What is a Conservative?

To most it would seem as though the world is divided into liberals and conservatives, and the two ideologies clash at any given opportunity. Consumers can be conservative or lack self control in their spending, Christians and other religious groups can be conservative or liberal, and politics are conservative or liberal. However, we often come to times when we must question exactly what makes a conservative and what makes a liberal, politically speaking.

A comment during breakfast this morning left me to ponder this. I printed off an article I’d written on Political Retreat and passed it around while at the restaurant. I lot of people who eat there are self-proclaimed conservatives and they wear that badge proudly. As one man was reading, he asked me who the author was. I asked him if he was interested, and he said, “I’m interested in the author.” I told him it was me, and he raised his eyebrows and looked me over. “There were some things in here that weren’t conservative.”

I sputtered something out, and I can’t quite remember what. I’m terrible at speaking up in public, which is why I do most of my “serious” talking on the Internet. I can only assume that he found my stance against the War on Terror to be liberal. I thought about it a lot, and remembered that the traditional Republican stance was a non-intervention foreign policy; no nation building, strong borders, etc. It has been traditionally the Democrats who were for big overseas spending and for continuing wars. Why, with the advent of Bush’s War on Terror, has this perception of conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats changed so much? Have people really forgotten what it means to be a conservative in favor for going along with the tide? It doesn’t make sense to me that Republicans have won the title of “war monger” while Democrats have claimed the title of “peace keeper”.

Granted, my view of foreign policy would have been more readily accepted during the days of the Clinton Administration, but people tend to find me a bit radical anyway. I’m a proud mix of Republican, right-Libertarian, and Constitutional all at the same time. Thus, my view of the world and government’s place in it is a bit different from most people, but I probably wouldn’t call myself liberal. Here’s a quick rundown of what I feel is a conservative stance.

Firstly, conservatives want the Federal Government out of their lives. I believe that we can all agree on that. We’re against big bailouts, the government telling us how to educate children, and high taxes. We respect the power of the States and wish that the Supreme Court and Federal Government would do that as well, and we like to brag that we adhere to the Constitution when it comes to law-making, although a brief look at recent history tells us otherwise.

For example, conservatives have no qualms about a State law, so long as that law wasn’t influenced by the Federal Government or a decision by the Supreme Court. Let’s look at abortion. It used to be left up to the States to decide if it was legal or not. Along comes Roe vs. Wade and the Supreme Court decides to overturn abortion laws in all States! This kind of government interference doesn’t sit well with conservatives.

Second, conservatives have traditionally been about slashing big government spending. Conservatives have wanted to do away with this nanny state we seem to live in, in which the government pays for our faults instead of us. We shouldn’t subsidize everything, nor should we spend so much money overseas, and we should abandon Big Government projects that bear little fruit and sometimes even hinder us.

For example, the Dept. of Education is a biggie that conservatives have traditionally wanted to do away with, or at least cut back on. We all know what happened when Reagan and George W. Bush came into office, though. They expanded it, and now our schools are hurting because of policies like No Child Left Behind.

And on the note of foreign policy, conservatives have traditionally been for a strong, centralized national defense. Instead of getting ourselves into tireless, endless wars, we were supposed to be protecting ourselves from enemies and engaging other nations in a friendly way. Again, this viewpoint seems to have changed in recent years, so on one side you could say that the GOP is getting exactly what it deserves right now.

Some would argue that the War on Terror is what’s protecting us, and abandoning the Middle East will ultimately result in a compromise to our national security. This is when you have to go through history. It is our military presence in the world that has bred this hatred. We are not hated because we’re free, as other countries are pretty darned free too, but you don’t see the poor and oppressed peoples of the Middle East coming to kill them, do you? Our CIA radicalized the Islamic to attack the Soviets, we toppled elected leaders and propped up dictators, even supporting Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein at one point in time. This kind of activity results in unintended, negative consequences for us as a nation, and doesn’t help our image at all. We are not seen as a benevolent nation, ready to rescue those in need and defeat the enemies of freedom. Instead, we’re seen as materialistic, meddling crusaders on a mission only we can understand the benefit of.

Speaking from a conservative standpoint, we need to stop interfering and inciting hatred in those who might be our friends in trade one day. Close down those bases and bring our troops home; conservatively speaking, this war should have ended with the capture of Osama Bin Laden.