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When You Hear "Conservative", which Idea First Comes to Mind?

Which idea?

  • Tradition

    Votes: 21 31.3%
  • Hierarchy

    Votes: 1 1.5%
  • Elitism

    Votes: 7 10.4%
  • Populism

    Votes: 2 3.0%
  • Individualism

    Votes: 12 17.9%
  • Other

    Votes: 24 35.8%

  • Total voters
    67
Moderation or caution should have also been on the list, but then whoever started it wanted it slanted in a particular direction to attempt to drive home some strange concept...like brain washing...but that only works on weak liberals.

I was going to list caution, but caution comes in many varieties, so I chose to list elitism, populism, and individualism instead.

Elitism is caution in being on top of the rat race.

Populism is caution in being safe in the crowd.

Individualism is caution in making your own decisions.
 
The first thing that came to my mind was Religious Right. They have almost completely taken over the Republican party and most people in politics relate Conservatism with the Religious Right.
 
Conservative= Fascism, small minded, close minded, tightfisted, arrogant, hypocritical in the extreme. Having a form of Godly devotion but proving false to it's power. Amen
 
Conservative = pragmatic









(that one's for you, you little garden rodent....;))
 
Traditional. When I think Conservatism I think Edmund Burke.

Of course....I'm slowly starting to think Michele Bachman which is scary.

Excellent choice in Burke. I also recommend reading Russell Kirk who is a disciple of Burke's. An excellent read is The Conservative Mind by Kirk.
 
I don't know what planet some of you are from, though :D

Some of these responses make no sense and I don't see - at all - how they're connected to Conservative as a political ideology . . . I think some people seem a bit brainwashed by paranoid individuals in the media or something rather than level-headed and thinking adults.
 
Aw, I guess this means you didn't like my post, Pepe Le Pew.:neener

Nah, your post was fine. Appears we just have different opinions. :2wave:
 
Saving or holding onto or keeping smaller... especially tradition and government... it is an attitude or mindset.
 
CONSERVATIVE - CONTROL, NOT LEAD

LIBERAL - CONTROL, NOT LEAD

As the old saying goes, "If the right one don't get ya, then the left one will!"

We've lost Representative government in the US. It's dead, gone, and won't return...if it truly ever existed.
 
Perhaps, but in terms of intellectual history, it worked rather well in covering the bases. Again, one has to take seriously the concept of elitism or hierarchy, and perhaps see some of its virtues in conservative thought. It wasn't always populism that ruled the gut impulses of conservatism.
Can you have conservatism without hierarchy?

I think most people are elitists and populists at the same time. It just depends on what they are elitist and populist about and how they are.
 
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When I hear conservative, I think of a person who wants small government, free markets, and believes highly in the second amendment. And guess what, all of those are good things.
 
I'd like to change my answer.

I think of bls.gov.
 
Russell Kirk is one of the foremost conservative philosophers of the 20th Century. Here are his first 5 tenets. A second posting will include 6 thru 10.

The Essence of Conservatism by Russell Kirk

(1) Men and nations are governed by moral laws; and those laws have their origin in a wisdom that is more than human—in divine justice. At heart, political problems are moral and religious problems. The wise statesman tries to apprehend the moral law and govern his conduct accordingly. We have a moral debt to our ancestors, who bestowed upon us our civilization, and a moral obligation to the generations who will come after us. This debt is ordained of God. We have no right, therefore, to tamper impudently with human nature or with the delicate fabric of our civil social order.

(2) Variety and diversity are the characteristics of a high civilization. Uniformity and absolute equality are the death of all real vigor and freedom in existence. Conservatives resist with impartial strength the uniformity of a tyrant or an oligarchy, and the uniformity of what Tocqueville called “democratic despotism.”

