Conservatism

[jax-native68]

It is claimed that conservatism has no foundational document (http://www.kirkcenter.org/kirk/ten-principles.html).  Conservatism supposedly has no Das Kapital or a Mein Kampf from which it can draw its meaning and purpose.  Conservatism is alleged to be without ideology or dogma. Instead conservatism is supposed to be based on what leading conservative thinkers and writers throughout history have said it means.

But this puts conservatism in the position of being dependent on principles that were formulated by people that are identified as conservatives without having any hard and fast criteria that can be used to identify conservatives in the first place.  If we define conservatism by what leading conservatives want, we must identify leading conservatives without knowing what conservatism means.  This gives politicians, the news media and the internet population at large carte blanche to define conservatism as it suits them.  Conservatism can be lauded or lambasted at the merest whim.  People can make conservatism up as they go along.  Conservatism has, therefore, become the depository for everything that liberals dislike and the refuge for every libertarian who is really a scoundrel at heart.

But conservatism is based on certain core ideological beliefs.  Conservative ideology is universal; it is not dependent on the conservative practitioner’s day and age; on his race, gender or religion; on his social class, nationality or his form of government.  Conservatism is not based simply on what people that we today choose to identify as conservatives wanted in the past.  Conservatism is not something ephemeral that can be made up to suit somebody’s political purpose or private agenda.  There are certain things- certain ideologies- that naturally make a conservative a conservative.

Conservatives have a natural longing for stability while liberals, and their libertarian brethren, are perfectly happy with chaos.  The purpose of conservatism is to establish and maintain a stable, functional and self-sustaining society.  Conservatism’s purpose and the conservative’s longing for stability give conservatism certain inherent ideological components.

American conservatism has nothing to do with the American Revolution, the U.S. Constitution or the Founding Fathers.  Conservatism transcends these things.  Your views on the proper purpose, size or scope of government does not determine whether or not you are a conservative. Your acceptance of certain core ideological axioms makes you a conservative.


