What are "conservatives" conserving?

[DrJackson]

I've been reading Billions and Billions by Carl Sagan, and the heading of section 2 of the book is "What are "conservatives" conserving?"

Despite Dr Sagan's brilliance, he could not seem to find a reasonable answer to this question.

I have been thinking about this a great deal, and while I consider myself a reasonably intelligent guy, I must now concede that I too cannot determine what it is that "conservatives" are trying to conserve.

Perhaps someone can enlighten me, as I am obviously missing the blatantly obvious reasons why conservatism is the superior philosophy (when compared to the dangers of liberalism) as espoused by former friends, coworkers, and of course, our beloved El Presidente.

Do these people really have any clue, even a slight inkling, as to what they stand for as a whole?

They are not trying to conserve the environment.
They are not trying to conserve our natural resources.
They are not trying to conserve the middle class.
They are not trying to conserve American jobs.
They are not trying to conserve our tax dollars.
They are not trying to conserve our relationships with the other nations of the world.
They are not trying to conserve the health, safety, and welfare of every citizen of this Republic.

What are they trying to conserve, I ask you?

Okay, rant over and now it is time for my first cup of coffee.

edit to fix a typo

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. They're own wealth. n/t

[hobbit709]

3. And their privileges

They only care about themselves.

[sexybomber]

17. Yep.

It's nothing short of pure, unadulterated greed.

"Quick, grab whatever you can! F*** everybody else!"

[SalmonChantedEvening]

2. Their own selfish asses.

Period.

[KurtNYC]

4. Facts, logic, reason, reality

saving those for later apparently.

Edit: Oh wait -- They are conserving compassion.

[DrJackson]

8. Isn't compassion the last thing you want o conserve?

I would think compassion is something they would want to spread around -- Love your brother, and all that?

Oh wait, that's us...

[formerrepuke]

5. Well said- and I would like to hear a prominent Dem say those words.

..I'm fed up with the other side defining what liberals stand for. It's time we not only define ourselves with greater clarity, but put their views in perspective, as well.

[Liberal In Texas]

6. Their warped vision of how we lived in the '50s.

Even though it never really happened they way they remember it.

[BOSSHOG]

7. Compassion!

[LWolf]

9. They conserve lots of things:

Greed
Hate
Misogyny
Hypocrisy
Prejudice
Nationalism
Ego
The have/have-nots social/economic structure
Power over others/international bully
Warmongering
Narrow-mindedness
Ignorance
Hunger
Poverty
Environmental destruction
Dishonesty
Use of fear as a weapon of mass destruction
Intolerance

Have I missed any?

[SammyWinstonJack]

13. They're not conserving those things, they're spreading them.

Oh I get it. CONservatives always to the opposite of what they say. :think: I gotcha!

[LWolf]

16. Or they are "saving" them:

adding to our national "treasury" every minute.

[Mr_Spock]

10. This is why true outdoorsman are becoming Dems.

Guy at work is a gun nut and outdoorsman - he HATES the Republican party. His view is not isolated as his idea of conservatism is to PRESERVE the environment for people like him and to CONSERVE our tax dollars like conservatives used to do. He despises Bush and anyone who supports his REGIME - and he's not alone...

[Occulus]

19. The republican party long ago drove away the militia types

because, like many of us, those militia types- you know, the ones some on the left consistently call 'backwoods crackpots'- saw the republicans for what their anti-government 'brainwashing' (I use that term as loosely as possible) conditioned them to see. However, it so happens that with this Republican administration, that 'brainwashing' happened to be dead in the black.

They left the Republicans- and I've met a few of these myself- because they sw the incipient fascism simmering quietly away beneath the surface of these so-called politicians. Like many if not most of us here at DU, they too have a very healthy- and more than occasionally justified- mistrust of government Authority, no matter its power.

I think the militia types were probably as upset about the whole Schaivo thing as we were, for example. I think they see the Patriot Act in much the same way, or quickly would if they bothered to read the thing. For all that some of us make fun at or of them and their antics at times, with respect to this administration, their mistrust of government is for once accurate.

I'm not saying I agree with them or their 'mission'- however it might currently be defined by them- but I do think they feel the same way we do about the Republicans, and for many of the same reasons.

Just my $.02.

(edited because "the whole Schaivo" didn't make sense without the "thing". :) )

[gWbush is Mabus]

11. slavery and religion

[omega minimo]

12. Bowel movements

:evilfrown:

[catmandu57]

14. Beats the hell out of me

Great post Dr. Welcome to DU.

[Tsiyu]

15. Birth Control

Common Sense

Science

Human Rights

Compassion


These are rationed or not allowed to be distributed at all.


"Conservative" doesn't mean what they say it means, anyhoo....

Welcome to DU :hi:

[K-W]

18. Plutocracy of course. EOM

[xchrom]

20. hetero-sexual marriage!

[Igel]

21. First, define what kind of conservative.

Religious? Cultural? Economic?

Otherwise, it's like asking, "What do women want?" For or in what? In their daughters? For a job? In their lovers? For breakfast? In their pet cat?

And, even then, individual conservatives disagree, so the 'idealized conservative', like the 'idealized progressive', aren't always easy to come by. I like the idea of 'prototype' semantics, which allows for fuzzy logic of a sort. (Define 'chair' in a way that doesn't include its purpose, and then make sure that nothing we'd call 'table' or 'sofa' fits the definition. Do we conclude there are no chairs, tables, or sofas, or that the differences get fuzzy at the edges?)

Most people believe themselves to be right at some gut level, and think everybody else should act like they do.

Religious and cultural conservatives believe first and foremost that they should be allowed to believe what they do, and act on those beliefs. If they don't want to rent to gays, they shouldn't be forced to. They want to frown at others' renting to gays, they shouldn't be judged for it, any more than progressives think they shouldn't be judged for favoring gay rights. However, they like the idea of peer pressure, and have no problem with stigmatizing certain groups or behaviors. It's how societies enforce unwritten codes of conduct. (And if you think progressives don't employ peer pressure, try again.) I think it's only when peer pressure isn't effective, or as effective as a politically powerful group would like, that groups turn to government enforcement of a moral code, whether in Sa'udi Arabia or New York City.

Religious conservatives at least can point to some text for substantiation. You may not like their interpretation of their text, but they don't like other people's, either.

"We" overall tend to think of cultures as encapsulating some sort of wisdom or important knowledge--New Guineans, Hopis, Twi, whatever. Liberals tend to reject this assumption when it comes to Western cultures (and, increasingly, to non-Western cultures); conservatives tend to reject this assumption when it comes to non-Western cultures. I'd heard some people try to argue that the US has no culture: usually they boil that down to ethnic cuisine and cute folk costumes or dances, in a pathetic trivialization of what culture is.

Exactly what a 'religious' or 'cultural' conservative actually *believes* should be done depends on what their religion or culture is. E.g., younger cultural conservatives and very old cultural conservatives will disagree.

Economic conservatives are more difficult to pin down, and you have to look at when they were formed. Some are laissez faire; some are "anti-big government". Mostly, I suspect, you'll find private property and protection from government in the economic realm at the core of their beliefs, but I'd hate to have to try to argue that.