S. Meyer, which in summary form were the original principles of the American Conservative Union (that they no longer are and contrast a lot with the current principles shows how much that institution has strayed over the years). From his essay, "The Contemporary American Conservative Movement" (notes in brackets mine):

For the complete principles of the Portland Declaration mentioned above, go to: http://anarcho-monarchism.com/2012/12/26/portland-declaration/

A summary is as follows:

View Quote View All Quotes

View All Quotes

Quote History

Quoted:
It's amazing to me how much this question is asked here considering how thoroughly it was answered for decades. This is my response from another thread describing in brief (as briefly as possible, anyways) what conservatism is. I make use of three different conservative thinkers, who each had a somewhat different strain of thought (one is not even an American), and yet ultimately a common philosophical foundation that shows in the way the quoted areas tie together (and one of the Americans makes use of a statement from the European in his description of what conservatism is and is not). It is something that has a specific basic meaning, resulting in a short spectrum of ideas. Most Americans have strayed to some degree from conservatism, and you'd probably have to go before the Great Depression to find a time when a large number of Americans were truly conservative. The fight for the cause has always and will continue to be an uphill battle. That's just the nature of mass democracy, a system inclined against liberty, tradition, virtue, etc.

So from the other thread:

"Conservative" is a term which has been given a less traditional meaning in the political context on account of the Left's perversion of the language and also the degree to which the Left has succeeded, which makes those opposed to their changes seem conservative in the older sense (such as F.A. von Hayek criticized while making it seem, falsely, that that older sort of conservative was what conservatism was in the modern sense in the essay discussed in this thread: http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1765734_Why_I_am_not_a_Conservative_.html&page=1).

In the post-war era, it mainly refers to liberals with a more conservative temperament and traditional foundation for their respective political philosophies; this is true here, it is true in the other English-speaking countries, and it is true in Continental Europe (and in fact conservatives from both sides of the pond have often cooperated in their political efforts).

Objective absolutism, the idea that there are transcendental truths which apply to everybody, is a key component of a conservative philosophy, and it largely derives from a Judeo-Christian origin, even in cases where the conservative might not be a Jew or Christian, although history and tradition, with their demonstration of what works and what does not when it comes to the state and society, also are an important component of this foundation. Man has been around a long time and recorded much, and as such has had many opportunities to try things and discover success or folly, or even outright disaster.

I like the way Richard M. Weaver put it in his article in The Individualist, "Conservatism and Libertarianism: The Common Ground" ((May 1960 ed., pp.5-8)(bolded emphasis mine):

...there is, in fact, a concept of conservatism filled with disparagement which needs to be fought by everyone who believes that a conservative philosophy is useful and constructive. There are some people who appear to believe that conservatism means simply lack of imagination. The conservative, unable to visualize anything else, just wants to sit down with the status quo. There are others who seem to think that conservatism means timidity. The conservative is a person who has a sneaking presentiment that things might be better but he is simply afraid to take the risk of improvement. There are some who seem to think that conservatism is a product of temperamental slowness. If your mind or reflexes don't work as fast as other people's, then you must be a conservative. In these conceptions, the conservative is always found behind, whether from mental or physical deficiency, or just plain fearfulness. Naturally, nobody looks to that kind of person for leadership.

But this is very far from my image of a conservative. A conservative in my view is a man who may be behind the times or up with the times or ahead of the times. It all depends on how you define the times. And this brings us at once to a matter of essential definition.

It is my contention that a conservative is a realist, who believes that there is a structure of reality independent of his own will and desire. He believes that there is a creation which was here before him, which exists now not just by his sufferance, and which will be here after he's gone. This structure consists not merely of the great physical world but also of many laws, principles, and regulations which control human behavior. Though this reality is independent of the individual, it is not hostile to him. It is in fact amenable by him in many ways, but it cannot be changed radically and arbitrarily. This is the cardinal point. The conservative holds that man in this world cannot make his will his law without any regard to limits and to the fixed nature of things...