(3) Justice means that every man and every woman have the right to what is their own—to the things best suited to their own nature, to the rewards of their ability and integrity, to their property and their personality. Civilized society requires that all men and women have equal rights before the law, but that equality should not extend to equality of condition: that is, society is a great partnership, in which all have equal rights—but not to equal things. The just society requires sound leadership, different rewards for different abilities, and a sense of respect and duty.

(4) Property and freedom are inseparably connected; economic leveling is not economic progress. Conservatives value property for its own sake, of course; but they value it even more because without it all men and women are at the mercy of an omnipotent government.

(5) Power is full of danger; therefore the good state is one in which power is checked and balanced, restricted by sound constitutions and customs. So far as possible, political power ought to be kept in the hands of private persons and local institutions. Centralization is ordinarily a sign of social decadence.
 
You mean real conservatism or that neo-crap they have in the modern Republican party?
 
The Essence of Conservatism - Russell Kirk - Part II

(6) The past is a great storehouse of wisdom; as Burke said, “the individual is foolish, but the species is wise.” The conservative believes that we need to guide ourselves by the moral traditions, the social experience, and the whole complex body of knowledge bequeathed to us by our ancestors. The conservative appeals beyond the rash opinion of the hour to what Chesterton called “the democracy of the dead”—that is, the considered opinions of the wise men and women who died before our time, the experience of the race. The conservative, in short, knows he was not born yesterday.

(7) Modern society urgently needs true community: and true community is a world away from collectivism. Real community is governed by love and charity, not by compulsion. Through churches, voluntary associations, local governments, and a variety of institutions, conservatives strive to keep community healthy. Conservatives are not selfish, but public-spirited. They know that collectivism means the end of real community, substituting uniformity for variety and force for willing cooperation.

(8) In the affairs of nations, the American conservative feels that his country ought to set an example to the world, but ought not to try to remake the world in its image. It is a law of politics, as well as of biology, that every living thing loves above all else—even above its own life—its distinct identity, which sets it off from all other things. The conservative does not aspire to domination of the world, nor does he relish the prospect of a world reduced to a single pattern of government and civilization.

(9) Men and women are not perfectible, conservatives know; and neither are political institutions. We cannot make a heaven on earth, though we may make a hell. We all are creatures of mingled good and evil; and, good institutions neglected and ancient moral principles ignored, the evil in us tends to predominate. Therefore the conservative is suspicious of all utopian schemes. He does not believe that, by power of positive law, we can solve all the problems of humanity. We can hope to make our world tolerable, but we cannot make it perfect. When progress is achieved, it is through prudent recognition of the limitations of human nature.

(10) Change and reform, conservatives are convinced, are not identical: moral and political innovation can be destructive as well as beneficial; and if innovation is undertaken in a spirit of presumption and enthusiasm, probably it will be disastrous. All human institutions alter to some extent from age to age, for slow change is the means of conserving society, just as it is the means for renewing the human body. But American conservatives endeavor to reconcile the growth and alteration essential to our life with the strength of our social and moral traditions. With Lord Falkland, they say, “When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.” They understand that men and women are best content when they can feel that they live in a stable world of enduring values.
 
Russell Kirk is one of the foremost conservative philosophers of the 20th Century. Here are his first 5 tenets. A second posting will include 6 thru 10.

The Essence of Conservatism by Russell Kirk

(1) Men and nations are governed by moral laws; and those laws have their origin in a wisdom that is more than human—in divine justice. At heart, political problems are moral and religious problems. The wise statesman tries to apprehend the moral law and govern his conduct accordingly. We have a moral debt to our ancestors, who bestowed upon us our civilization, and a moral obligation to the generations who will come after us. This debt is ordained of God. We have no right, therefore, to tamper impudently with human nature or with the delicate fabric of our civil social order.

(2) Variety and diversity are the characteristics of a high civilization. Uniformity and absolute equality are the death of all real vigor and freedom in existence. Conservatives resist with impartial strength the uniformity of a tyrant or an oligarchy, and the uniformity of what Tocqueville called “democratic despotism.”

