Conservatism Defined
[Writer’s Note: This was originally posted on my website on 3/16/2019. There is a full podcast in video and audio format covering this article.]
You cannot define or describe any conservative principles without first defining what conservatism is. Part of the definition is in the name. Conservatism naturally is intended to conserve something. In this article, I will explain the different ideas conservatism is intended to conserve along with the different principles that come along with living a life as a conservative.
Conservatism follows several different founding principles which include the following:
· Family Values
· Individual Liberty
· Religious Freedom
· National Security
· Economic Freedom
· Cultural Preservation
There may be a few other principles depending on each particular brand of conservatism, especially when talking about conservatism in the context of another country. There are many who oppose conservatism, particularly those on the political Left (liberals and progressives). Conservatism can be juxtaposed to progressivism which instead of conserving founding principle, progressives want to move past or transcend founding principle. Progressives believe conservatism only conserves the old, outdated policies that lead to economic inequalities, racism, sexism, and other forms of regressive outcomes. As I will explain in this article, conservatism conserves principles, not policies. This leads to innovation and evolution of the regressive policies that lead to forms of discrimination and poverty. Let us continue to look at these principles one by one.
The first conservative principle is family values. Family values include the promotion of the nuclear family, spousal reliance, and parental autonomy. The promotion of the nuclear family emphasizes both parents must be in the household to give the children the best possible chance for success. There are several studies concluding that when a child is in the care of primarily one parent, that child has a significantly lower chance of life success, in terms of economic and social success, compared to their two parent counterparts. Spousal reliance, which is less sinister than it sounds, means a couple should reliant on each other after they get married. This does not mean that the wife must ask the husband for permission before she is allowed to do anything, or vice versa. It means a married couple should lean on each other to create a future together. This is important, especially when creating a family. This “reliance” is shared between both spouses equally to build a cohesive foundation to build a family structure on. Reliance, in this context, is a sharing of values that prepare couples for conflicts and difficulties that will inevitably show up in the future. Parental autonomy covers the ability for the children’s parents to care for them as opposed to the state. This means parents should be allowed to teach, discipline, and raise their children as they see fit. Many may argue that this opens the possibility of child abuse, but to increase the scope of the state to take parents’ children away because the state believes they must parent the parents is not a good enough excuse for overreaching power. Parents, in basically all cases, care for their children more than the state does. Several studies also show child abuse is much more likely to come from a step-parent or non-biological guardian than it does from a biological parent, which is another advantage of the nuclear family. Criticizers of this principle accuse conservatives of being anti-gay by promoting the nuclear family. This does have historic founding since the outlaw of gay marriage has been supported by Republicans… and Democrats… not allowing people to marry who they love. This has changed for the most part. Most Republicans and basically all Democrats support gay marriage, which has now been legalized and protected by the federal government. For conservatives, some religious conservative do still believe gay marriage should still be illegal because the definition of marriage must be redefined in order to include gay marriage (central tenant is to have children), but most conservatives, including myself, take a libertarian stance on gay marriage where the state should not be allowed to tell people whether or not they can get married. The promotion of family values also supports adoption, especially over alternatives like abortion.
The second principle is individual liberty. Individual liberties include the right to free speech, the right to bare arms, and other liberties the state can’t infringe upon. A central value of conservatism is the concept of negative rights. Negative rights, as opposed to positive rights, are rights the government is not allowed to take away. Positive rights are rights the government provides to the people. In other words, negative rights are liberties and positive rights are services the government provides. Conservatives believe the government should exclusively protect the negative rights granted to us by God (more secularly known as inalienable rights). When the government provides positive rights in the form of goods and services, this goes around the free market structures, often while using the free market infrastructure, that often cause dependency. This dependency caused by positive rights become volatile depending on which party is in power to take the positive right away or provide the right for a select group of people at the expense of another group of people, making positive rights a political weapon to wield during every election cycle. Specific liberties, such as the right to free speech and bare arms, are eroded when overreaching policies and a bloated government is allowed to infringe on those liberties with overbearing regulation. The principle of individual liberties is forwarded by conservatives by calling for less taxes (economic liberty), less regulation, and smaller government.
The third principle is religious freedom. Religious freedom is important because we must preserve the right for all Americans to worship the way they are called upon to worship, as long as their actions are legal. This is a protection for all faiths. I separate this from the individual liberties principle because it is infringed upon in a different way. A good example of this is a Masterpiece Cake Shop case. A religious baker was being forced to bake a cake for a gay wedding, something his faith does not believe in. The Left, and even some on the Right, went after this baker for discrimination. Setting aside the fact that the couple who requested the cake targeted this bakery because they knew it would come in conflict with their religious beliefs, is it really discrimination to demand a service and the provider of that service to reject that demand? Maybe depending on the requested service and the discrimination laws at the time. This particular baker did not deny this couple a cake, but denied to use his artistic skills to decorate the cake to celebrate an event he does not believe in. Conservatives believe that services can’t be demanding because that is equivalent to indentured servitude. Conservative believe a precedence can’t be set that allow one belief to supersede another belief based on in the eyes of the law. Religious freedom is so important because it is an ideology that can be targeted for attack by other ideologies. Religion is also important because people have an innate need or want to worship something in order to put something or someone in front of themselves and/or find meaning. In the absence of religion, people often turn to other entities, like the federal government or the environment, for worship which leads to dictatorship or false pursuits of utopia.