...The conservative...I see as standing on terra firma of antecedent reality; having accepted some things as given, lasting, and good, he is in a position to use his effort where effort will produce solid results.

Radicals and liberals sometimes try to knock the conservative off balance by asking, "What do you want to conserve anyhow?" I regard this question as by now substantially answered. The conservative wants to conserve the great structural reality which has been given us and which is on the whole beneficent.

I might make this a little more precise by saying he wants to respect it, but although of course respect must carry with it the idea of conserving. There is a famous saying of Francis Bacon which can be applied with meaning here...Bacon declared that man learns to command nature by obeying her.

The same holds for the moral, social, and political worlds. One does not command these by simply trying to kick them over. One commands them as far as is possible to do so by obeying them--by taking due note of their laws and regulations and by following these and proceeding to further ends. Of course, the conservative does not accept everything that is as both right and unchangeable. That is contrary to the very law of life, but the changes that he makes are regardful of the forms that antedate, overarch, and include him. The progress that he makes, therefore, is not something that will be undone as soon as his back is turned.

That last point refers to the fact that conservatives prefer growth and change to be evolutionary, to evolve in an organic manner out of best of culture, tradition, and present practices, always deriving from what has come before, and building upon it to gradually create something better. Only when forces act against this and try to push it back or radically alter everything is a more forceful and sudden effort required.

Earlier I stated that the conservative is a liberal. This is because part of the "great structure of reality," part of those laws of the moral, social, and political realm which govern man, many being part of his essential nature (natural law is an idea pervasive among conservatives, but often the more medieval kind concept than the enlightenment concept), is the idea of liberty, of the right of a man to be free within reasonable bounds necessary for the good and order of the commonweal. Liberty is necessary for the proper pursuit of virtue, because man is typically seen by the conservative as being a spiritual being as much as a physical one (a basic tenet of Jewish and Christian philosophy), and his proper end is connected to the transcendental part of his being, the spiritual part. That end is to seek the good and reject the bad, but as Jesus said, the heart matters as well regarding such matters. One must be free to choose virtue for the act to be truly virtuous; to coerce it beyond what is needed for the good and order of the commonweal is to cause a man to act in a good manner without his heart following. Man's end is virtue, in this world, in preparation for the next. Only in a state of liberty is man truly able to seek the good without restraint and to engage in moral suasion with respect to his fellow men. Virtue, of course, also has many practical benefits, and mutually supports the state of liberty and its continued existence; virtue undergirds liberty, and liberty enables virtue to the fullest. A good society is one that is both free and virtuous. If either is lost, the other soon follows, and the conservative knows that in liberty it is possible for virtue to decline because people are also free to choose the wrong, up to a point.

Knowing the fallen nature of man, knowing the history of man, and holding the above principles, the conservative tries to structure his social and political institutions to preserve a virtuous and liberal order with organic, evolutionary positive growth over an extended period of time. It affects his choice in government. Common law, written constitutions, the idea of rule or law respectful if fixed meanings and intent (against relativization, which renders law meaningless), a skepticism towards democracy, a more elitist attitude skeptical of mass power (the conservative recognizes that hierarchy is natural, on the whole good, and has moral and practical value; he is no egalitarian), and a structure of checks and balances are all elements of this effort. The pinnacle of this effort regarding the basic structure of government the regimen mixtum, which ideally combines tempered democratic elements, monarchical elements, a judiciary, and aristocratic elements as well as the principle of subsidiarity (from which federalism is derived) under a written constitution subject to the traditional view of law (such a government, though, can exist, less ideally, with more centralization, an unwritten constitution, and more strongly democratic elements). Our Constitution is a representative of this type of government, but it is not the only one, and a conservative can ultimately be either a republican or monarchist; neither is inherently repugnant to the conservative position. The reasons why this form of government is best underlie why the American conservative so respects the Founders and the Constitution they gave us; it is an effort to conserve the form for the higher end of conserving a liberal government in which virtue, justice, and prosperity can thrive and be passed down to our posterity, and the preamble is very representative of the conservative position. This, however, also carries with it a desire to oppose changes made or proposed which alter the constitution so as to render it a different form less conducive to an ordered, liberal, federal, and just government. It is not blind adherence to the law.