(3) Justice means that every man and every woman have the right to what is their own—to the things best suited to their own nature, to the rewards of their ability and integrity, to their property and their personality. Civilized society requires that all men and women have equal rights before the law, but that equality should not extend to equality of condition: that is, society is a great partnership, in which all have equal rights—but not to equal things. The just society requires sound leadership, different rewards for different abilities, and a sense of respect and duty.

(4) Property and freedom are inseparably connected; economic leveling is not economic progress. Conservatives value property for its own sake, of course; but they value it even more because without it all men and women are at the mercy of an omnipotent government.

(5) Power is full of danger; therefore the good state is one in which power is checked and balanced, restricted by sound constitutions and customs. So far as possible, political power ought to be kept in the hands of private persons and local institutions. Centralization is ordinarily a sign of social decadence.

Thank you very much for that post. Genuinely stand in awe of Mr. Kirk's wisdom....:yes:
 
You mean real conservatism or that neo-crap they have in the modern Republican party?

And by "real" you just happen to mean like one brand of conservatism, right? Not like any other forms of conservatism have been popular throughout American and world history, right?
 
To me, I automatically think "stingy." Like they don't have kids attending public schools, so why should they pay taxes for them. Or a dislike for most programs meant to benefit society as a whole.

At one time it did mean conserving spending of our tax dollars as a country. I might have respected the tea party, if they had a hissy fit during Bush's big spending spree.
"Bush's big spending spree" is a drop in the bucket compared to Obama's HUGE spending spree.
 
Can you have conservatism without hierarchy?

I think most people are elitists and populists at the same time. It just depends on what they are elitist and populist about and how they are.

I suppose so, with that interesting mixture between being against the so-called "elites," yet also comment that "the people" are of superior mindset than the elites who are perhaps "out of touch" or "corrupt."
 
Russell Kirk is one of the foremost conservative philosophers of the 20th Century. Here are his first 5 tenets. A second posting will include 6 thru 10.

The Essence of Conservatism by Russell Kirk

(1) Men and nations are governed by moral laws; and those laws have their origin in a wisdom that is more than human—in divine justice. At heart, political problems are moral and religious problems. The wise statesman tries to apprehend the moral law and govern his conduct accordingly. We have a moral debt to our ancestors, who bestowed upon us our civilization, and a moral obligation to the generations who will come after us. This debt is ordained of God. We have no right, therefore, to tamper impudently with human nature or with the delicate fabric of our civil social order.

(2) Variety and diversity are the characteristics of a high civilization. Uniformity and absolute equality are the death of all real vigor and freedom in existence. Conservatives resist with impartial strength the uniformity of a tyrant or an oligarchy, and the uniformity of what Tocqueville called “democratic despotism.”

(3) Justice means that every man and every woman have the right to what is their own—to the things best suited to their own nature, to the rewards of their ability and integrity, to their property and their personality. Civilized society requires that all men and women have equal rights before the law, but that equality should not extend to equality of condition: that is, society is a great partnership, in which all have equal rights—but not to equal things. The just society requires sound leadership, different rewards for different abilities, and a sense of respect and duty.

(4) Property and freedom are inseparably connected; economic leveling is not economic progress. Conservatives value property for its own sake, of course; but they value it even more because without it all men and women are at the mercy of an omnipotent government.

(5) Power is full of danger; therefore the good state is one in which power is checked and balanced, restricted by sound constitutions and customs. So far as possible, political power ought to be kept in the hands of private persons and local institutions. Centralization is ordinarily a sign of social decadence.

Another "GOD" based sermon.

Very little of these five so-called tenets are based in realism, but rather idealism.

It's not about the private person, local institutions, equal rights, freedom and sound leadership...its about political candy to feed to needy citizens who are yearning to satisfying their sweet tooth for hope.

As of this day...none of these so-called tenets exist in our political and government institution...NOR WILL under any current or future governments who are empowered as ours is today.
 
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