I.   Social contract      
   Each generation is indebted to the ones that came before it and is obligated to the ones that come after it.      
   A.   Tradition      
      Society is based upon and must uphold tradition to the extent that tradition stabilizes society.      
   B.   Environmental conservation      
      1.   Individuals must be willing to forgo maximum immediate profit for the sake of long-term sustainability.  No generation is entitled to exhaust whatever natural resources it may have inherited from its forefathers.      
      2.   Extract the greatest material benefit from the resources that are used by using resources in the most efficient manner.      
   C.   Economic stability      
      1.   Favor sound monetary policy to stabilize market prices and discourage speculation that can create market bubbles that will inevitably burst causing societal upheaval.      
      2.   Avoid excessive debt that can hamper the ability of future generations to deal with whatever socio-economic and national security problems that may arise.      
II.   Interrelationship between property and liberty      
   A.   Stabilizing influence of property      
      1.   Societal upheaval can put the property at risk.         
      2.   A property owner is more likely to respect the property of others in order to insure that others respect his own property.      
   B.   Property rights      
      1.   Individuals must be able to acquire property.            
      2.   Individuals must be able to sell property.      
      3.   Property rights cannot be absolute.  Society has a right to regulate property rights so no one can infringe on the property rights of others by exercising an absolute right of his own.      
III.   Interrelationship between property and power      
   A.   Wealth equals power      
      1.   Wealth must be regulated as power is regulated.      
         (a)   Regulate the wealthy so they cannot oppress the poor with their power.      
            (1)   Guaranteed human rights for all individual regardless of wealth.      
            (2)   Guaranteed broad but otherwise limited civil rights coupled with an upwardly mobile society that offers the chance of acquiring civil rights in the future (by coming of age or acquiring property for example).      
            (3)   Impose taxes that allow private property to be used for public benefit since people who enjoy society’s protection for their property have a moral obligation to sustain society.      
            (4)   Oppose laissez-faire economics since unregulated capitalistic markets concentrate wealth (and poverty) because the profit motive exacerbates human nature and allows individuals to sack, maim, pillage and destroy; lie, steal, cheat and kill for the sake of profit.      
         (b)   Regulate the poor so they cannot oppress the wealthy with their numbers.      
            (1)   Oppose democratic societies in favor of republican/royal government where the will of a momentary majority does not automatically determine government policy.            
            (2)   Oppose progressive taxation and income re-distribution schemes as immoral; taxes can be used as a regulatory tool, but no one should be obligated to pay more taxes simply because they can afford to do so.      
IV.   Importance of society/government as a means to protect inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, i.e., property.      
   A.   The individual and society exist in partnership with each being dependent on the other.      
      1.   Participating in society is not voluntary because society is necessary to impose order on individual humans that are by nature orderless.      
         (a)   Society has a right to impose its will on the individual and thereby maintain law and order while upholding traditions in order to stabilize society.      
         (b)   Nobody has a right to rebel against a legitimate government and all lawful means of redress must be exhausted before force can be used against an illegitimate government meaning that a majority can impose its will on a minority so that being in the minority does not gain you any rights or privileges that are inconsistent with public order and society’s preservation.      
      2.   Society has an obligation to protect its constituent parts against the individual actions of its constituent parts.      
         (a)   Nobody has a right to engage in behavior that puts society, i.e., other people, at risk regardless of whether or not the individual believes his behavior is victimless.      
         (b)   Government has a right to use force against the governed in order to maintain its own sovereignty meaning that government can regulate access to the means by which the governed can use force.      
      3.   Individuals may act outside of the confines of society and may use deadly force if necessary whenever society cannot take timely action to protect life or property from criminal behavior.      
   B.   Society is a living organism.      
      1.   The more varied the constituent parts of society are the more buffered the society is meaning a greater variety of constituent parts gives society a greater stability.      
         (a)   Society must recognize the divergent natural abilities (such as physical strength and intelligence) of its constituent parts and understand that these divergent natural abilities will lead to inequality that society must more-or-less accept.      
         (b)   Society must try to even out gross socio-economic inequality that could lead to societal disruption (conservatives are opposed to the mass concentration of both wealth and poverty), but society cannot wantonly expend its resources in an endless effort to achieve equality among its constituent parts.      
         (c)   Society has the right to impose a certain amount of conformity on individuals for the sake of insuring societal cohesion between its constituent parts.      
      2.   Society must uphold human rights to life, liberty and property consistent with public order and the insurance of society’s future.      
   C.   Government      
      1.   Society is greater than the sum of its constituent parts.      
         (a)   Collective action by society serves a needful purpose by promoting the commonwealth of society.      
         (b)   Government must have the power to do whatever needs to be done to promote the commonwealth of society whenever the constituent parts of society cannot or will not take action.      
      2.   Government is a reflection of the governed       
         (a)   Individuals must not become dependent on their government for their daily sustenance lest the government assume undue power unto itself.      
         (b)   Government’s powers must be divided into separate but mutually dependent departments so no part of the government can assume undue power unto itself.      
         (c)   The government must be answerable to the governed lest it abuse the governed.      
         (d)   The government must be responsive to the governed lest the governed rebel against the government because it cannot meet the needs of the governed.      
V.   Self-evident truths of human nature      
   A.   Humans are by nature self-serving, self-centered and greedy brutes as evidenced by the whole of human history.      
   B.   Human nature is not alterable by natural means; putting others ahead of one’s self is the antithesis of human nature and no individual, when left to his own devices, will ever do it.      
      1.   Human society is inevitable; otherwise human beings will destroy each other because they cannot live peaceably in a state of nature.      
      2.   All human society can do is compensate for human nature by imposing its will on the individual so as to prevent the individual from harming others or harming himself in a way that drains society’s resources.      
   C.   Faith or religion may be able to overcome human nature in that an individual may be prompted to give consideration to others for the sake of faith or religion.      
      1.   Society cannot legitimately impose its will on the individual in matters of faith or religion but personal conscience does not automatically give an individual a right to separate himself from society or shirk his obligation to maintain society.      
      2.   Society has an obligation to allow and even encourage faith and religion consistent with public order; nobody should have to forfeit his faith/religion for the sake of gaining human or civil rights or forfeit his human or civil rights for the sake of peacefully practicing his faith/religion.       
VI.   Human biology is unalterable by any natural means      
   A.   Biology makes men and women distinct from each other with natural strengths and weaknesses; a man cannot naturally be a woman, nor can a woman naturally be a man.      
      1.   Men and women are mutually dependent on each other due to their respective biological functions.       
      2.   Society must uphold and maintain the distinction of men and woman for the sake of its own survival.      
VII.   Society driven by human nature cannot be perfect because human nature is not perfect      
   A.   Change is inevitable      
      1.   Human societies are always subject to the forces of the natural environment that can wreak wholesale changes to society that society is powerless to stop.      
      2.   Societal inertia naturally leads to conflict      
         (a)   People that have comfortable lives naturally want to preserve the status quo.      
         (b)   People who feel themselves oppressed will naturally seek to better their situation.      
   B.   Each generation has a moral obligation to confront the shortcomings of the generations that came before it so as to not perpetuate these shortcomings on posterity and thereby allow the failures of past generations to accumulate and put society at risk; no generation is so great that its posterity is obligated to maintain its failures.      
   C.   Change for the mere sake of change is folly      
      1.   All change, regardless of how necessary it may be, must be weighed against the long-term disruptive effects it may have on society; change is not automatically change for the better.      
      2.   A perfect society is impossible due to the imperfection of human nature so it is pointless to constantly strive for utopia- something that can never exist; furthermore the desire for perfection leads invariably to a desire for change for the sake of change and this puts society at grave risk.      
      3.   It is better to accept society as it is and wait for change to come in the natural course of events than it is to risk society’s total destruction caused by immediate change whose long-term consequences cannot be anticipated.      
   D.   Restorative change      
      1.   Experience shows what has worked well in the past.       
      2.   Society should always encourage restorative change.   