Finally, I'd also like to put forth another good description of conservative principles by Frank S. Meyer, which in summary form were the original principles of the American Conservative Union (that they no longer are and contrast a lot with the current principles shows how much that institution has strayed over the years). From his essay, "The Contemporary American Conservative Movement" (notes in brackets mine):

A. Conservatism assumes the existence of an objective moral order based upon ontological foundations. Whether or not individuals hold theistic views--and a large majority of them do--this outlook is derived from a theistic tradition. The essential point, however, is that the conservative looks at political and social questions with the assumption that there are objective standards for human conduct and criteria for the judgment of theories and institutions, which it is the duty of human beings to understand as thoroughly as they are able and to which it is their duty to approximate their actions.

The Liberal [Meyer used capital "L" Liberal to refer to the false liberalism of the Left] position, in contrast, is essentially operational and instrumental. As the conservative's world is, in Richard Weaver's phrase, a world of essences to be approximated, the Liberal's world is a world of problems to be solved. Hence, the conservative's concern with such questions of essence as individual liberty and civilizational tradition. Hence, the Liberal's concern with the modes and operations such as democracy (a mode or means of government which implies that what is right is what 50 percent plus one think is right [Meyer is paraphrasing the great Austrian conservative Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn here; look at his Principles of the Portland Declaration for another conservative statement of principles]) or progress (a concept that derives norms from the operation of historical events, establishing as the good the direction in which events have been moving and seem presently to be moving).

B. Within the limits of an objective moral order, the primary reference of conservative political and social thought and action is to the individual person. There may be among some conservatives a greater emphasis upon freedom and rights, as among others a greater emphasis upon duties and responsibilities; but whichever emphasis, conservative thought is shot through and through with concern for the person. It is deeply suspicious of theories and policies based upon the collectivities that are the political reference points of Liberalism--"minorities," "labor," "the people." There may be tension between those conservatives who stress individual freedom and those who stress community as a fabric of individual rights and responsibilities, but both reject the ideological hypostatization of associations of human beings into entities and the collectivist politics based upon it.

C. The cast of American conservative thought is profoundly anti-utopian. While it recognizes the continuing historical certainty of change and the necessity of basic principle being expressed under different circumstances in different ways, and while it strives always for the improvement of human institutions and the human condition, it rejects absolutely the idea that society and men generally are perfectible. In particular, it is perennially suspicious of the utopian approach that attempts to design society and the lives of human beings, whether in the light of abstract rationalist ideas or operational engineering concepts. It therefore rejects the entire Liberal mystique of "planning," which, no matter how humanitarian the motives of the planners, perforce treats human beings as faceless units to be arranged and disposed according to a design conceived by the planner. Rather, the conservative puts his confidence in the free functioning of the energies of free persons, individually and in voluntary cooperation.

D. It is on the basis of these last two points--concern for the individual person and rejection of utopian design--that the contemporary American conservative attitude to the state arises. For the state, which has the ultimate power of enforcement of its dictates, is the necessary implement for successful Liberal planning and for effective control of the lives of individual human beings. Conservatives may vary on the degree to which the power of the state should be limited, but they are agreed upon the principle of limitation and upon the firmest opposition to the Liberal concept of the state as the engine for the fixing of ideological blueprints upon the citizenry. There is much difference among them on the manner and mode in which the state should be limited, but in opposition to the prevailing Liberal tendency to call upon it to act in every area of human life, from automation to social relations, they are firmly united upon the principle of limitation.

