Monday, June 2, 2008

What (Who?) Is a Conservative

I am going to try to define, in this entry, the fundamental principles that define a mondern conservative.  The idea is not to do a "laundry list" of specific positions, but to define those PRINCIPLES that make a person a conservative, and without which a person cannot be a conservative (overall, although obviously can still be conservative on some things).  In my view, you must believe in ALL of these things, or you are not really a conservative (in modern terms):

1.  You must believe in individual responsibility, and that all "rights" accrue to individuals rather than groups.  To me, this is the fudnamental principle that leadst to all of the others:  A conservative believes that people are responsible for their OWN conduct,  and that rights and responsibilities do not accrue to people because they are white, black, Hispanic, etc.

Thus, you can't be a conservative and believe that different standards of conduct ("values") apply to African-Americans than to others (REverend Wwright need not apply).  You can't be a conservative if you believe that criminals commit crimes because they are "sick".   You can't believe that society is at fault for people's bad conduct, or that evils of society excues it.  Sure, you cn believe that there ARE evils in society, but you can't believe--to be a conservative--that those evils excuse individual conduct.   You can believe in helping people out (caveat:  see principles below about believing in LIMITED government--especially the Federal Government), but--to be a conservative--you can't believe that grievances against your lot in life excuse your own conduct. 

Similarly, you can't believe in "reverse discrimination", because that assumes GROUP RIGHTS (where a Barack Obama would receive preference, even though NETIHER of his parents, and NONE of his direct ancestors, were discriminated against because of their race.  Fort hat matter, the people discriminated against in "reverse discrimination" may never have committed an act of discrimination themselves.  In fact, it is possible that one of more of their ancestors died fighting to END SLAVERY.  Nope.  Theere is no excuse for group rights, or to give individuals rights merely for being part of a group, and the concept is alien to conservatism.   Again, that does not mean failing to take into account a deprived background on an individual basis, but automatic "entitlements" because of your race, ethnicity or sex are rightly rejected by conservatives.

Thus, most conservatives believe in the death penalty, because they believe in holding people reponsible for what they do.  However, you don't have to believe in the death penalty to be a conservative.  Some conservatives may find life so precious that the state should never take it away, even though they recognize that no other penalty may be really adequate for the crime.  However, you CANNOT believe in a "rehabilitative" model of criminal justice and be a conservative.  As a practical matter, we may well want to "rehabilitate" criminals, but conservatives believe in holding them responsible for their CONDUCT and not for their character, or failure to be "cured". 

Similarly, you can believe in unrestricted abortion and be a conservative, although I think it is somewhat more difficult.  Here, I think you simply have to believe that a fetus is not the same as a baby, even though all that stands between one and the other is the cutting of the umbilical cord.  If you buy into the leftist idea that unrestricted abortion is necessary for feminist purposes, and that it is basically irrelevant whether a fetus is logically the same as a baby, then you are not a conservative.  This comes back to conservatives believing that people are responsible for their actions.

Contrary to the Playboy Philosophy assertion, this does NOT mean that conservatives want woment to be "punished" for sex.  However, conservatives are unimpressed with sex as the ultimate "value"--witht he idea that we must make sure that there are NO adverse consequences from sex, even if it means allowing the moral equivalent of infanticide.

Nevertheless, you CAN be a conservative and believe abortion and infanticide are not moreally the same.  You just can't believe that the ideal of feminism justifies infanticide, or that the idea of "sexual freedom" justifies allowing infanticide.  That is the reason I think this one is hard.  Most people, I believe, who want unrestricted abortion do so for reasons that have nothing to do with whether a feus and baby are equivalent entities (logically they are, which means that a person who believes otherwise has a lot of problems explaining that belief without diverting into the importance of feminist freedom for women).

Conservatives are also unimpressed with the idea that homsexual CONDUCT is not CONDUCT.  Conservatives, like myself, can--and most may--believe that homosexual conduct should nto be CRIMINAL.  But the idea that people with homoseuxal tendencies (Kinsey would say that is ALL of us) are ENTITLED to sexual satisfaction without disapproval from society is not a conservative cocept.  However, you CAN be conservative and believe that homosexual conduct is just as "valid" as heterosexual conduct.  It just is difficult, and gets impossible on the issue of MARRIAGE (see later principle). 

Can you believe all three things--death penalty wrong, abortion all right, and in homosexual CONDUCT as a "civil rights" issue--and still be a conservative?  I doubt it.  But you can surely believe in one of those--maybe two--and still be a conservative, so long as your belief in the PRINCIPLES stated here is strong. 

In summary, it is the principle that is important here.  Conservatives believe that INDIVIDUALS are responsible for their own lieves, and for their own conduct, and conservatives do NOT belive that such lives, and evaluation of conduct, should be defined by the GROUP an individual belongs to. 

This completes part I.  I will do a separate entry for each part, of which there will be 6 or 7, but I will number the principles consecutively. 

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