[jax-native68]

jaxnative,

I stopped reading the essay when it asserted the 'liberals are content with chaos'.

Since this isnt true, yet is asserted as fact, what chances are there that any of the rest of it is true?

I guess you know nothing of the 1960s.

[avonjax]

In other words Stephen it's about them being against everything except what THEY want and believe!

[jax-native68]

jaxnative,

I stopped reading the essay when it asserted the 'liberals are content with chaos'.

Since this isnt true, yet is asserted as fact, what chances are there that any of the rest of it is true?

I guess you know nothing of the 1960s.

What on earth does the 1960s have to do with such a defining remark?

The 1960s were a product of liberalism.  The 1960s were chaotic.  Therefore liberals want chaos.  Liberal practices such as welfare without obligation and sex outside of marriage lead to the dissolution of the family unit.  The result has been the destruction of America's stable society, i.e., chaos.

[jax-native68]

This appears to be an abridgement of the following essay, its interesting the parts that you seem to have added.

In any case, I don't think that this is a very good description of conservatives anyway.  Its a better description for authoritarianism, but not American conservativism.

It is claimed that conservatism has no foundational document (The Kirk Center - Ten Conservative Principles by Russell Kirk). Conservatism supposedly has no Das Kapital or a Mein Kampf from which it can draw its meaning and purpose. Conservatism is alleged to be without ideology or dogma. Instead conservatism is supposed to be based on what leading conservative thinkers and writers throughout history have proposed.

But this puts conservatism in the position of being dependent on principles that were formulated by people that are identified as conservatives without having any hard and fast criteria that can be used to identify conservatives in the first place. If we define conservatism by what leading conservatives want, we must identify conservatives without knowing what conservatism means. This gives politicians, the news media and the internet population at large carte blanche to define conservatism as it suits them. Conservatism can be lauded or lambasted at the merest whim. People can make conservatism up as they go along. Conservatism has, therefore, become the depository for everything that liberals dislike and the refuge for every libertarian who is too cowardly to admit that they have anything in common with liberals.

But conservatism is based on certain core ideological beliefs. Conservative ideology is universal; it is not dependent on the conservative’s day and age; on his race, gender or religion; on his social class, nationality or his form of government. Conservatism is not based simply on what people that we today choose to identify as conservatives wanted in the past. Conservatism is not something ephemeral that can be made up to suit somebody’s political purpose or private agenda. There are certain things- certain ideologies- that naturally make a conservative a conservative. Conservatives have a natural longing for stability while liberals, and their libertarian brethren, are perfectly happy with chaos. The purpose of conservatism is to establish and maintain a stable, functional and self-sustaining society. Conservatism’s purpose and the conservative’s longing for stability give conservatism certain inherent ideological components.

American conservatism has nothing to do with the American Revolution, the U.S. Constitution or the Founding Fathers. Conservatism transcends these things. Your views on the proper purpose, size or scope of government does not determine whether or not you are a conservative. Your acceptance of certain core ideological axioms makes you a conservative.