E. Similarly, American conservatives are opposed to state control of the economy in all its Liberal manifestations, whether direct or indirect. They stand for a free economic system for two reasons. In the first place, they believe that the modern state is politically so strong, even without controls over the economy, that it concentrates power to a degree that is incompatible with the freedom of its citizens. When to that power is added control over the economy, such massive power is created that the last defenses against the state becoming a monstrous Leviathan begin to crack. Second--though this is subsidiary in the conservative outlook to the danger to freedom--conservatives in general believe, on the basis of classical and neoclassical economic theory, that a free economy is much more productive of material wealth than an economy controlled directly or indirectly by the state.

F. American conservatism derives from these positions its firm support of the Constitution of the United States as originally conceived--to achieve the protection of individual liberty in an ordered society by limiting the power of government. Recognizing the many different partial outlooks that went into its inception, adoption, and execution. the conservative holds that the result was a constitutional structure concerned simultaneously with limiting the power of the individual states and of the federal government, and of the tripartite elements in both--through the careful construction of a tension of separate powers, in which ultimate sovereignty rested in no single part, but in the tension itself. Conservatives believe that this conception was the closest that human beings have come to establishing a polity which gives the possibility of maintaining at one and the same time individual liberty, underlying norms of law, and necessary public order. Against the Liberal endeavor to establish sovereignty nominally in the democratic majority, actually in the executive branch of a national government, they strive to reestablish a federal system of strictly divided powers, so far as government itself is concerned, and to repulse the encroachment of government, federal or state, over the economy and the individual lives of citizens.

For the complete principles of the Portland Declaration mentioned above, go to: http://anarcho-monarchism.com/2012/12/26/portland-declaration/

A summary is as follows:

The Portland Declaration: A Summary

In the Free World it has become imperative to formulate a vision based on a coherent outlook which can be shared by most of us. These, then, are the main points of such a creed in a short version:

1. Our immensely complex universe can only be the result of either mere chance or a conscious design. We believe that it has an Originator as well as a "Designer,” God.

2. Only to man can this world be meaningful in every respect: spiritually, morally, aesthetically, economically.

3. Only man is a transcendent creature. He realizes that, if there is a personal God, everything is possible, if there is no God, everything is permissible.

4. Every man or woman is truly a person and unique. No two persons are identical or equal, least of all in the eyes of God.

5. With the beasts we share a craving for sameness, but the delight in the variations of creation distinguishes man from beast as much as religion and reason do.

6. Sameness and with it the dislike of otherness is the hallmark of leftism: it is an evil totalitarian instinct which fashioned the French, Russian and German revolutions with their gaols, guillotines, gallows, gas chambers and Gulags.

7. In all languages, whether dead or modern, "Left" stands for negative, "Right" for positive principles.

8. Men and women are equally important, but their innate characteristics favor (and sometimes rationally preclude) certain occupations and vocations.

9. The family is the living cell of every society. (Man is the creature who knows his grandfather.) It is based on sex, eros. friendship, affection and charity, friendship being the most important factor because loyalty pertains to it rather than to sexuality or Eros.

10. A healthy society is not a monolith, but consists of various well correlated lasers and groups with different qualities and functions. However, neither society nor state should be permitted to become absolutes.

11. The state is the result of man's frailty and incompleteness, Its legitimacy rests not only on authority but, due to Man's fallen nature, also on exterior power. Authority rests on love, or respect, or rational insight, it is an interior force.

12. The state has an "annexationist" character tending toward centralization and the development of a Provider State. We must uphold the principle of subsidiarity. Action should always be taken by the smallest possible unit. starting with the person.

13. What we now have is maximal government of the lowest quality; what we need is minimal government of the highest order.

14. There is no escape from "technocracy." Reason, knowledge and experience must reenter government at the expense of popularity and passions. Parliaments should faithfully mirror public opinion and might have purely legislative powers, but they must not become policy-forming bodies. Government should rest on first-rate expertise and respect for personal freedom.

