A Lesson in Conservatism

Conservatism, Websters defines it as "the disposition to preserve or restore what is established and traditional and to limit change." While in theory, I find this acceptable, I believe there is a much better way to define conservatism. I believe when we take a look at conservatism as a whole, we will find that there is a much more appropriate definition. 

Firstly, when one attempts to define things that are innately human, we tend to oversimplify. With this simplification, we tend to trim off the true meaning of what we say. Such as the above definition, we can agree that this is accurate (to a point, which I will discuss shortly), but does not embody the true meaning of what a conservative is. If this is not what being a conservative is, then, what is it. Before we can dive into that, we first need a history lesson.

It is agreed upon that conservatism, as we know it today, was founded by Edmund Burke, in the mid 1700's. He was an Irishman, who after moving to England, served in the British House of Commons. He defended and supported the actions of the United States during the Revolution. Even before fighting took place, he was sympathetic to the colonies demands regarding taxation and better treatment. 

The Founding Fathers were the next group of conservatives (even though some of them were liberal, they were by and far more conservative.) It was this time in history that saw many conservative "victories", The U.S Constitution being the biggest. They document was ground breaking at its time. This was because, unlike other countries at the time, the Constitution granted the government power, not limited it. This is symbolic, because it assumes that the government has no power until it is granted to it, not unlimited until restrictions are placed. It was the embodiment of "We the People." Conservatives did not stop there, as it was the school of thought that dominated how we led our government until the Civil War. 

There are many lies and half truths that begin here, and are still believed today, such as the story of the 3/5ths clause and slavery. As you can also notice, here is where the correlations to debt, liberalism, and powers vested to the government all start to become visible, as this was about the time in our history where we were tested against the evils of Marxism, social justice, and attacks on our Constitution. From here in history, the pathway our country has taken is predictable. For the past 100 years we have faced struggled to halt the march of Marxism down Pennsylvania Avenue, and the struggle is not over yet.

Looking back at these points, how does conservatism fare to its definition? The biggest question that I feel needs to be asked is are conservatives really opposed to change? I feel like this is not the case, and I bring up the birth of our country as evidence. Our Constitution was not our first attempt to create a perfect government. The Articles of Confederation was our attempt to created a limited government system. This, ultimately, ended up being too restrictive and ended up being tossed for the Constitution. I believe if there is anything to take away from this one failure, it is that we have the ability to acknowledge the fact that the Articles would never work, and scrapped them (a topic Marxists are still having trouble grasping.) Further, I feel like the conservative ideology is completely against that of which the progressives hold dear. The unwillingness to change is brought upon because the essence of liberalism is against free thought and self-determination, characteristics that conservatives hold dear. Thus, without any other options that are presently available, conservatives will hold out on changing because it is not change that we agree with, as well as it is change that has a track record of failure.


So, in closing, I would like to propose my definition of conservatism. To me, conservatism is the belief that the destiny of oneself lies only within oneself, through the persistence of the values of humanity, charity, self-determination, and ambition. 




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