I. Each generation is indebted to the ones that came before it and is obligated to the ones that come after it.
A. Society is based upon and must uphold tradition to the extent that tradition stabilizes society.
B. Society must conserve natural resources for future use.
1. Extract the greatest material benefit from the resources that are used by using resources in the most efficient manner.
2. Individuals must be willing to forgo maximum immediate profit for the sake of long-term sustainability.
C. Maintain economic stability.
1. Favor sound monetary policy to stabilize market prices and discourage speculation that can create market bubbles that will inevitably burst causing societal upheaval.
2. Avoid excessive debt that can hamper the ability of future generations to deal with whatever socio-economic and national security problems that may arise.

II. Property and liberty are mutually dependent
A. Owning property gives the owner a vested interest in preserving society lest societal upheaval put the owner’s property at risk since a property owner is more likely to respect the property of others because he wants others to equally respect his own property.
B. Individuals within society must have a right to the fruits of their own labor and must have a right to acquire property so as to maintain their own liberty.

III. Wealth equals power and must be regulated as power would be regulated.
A. Regulate the wealthy so they cannot oppress the poor with their power.
1. Guaranteed human rights for all individual regardless of wealth.
2. Guaranteed broad but otherwise limited civil rights (to vote or hold office for example) coupled with an upwardly mobile society that offers the chance of acquiring civil rights in the future.
3. Impose taxes that allow private property to be used for public benefit since people who enjoy society’s protection for their property have a moral obligation to sustain society.
4. Oppose laissez-faire economics since unregulated capitalistic markets concentrate wealth (and poverty) because the profit motive exacerbates human nature and allows individuals to sack, maim, pillage and destroy; lie, steal, cheat and kill for the sake of profit.
B. Regulate the poor so they cannot oppress the wealthy with their numbers.
1. Oppose democratic societies in favor of republican/royal government where the will of a momentary majority does not automatically determine government policy.
2. Oppose progressive taxation and income re-distribution schemes as immoral.

IV. Society is of vital importance.
A. The individual and society exist in partnership with each being dependent on the other.
1. Participating in society is not voluntary because society is necessary to impose order on individual humans that are by nature orderless.
a. Society has a right to impose its will on the individual and thereby maintain law and order for the benefit of society as a whole.
b. Nobody has a right to rebel against a legitimate government and all lawful means of redress must be exhausted before force can be used against a legitimate government meaning that a majority can impose its will on a minority so that being in the minority does not gain you any rights or privileges that are inconsistent with public order and society’s preservation.
2. Society has an obligation to protect its constituent parts against the individual actions of its constituent parts.
a. Nobody has a right to engage in behavior that puts society, i.e., other people, at risk regardless of whether or not the individual believes his behavior is victimless.
b. Government has a right to use force against the governed in order to maintain its own sovereignty.
B. Society is a living organism.
1. The more varied the constituent parts of society are the more buffered the society is meaning a greater variety of constituent parts gives society a greater stability.
a. Society must recognize the divergent natural abilities (such as physical strength, intelligence) of its constituent parts and understand that these divergent natural abilities will lead to inequality that society must accept.
b. Society must try to even out gross socio-economic inequality that could lead to societal disruption (conservatives are opposed to the mass concentration of both wealth and poverty), but society cannot wantonly expend its resources in an endless effort to achieve equality among its constituent parts.
2. Society has the right to impose a certain amount of conformity on individuals for the sake of insuring societal cohesion between its constituent parts.
C. Society must uphold human rights to life, liberty and property consistent with public order and the insurance society’s future.

V. Self-evident truths of human nature:
A. Humans are by nature self-serving, self-centered and greedy brutes as evidenced by the whole of human history.
B. Human nature is not alterable by natural means; putting others ahead of one’s self is the antithesis of human nature and no individual when left to his own devices will ever do it.
1. Human society is inevitable; otherwise human beings will destroy each other.
2. All human society can do is compensate for human nature by imposing its will on the individual so as to prevent the individual from harming others or harming himself in a way that drains society’s resources.
C. Faith or religion may be able to overcome human nature in that an individual may be prompted to give consideration to others for the sake of faith or religion.
1. Society cannot legitimately impose its will on the individual in matters of faith or religion.
2. Society has an obligation to allow and even encourage faith and religion consistent with public order; nobody should have to forfeit his faith/religion for the sake of gaining human or civil rights or forfeit his human or civil rights for the sake of peacefully practicing his faith/religion.