15. Freedom is inseparable from personal property, socialism produces only equality in poverty.

16. The family can delegate its educational tasks to other bodies. Nobody should be taxed for educational facilities not used by them. It is, however, in the interest of the community that real talent (and diligence) should be fostered.

17. The identification of state and religion is pagan. Their separation, however, should not preclude cooperation because they have common interests and overlapping fields of action.

18. Ethnicity, race and citizenship are separate concepts, the first being cultural, the second biological, the third legal. They should not be confused. Legal discriminations or automatic preferences on account of ethnicity or race in the public-sector are plainly immoral.

19. Only a person with convictions has a genuine possibility to be tolerant. He who accepts no absolute values but clings to polite doubt cannot be tolerant but merely indifferent. He is morally defenseless in the face of evil.

20. Tradition, i.e., loyalty toward inherited convictions and institutions, which includes discarding obsolete or false ones, has a positive value.

21. The good man is a patriot and not a "nationalist," he delights in the human varieties within his country.

22. Foreign relations require an enormous amount of knowledge and experience. They are intrinsically connected with our survival. International institutions can be of great value, but the United Nations in their present form and in the present state of our globe has often produced more harm than good.

23. Professional armies are, for various reasons, preferable to armies based on conscription, but if the latter system is adopted by certain world powers, others might have to follow suit at least temporarily.

24. Legal positivism has no moral moorings. Justice is not equality but is based on Ulpian's "to everyone his due."

25. Man has rights as well as duties and these must be distinguished from acts of charity which might become moral, but not legal obligations.

26. Freedom is not an end in itself but a condition to live and to act in. "As much freedom as possible, as much coercion as necessary." The common good marks the limits of freedom.

Goddamn... What college do you teach at and how many books on the subject have you written and had published?

Posted: 2/19/2016 10:39:23 PM EDT

[#10]

That's why I prefer "pro-liberty." Many "conservatives" aren't (consistently) pro-liberty.

Posted: 2/19/2016 10:43:55 PM EDT

[#11]

My own definitions:

A conservative believes that change, while necessary, should be undertaken with care, so as not to disrupt the good things we already have. We should also look to history to be our guide.

The opposite of a conservative is a radical. A radical believes that change should be undertaken quickly, completely, and perhaps violently. History is in the past, and it's time to start over.

A liberal (classical liberal, or in today's terms libertarian) desires the greatest amount of freedom, consistent with order. What laws and regulations are needed, should be held in trust by the branch of government as close as possible to the people it affects.

The opposite of a liberal (again, classical liberal or libertarian) is an authoritarian. An authoritarian believes that the citizenry (or more broadly, the population) need to be guided, ruled, or directed, for the greater good of all.

This is a two-dimensional set of definitions. Neither part of those take into account leftist or rightist politics, which is a separate train of thought and at best a third dimension if you choose to examine it.

I am a libertarian-conservative, by my own definitions. Our President is an authoritarian radical, about as far from me as you can get.

The GOPe would be well described as conservative authoritarians, closing tight the grasp of power a little bit at a time and trying to "fix" whatever awful scheme comes out of D.C. from prior administrations and Congresses.

Posted: 2/20/2016 2:41:03 AM EDT

[#12]

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Goddamn... What college do you teach at and how many books on the subject have you written and had published?

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I couldn't afford to finish college. I've never published a book, although that's something I'd want to do someday. There is still so much out there to learn, though.

Posted: 2/20/2016 4:44:17 AM EDT

[#13]

Posted: 2/20/2016 4:46:31 AM EDT

[#14]

Conservatism is believing what the constitution says as written.

Posted: 2/20/2016 4:57:27 AM EDT

[#15]

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Conservatism is believing what the constitution says as written.

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What if the constitution is amended to say that socialism is awesome? Is believing that then become conservative?

The attachment to the constitution as originally concieved (not necessarily as amended) comes from principles that antedate and overarch the constitution.

Posted: 2/20/2016 6:04:07 AM EDT

[#16]

Part of conservative is rich, so I guess our country aint.

