The Virtues of Conservatism - Part 10

 After several years of frustration in attempting to convert my liberal friends to a more courageous way of thinking, I have determined three things:

1. My efforts have been largely futile.
2. Liberals are converted over time; due to facing critical life circumstances, and/or the recognition that liberal ideology is simply non-enduring.
3. Derision and name calling does nothing to assist in their conversion.

In light of these revelations, I’ve decided that my efforts might be better invested in discussing the virtues of conservative thought, as opposed to pointing out the blatant fallacies of liberal thinking. Now, this does not mean that I will refrain from comparison and contrast, it simply means that I will attempt to couch my words and observations in non-demeaning ways. Perhaps my words will capture the attention of a young liberal ideologue in his or her journey to a more courageous way of thinking. My discussion will be delivered in 10 parts. This is the last in the series.
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PART 10

The thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.  As Russell Kirk writes:  "The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that gives us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate."  

Conservatives, therefore are not hostile toward progression, but instead hostile to progression that would ultimately destroy stability and continuity. May I mention just two here? Marriage and family. Conservatives come by their label for a good reason ... they seek to conserve certain ideas, institutions and practices, not for the sake of simply conserving them, but for the sake of the stability and continuity they provide the individual and society.  During my life-time I have witnessed the liberal left's assault on everything virtuous about the United States; The Boy Scouts, The Traditional Family, The Church,  Unborn Children, Rights Guaranteed by the Constitution, The Free Market System, Private Education, Stay at Home Mothers, Successful Businesses, and indeed Men. Reform?  Progress? ... I'm all for it, as long as prudence and wisdom prevails. Now tell me ... what government program or liberal idea can you name that fits that formula? 

The virtues of the conservative are far superior to any affability the left can drag to the arena of ideas, and it is simple to understand why. The left has no principled position, and without principles their ideas are empty shells. A few examples if I might: Social Security was a failed program from the day it was written into law. The liberals knew it was unsustainable, but strapped future generations with the massive amount of debt it would incur. The war on poverty rages on after 40 years and trillions of redistributed dollars. Guess what? We still have poverty in America, and it's not because we haven't spent enough money on it. It's because some people just wont' work if not required to do so. Medicare and other entitlements have driven our national debt into unforgivable and unsustainable heights. Legalized abortion has now taken the lives of 50 million babies. In a population that big, we surely snuffed the lives of some really remarkable people that never got a chance to demonstrate it.  No one can tell me that conservatives were responsible for these things. I'm old enough to know that these problems were born out of "Progressive" periods in our history...particularly the 60's and 70's, where anything new was superior to anything old. Prudence and wisdom were considered over-rated and decidedly in the way of the leftist concepts of compassion, and political correctness. So excuse my vomiting when I hear how conservatives are responsible for all the ills of the world.

Kirk writes: "The conservative favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose minions believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old. Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body ...The great line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal."  Those who fit the latter description are those I call CONSERVATIVES!

The outline for this treatment is credited to Russell Kirk and the web site at: 
http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/ten-conservative-principles/