VI. Human biology is unalterable by any natural means in that biology makes men and women distinct from each other with natural strengths and weaknesses that make men and women mutually dependent on each other with each having natural biological functions that society must uphold and maintain for the sake of its own survival.

VII. Change is inevitable.
A. Human societies are always subject to the forces of the natural environment that can wrought wholesale changes to society that society is powerless to stop.
B. Each generation has a moral obligation to confront the shortcomings of the generations that came before it so as to not perpetuate these shortcomings on posterity and thereby allow the failures of past generations to accumulate and put society at risk; no generation is so great that its successors are obligated to maintain its failures.

VIII. The inevitability of change is not license for change.
A. Change for the mere sake of change is always wrong.
1. All change, regardless of how necessary it may be, must be weighed against the long-term disruptive effects it may have on society.
2. A perfect society is impossible due to the imperfection of human nature so it is pointless to constantly strive for utopia- something that can never exist; furthermore the desire for perfection leads invariably to a desire for change for the sake of change and this puts society at grave risk.
B. It is better to accept society as it is and wait for change to come in the natural course of events than it is to risk society’s total destruction caused by immediate change the long-term consequences of which nobody can anticipate.

Both versions are my work.

[jax-native68]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States

There is no "conservatism in the United States".  As I stated in my essay conservatism is universal.  It is not dependent on time or place.  Conservatives, no matter where they live or when they live, always want the same thing: stability.

[jax-native68]

In other words Stephen it's about them being against everything except what THEY want and believe!

Huh?

[JeffreyS]

jaxnative,

I stopped reading the essay when it asserted the 'liberals are content with chaos'.

Since this isnt true, yet is asserted as fact, what chances are there that any of the rest of it is true?

That is the point were I stopped thinking that it was a real attempt at a stated philosophy and it started to appear to be simple minded rhetoric.  Which is a shame because even though it does not line up exactly with my personal beliefs it appeared as though it was going to be a thoughtful take on conservatism.

[Dog Walker]

So it looks like "conservatism" is America as it existed in the 1950's.  Jim Crow laws, sexism in the workplace, back-alley abortions, white males only political system.

Jaxnative, I was there.  It was bad.  It's better now.  Seems like individual freedom and diversity in the workplace and political sphere frightens you.  You think it's chaos because you don't understand it or like it.

[JeffreyS]

Western Liberal Democracy has had episodes of turbulence and the conservatives of western aristocracy had just as many.

[JeffreyS]

Individualism seems to be the thing that Conservatives long for but refuse to embrace.  I admit that is more true of Republicans than other conservatives.

[avonjax]

WOW jaxnative, just WOW! To actually proclaim that all liberals want chaos is jaw dropping. That is the biggest BS statement of all.
I realize now that you just wanted to pull a prank on the people who come here...
It's funny and it worked.
Congrats!!!!
It's kinda like a solo Flash Mob....
Love it.....

[avonjax]

by the way jax native...Did you grow up in the 60's. Were you born in 1968? Just curious

[jax-native68]

jaxnative,

I stopped reading the essay when it asserted the 'liberals are content with chaos'.

Since this isnt true, yet is asserted as fact, what chances are there that any of the rest of it is true?

That is the point were I stopped thinking that it was a real attempt at a stated philosophy and it started to appear to be simple minded rhetoric.  Which is a shame because even though it does not line up exactly with my personal beliefs it appeared as though it was going to be a thoughtful take on conservatism.

What qualifies you to comment on what conservatism is and is not?  Have you studied the workings of and history behind our current socio-economic and political system?

[jax-native68]

So it looks like "conservatism" is America as it existed in the 1950's.  Jim Crow laws, sexism in the workplace, back-alley abortions, white males only political system.

Where in hell do you get this from?

Jaxnative, I was there.  It was bad.  It's better now.

Did you have crack cocaine in the 1950s or AIDS?  What about a double digit high school dropout rate or gang warfare in the streets? Was what has just happened in the Brooklyn area of Jacksonville possible in the 1950s or is it the result of 1960s liberalism?

Seems like individual freedom and diversity in the workplace and political sphere frightens you.

Where in hell do you get this from?  There is a difference between liberty and license.