Posted: 2/20/2016 6:26:31 AM EDT

[#17]

Quoted:

During one debate the question was asked and the Trump haters quickly posted here "Trump doesn't know what a conservative is". Then someone else posted "No one in the GOPe is a conservative". Salon.com says this of Ted Cruz "Stop calling Ted Cruz a conservative: This self-promoting narcissist is a fraud and a nihilist

Labeling Cruz a conservative underestimates how dangerous he is. It's time we called out this Messianic crusader".

Basically everyone has disqualified everyone else as being a conservative. So what is the true and only definition of conservative? People here seem to have very strong opinions. How about some of you started defining it and we will see where the discussion goes.

The definition can't be generic like "respects the Constitution" because even Obama and Hillary claim to do that. For the 2nd amendment it would have been something like believes in the private ownership of all classes of firearms for all legal actives. What about background checks, waiting periods, taxes, felons in possession...etc. Can someone believe in requiring those things and still qualify as a conservative?

Cruz has said the federal background check system needs to be strengthened. It's an existing law, so is someone in favor of strengthening an infringement to a right a conservative?

Cruz said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday." "Right now a lot of states, a lot of local jurisdictions, are not reporting criminal convictions, not reporting mental health barriers to ownership. And so the federal database is not nearly as good as it should be. That would be a common-sense improvement."
A conservative someone who believes....

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It's like the trainwreck threads on Stormfront fighting about who is "really white".

Posted: 2/21/2016 2:30:29 AM EDT

[#18]

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Part of conservative is rich, so I guess our country aint.

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Are you feeling the Bern?

Posted: 2/21/2016 2:38:06 AM EDT

[#19]

The Sharon Statement captures the prime principles of conservatism very well:

That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;

That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;

That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;

That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty;

That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;

That the genius of the Constitution—the division of powers—is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people, in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government;

That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;

That when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation; that when it takes from one man to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both;

That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies;

That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties;

That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with, this menace; and

That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States?

Posted: 2/21/2016 2:51:25 AM EDT

[#20]

It's a degraded attempt at signalling.

A rectification of names would erase the word and replace it with half a dozen different groups.

Posted: 2/21/2016 2:56:36 AM EDT

[#21]

On ARF, if you want politicians to pass laws that force individuals to conform to your beliefs about certain subjects, you are a true conservative.

Think about that before you start attaching labels to people.

Posted: 2/21/2016 2:58:36 AM EDT

[#22]

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On ARF, if you want politicians to pass laws that force individuals to conform to your beliefs about certain subjects, you are a true conservative.

Think about that before you start attaching labels to people.

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hesrightyouknow.bmp

Posted: 2/21/2016 3:15:59 AM EDT

[#23]

Conservatism simply means the preservation of the ways things are, or if there must be change, that it be gradual. It has nothing to do with government interference except to the extent that it requires it to maintain the status quo. I don't know where some of you guys got the idea that conservatism means small government

It hasn't a thing to do with the constitution, a position on any particular issue, or less government. American conservatism is liberal, classically liberal.

Posted: 2/21/2016 3:26:11 AM EDT

[#24]

Quoted:
During one debate the question was asked and the Trump haters quickly posted here "Trump doesn't know what a conservative is". Then someone else posted "No one in the GOPe is a conservative". Salon.com says this of Ted Cruz "Stop calling Ted Cruz a conservative: This self-promoting narcissist is a fraud and a nihilist
Labeling Cruz a conservative underestimates how dangerous he is. It's time we called out this Messianic crusader".

Basically everyone has disqualified everyone else as being a conservative. So what is the true and only definition of conservative? People here seem to have very strong opinions. How about some of you started defining it and we will see where the discussion goes.

The definition can't be generic like "respects the Constitution" because even Obama and Hillary claim to do that. For the 2nd amendment it would have been something like believes in the private ownership of all classes of firearms for all legal actives. What about background checks, waiting periods, taxes, felons in possession...etc. Can someone believe in requiring those things and still qualify as a conservative?