The fourth principle is national security. National security includes securing our boarders and fighting our enemies abroad. Securing our boarders means having a reasonable amount boarder control agents who have the resources to do their jobs effectively, and building a physical barrier if needed to stop the flow of illegal immigration. This does not mean stopping or slowing down legal immigration since that adds strength to our culture and economy if those immigrants are willing to participate in the American Experiment and not become free loaders using our robust welfare system or cause more crime. Building a physical barrier is a hot top in today’s political discourse, but no matter whether you support a barrier or not, boarder security is one of the few protections the federal government is supposed to provide. Fighting our enemies abroad is important so the fight does not spread to American soil. Fighting our enemies abroad does not explicitly mean we must start wars and conflicts, which should only be used as a last resort, but includes working with our allies abroad, using sanctions, and condemning poor behavior publicly in order to fight without spilling blood. National security is vital for a strong, independent sovereign nation.
The fifth principle is economic freedom. The is one of the most focused on principles in the news today as the idea of socialism begins to creep back into the debate. Economic freedom includes the promotion of the free markets, lifting people out of poverty, and the promotion of the best ideas economically and socially. I personally do not use the descriptor “capitalism” because it is commonly used as a pejorative for a market economy. Instead, I use the more accurate descriptor, “free market.” A free market economy is not actually an economic system since it is just a description of people voluntarily trading goods and services without the necessity of government or third-party regulation. An economic system such as socialism is a system because it must be controlled by a central entity in order to operate. This is the reason why free markets are promoted by conservatives over fixed economies like socialism. Government shouldn’t be in the business of making decisions for the citizens it governs in the marketplace. Government can be there to help settle legal disputes, even though some laissez-faire proponents advocate for absolutely no government intervention because poor business practices are subjected to scrutiny naturally through the exchange of social capital. The free markets have also lifted more people out of poverty around the world than any economic system ever has. It turns out, when a population becomes wealthy, they have the privilege to worry less about their economic welfare and focus more on issues like eliminating poverty through charity and environmental issues (the decrease in world poverty is most likely not caused by charity as much as it is caused by the increase in jobs available for poor nations). Free markets not only do a great job at helping people financially, but also work as a free market for ideas. The free market of ideas, stimulated by rights such as free speech, promotes the ideas the people in that market want to see or use most. A free market of ideas is different than a straight democracy because everyone is expected to participate in a democracy, trade-off being people who don’t care or haven’t researched the issue are less informed on the issue they are voting on, and in the free market of ideas, only the people in that market, or informed people directly involved with the outcomes of that idea, promote the best idea for that market. Free markets are believed by some (ex: followers of Ayn Rand) to be inherently moral, not needing any moral framework or cultural influences to point people in the right direction. This is not something I believe, even though I admit free markets promote moral behavior most of the time, but I think there needs to be a moral and cultural framework to prevent bad behavior.
The sixth and final principle I will discuss is cultural preservation. Culture plays a more important role than people can possibly imagine, but many on the intersectionality and cultural diversity Left believe culture is a red herring for racism. This is obviously false because culture is not inherent, nor does it have an absolute association with any particular race. In a country as large as the United States, there are many sub-cultures inside of an overall American culture where beliefs such as individual freedom remain at the forefront. As Andrew Breitbart once said, “politics is downstream from culture,” meaning, when the culture shifts, politics will eventually shift with it. I would take this a step further and say education is downstream from culture, meaning, our educational institutions influenced the culture that eventually influence our politics. For example, in the 1960’s more post-modern (not described as such at the time) ideas began to arise and became popular with intellectuals. Those intellectuals became professors. Those professors where in the liberal arts, which is an important and necessary part of our education but was not created to help people with future job skills outside of being a professor. More people got liberal arts degrees and, through the necessity of not being qualified for a conventional job, became progressive activists and politicians. These progressive activists and politicians are now active in our government today, not only in America, but around the world. This created a culture that rejected values like individual freedom for the prospect of a post-modern utopia. This shows how the culture can change through education, but culture can also change by importing other cultures. Immigration has been a strength in the United States for a long time and still can be, but we have always made it our mission to make sure people coming in from other cultures would adopt the central values of America. By doing this, immigrants could still practice their own culture, and, if seen beneficial, their culture would be absorbed within the overall American culture. If we do not expect immigrants to assimilate, that will highlight differences between people and cause a divide. Culture might be the least talked about principle in conservative circles, most likely because of the relationship people attribute culture to race, but cultural preservation is the most important of all principles. Conservative cannot be afraid to speak the truth even at the expense of being mischaracterized by dishonest actors switching culture with race.
I will elaborate on these principles in future articles and podcasts. I hope this sheds light on what conservatism really is and how to forward founding principles.
P.S. If you are still reading, and I hope you are, I will be republishing my writing from my website on Medium so there may be some older stories I cover, although I do not often cover current events. I shut down my website because I have changed my main resource of communication and content hosting to Locals.com. Although I will be publishing my long-form written content on Medium, you can find my more regular content, podcasts, and interactive community at engineeringpolitics.locals.com. Please feel free to join this growing community if you want to stay up to date and/or support this content. Thank you for your consideration!
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