Cruz has said the federal background check system needs to be strengthened. It's an existing law, so is someone in favor of strengthening an infringement to a right a conservative?
Cruz said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday." "Right now a lot of states, a lot of local jurisdictions, are not reporting criminal convictions, not reporting mental health barriers to ownership. And so the federal database is not nearly as good as it should be. That would be a common-sense improvement."

A conservative someone who believes....

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Here is a clue.

No conservative endorsed and/or gave money to Bill de Blasio or Terry McAullife in the last election cycle.

Posted: 2/21/2016 3:28:58 AM EDT

[#25]

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Wrong answer

When has he advocated for limited government?
Freedom? I don't think his support of Kelo and healthcare mandates jive with that
Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life? Not if you're cutting checks to Planned Parenthood
Founding Fathers' Wisdom? Have you ever heard him speak of the constitution? Demonstrate any knowledge of it?
Lower Taxes? He is planning on raising taxes on the rich
Belief in the Individual? Again, not if he believes in Kelo and the heathcare mandates

This is only if you take him at his word on his CURRENT positions.

If you look at his past, you may as well throw them all out

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Quoted:

Quoted:
• Freedom
• Faith
• Family
• Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life
• American Exceptionalism
• The Founders’ Wisdom and Vision
• Lower Taxes
• Limited Government
• Peace Through Strength
• Anti-Communism
• Belief in the Individual

as defined by Ronald Reagan

I'll go with these

If you put less importance on human life and possibly limited government, then you have what Trump is saying.

Remove the importance on human life and it is close to what Ted Cruz says. Cruz has advocated carpet bombing areas where ISIS is at which will kill many innocent women and children. So he can't claim he respect all human life.

Wrong answer

When has he advocated for limited government?
Freedom? I don't think his support of Kelo and healthcare mandates jive with that
Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life? Not if you're cutting checks to Planned Parenthood
Founding Fathers' Wisdom? Have you ever heard him speak of the constitution? Demonstrate any knowledge of it?
Lower Taxes? He is planning on raising taxes on the rich
Belief in the Individual? Again, not if he believes in Kelo and the heathcare mandates

This is only if you take him at his word on his CURRENT positions.

If you look at his past, you may as well throw them all out

Bingo.

Posted: 2/21/2016 3:30:10 AM EDT

[#26]

Quoted:
During one debate the question was asked and the Trump haters quickly posted here "Trump doesn't know what a conservative is". Then someone else posted "No one in the GOPe is a conservative". Salon.com says this of Ted Cruz "Stop calling Ted Cruz a conservative: This self-promoting narcissist is a fraud and a nihilist
Labeling Cruz a conservative underestimates how dangerous he is. It's time we called out this Messianic crusader".

Basically everyone has disqualified everyone else as being a conservative. So what is the true and only definition of conservative? People here seem to have very strong opinions. How about some of you started defining it and we will see where the discussion goes.

The definition can't be generic like "respects the Constitution" because even Obama and Hillary claim to do that. For the 2nd amendment it would have been something like believes in the private ownership of all classes of firearms for all legal actives. What about background checks, waiting periods, taxes, felons in possession...etc. Can someone believe in requiring those things and still qualify as a conservative?

Cruz has said the federal background check system needs to be strengthened. It's an existing law, so is someone in favor of strengthening an infringement to a right a conservative?
Cruz said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday." "Right now a lot of states, a lot of local jurisdictions, are not reporting criminal convictions, not reporting mental health barriers to ownership. And so the federal database is not nearly as good as it should be. That would be a common-sense improvement."

A conservative someone who believes....

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Your man isn't a conservative and doesn't know what it means to be one, so you are trying to muddy the waters.

Color me surprised.

Posted: 2/23/2016 11:19:35 PM EDT

[#27]

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It seems synonymous with "flatlander."

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Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?

Posted: 2/23/2016 11:31:47 PM EDT

[#28]

Quote History

Quoted:

Your man isn't a conservative and doesn't know what it means to be one, so you are trying to muddy the waters.

Color me surprised.

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Quote History

Quoted:

Quoted:
During one debate the question was asked and the Trump haters quickly posted here "Trump doesn't know what a conservative is". Then someone else posted "No one in the GOPe is a conservative". Salon.com says this of Ted Cruz "Stop calling Ted Cruz a conservative: This self-promoting narcissist is a fraud and a nihilist
Labeling Cruz a conservative underestimates how dangerous he is. It's time we called out this Messianic crusader".

Basically everyone has disqualified everyone else as being a conservative. So what is the true and only definition of conservative? People here seem to have very strong opinions. How about some of you started defining it and we will see where the discussion goes.

The definition can't be generic like "respects the Constitution" because even Obama and Hillary claim to do that. For the 2nd amendment it would have been something like believes in the private ownership of all classes of firearms for all legal actives. What about background checks, waiting periods, taxes, felons in possession...etc. Can someone believe in requiring those things and still qualify as a conservative?

Cruz has said the federal background check system needs to be strengthened. It's an existing law, so is someone in favor of strengthening an infringement to a right a conservative?
Cruz said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday." "Right now a lot of states, a lot of local jurisdictions, are not reporting criminal convictions, not reporting mental health barriers to ownership. And so the federal database is not nearly as good as it should be. That would be a common-sense improvement."

A conservative someone who believes....

Your man isn't a conservative and doesn't know what it means to be one, so you are trying to muddy the waters.

Color me surprised.

He'll defend anything Trump does while believing salon.com shit about Cruz. Truely one of the Donald's faithful.

Posted: 2/23/2016 11:36:12 PM EDT

[#29]

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Quoted:
On ARF, if you want politicians to pass laws that force individuals to conform to your beliefs about certain subjects, you are a true conservative.

Think about that before you start attaching labels to people.

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Welcome to...well, since forever.

Posted: 2/23/2016 11:40:11 PM EDT

[#30]

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Quoted:

Ask Donald. He seems to have good grasp on conservationism.

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His main grasp on conservatism is conserving his money by getting the media to cover him for free, not that I am against getting those idiots to do it.

Biggest problem is that we are being asked to pick the 'least worst' again! (And even the Dems have that problem)

Posted: 2/24/2016 12:20:15 AM EDT

[#31]

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Quoted:
• Freedom
• Faith
• Family
• Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life
• American Exceptionalism
• The Founders’ Wisdom and Vision
• Lower Taxes
• Limited Government
• Peace Through Strength
• Anti-Communism
• Belief in the Individual

as defined by Ronald Reagan

I'll go with these

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To bad he failed at so many of the principals he espoused.

Posted: 2/24/2016 12:22:25 AM EDT

[#32]

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Quoted:
Salon.com. That's where i stopped reading.

You Trump guys and your fascination with salon, huffpo, and Bloomberg News as "sources".

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Yeah, and the fact Trump runs to MSNBC for friendly treatment is quite telling.

Posted: 2/24/2016 12:24:44 AM EDT

[#33]

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Quoted:

He goes way beyond Conservative as a Messianic Crusader would ignore the freedoms in the constitution, force religion, and kill/destroy/imprison those who don't fall in line. It would be a reverse ISIS. But the people in GD who push him the most seem to agree those things would be good things.

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Quote History

Quoted:

Quoted:
I'd say that having Salon say that about Cruz more than proves that yes, in fact he is a Conservative.

He goes way beyond Conservative as a Messianic Crusader would ignore the freedoms in the constitution, force religion, and kill/destroy/imprison those who don't fall in line. It would be a reverse ISIS. But the people in GD who push him the most seem to agree those things would be good things.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - What is the definition of "Conservative"? No one seems to agree. (Page 2 of 2)

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