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We Are No Longer Conservatives; We Are Restorationists
Conservatives have long struggled to define the term “conservatism.” This makes sense since it’s always been less a political ideology than a life philosophy. Perhaps even an attitude.
When asked to define conservatism, Abraham Lincoln replied, “Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?”
William F. Buckley updated his answer for the mid-20th century, framing it in opposition to liberalism. In other words, an anti-ideology. In his book Up from Liberalism (1959), Buckley declares conservativism is “freedom, individuality, the sense of community, the sanctity of the family, the supremacy of the conscience, the spiritual view of life.”
A half-century earlier, G.K. Chesterton didn’t so much define the term as identify the action it requires.
All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. [Orthodoxy, 1908]
It isn’t enough to “stand athwart history, yelling ‘Stop.'” Conservatism requires intentional, aggressive work to evaluate the firehose of proposed changes, then promote the good ones and destroy the bad.
Or, as Reagan put it, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Reagan was prophetic. These days, conservatives spend a lot of time telling younger generations what it was once like to be free. We speak of lost liberties and wonder how best to restore them.
Here’s the plain fact: there’s no need for conservatism when there’s little left to conserve.
That’s why, over at The Federalist, John Daniel Davidson declared, “We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives.”
Conservatives have long defined their politics in terms of what they wish to conserve or preserve — individual rights, family values, religious freedom, and so on. Conservatives, we are told, want to preserve the rich traditions and civilizational achievements of the past, pass them on to the next generation, and defend them from the left. In America, conservatives and classical liberals alike rightly believe an ascendent left wants to dismantle our constitutional system and transform America into a woke dystopia. The task of conservatives, going back many decades now, has been to stop them.
In an earlier era, this made sense. There was much to conserve. But any honest appraisal of our situation today renders such a definition absurd. After all, what have conservatives succeeded in conserving? In just my lifetime, they have lost much: marriage as it has been understood for thousands of years, the First Amendment, any semblance of control over our borders, a fundamental distinction between men and women, and, especially of late, the basic rule of law.
We have conserved a few things — gun rights, red-state economic policies, religious liberty (for now) — but it’s hard to argue with the main thrust of Davidson’s assessment.
The right isn’t conserving much but desperately trying to restore our freedom, our family, and our constitutional order.
Words mean things, and in the modern age, so does branding. I agree that “conservative” has outlasted its accuracy, but we need to call ourselves something. To that end…
We are no longer Conservatives; we are Restorationists.
We seek not to conserve the role of tradition in our society but to restore tradition to its rightful place.
Similarly, there are no national borders left to conserve; they must be restored.
The family is shattered and we must reintroduce this cornerstone of civilization. (That includes gender norms promoted from the dawn of time.)
Free speech must be placed back in the academy, workplace, and civil society.
All of this is work. Hard work. As such, it requires all of us to join the effort; neighbors, business leaders, teachers, and our government.
This is no longer the time for Conservation. On to Restoration.
Published in Politics, Religion & Philosophy
That’s pretty funny, coming from you.
You who makes the perfect, at least to you – Reagan – the enemy of the good, e.g. Trump.
As suspect that, as with libel/slander, truth is an absolute defense here too. There were election shenanigans, a lot of them. Therefore Trump – and others who make the same argument – are factually correct.
You mean like Trump added so many votes from 2016 to 2020?
Seems like the left has pretty much already abandoned “liberal” and moved on to “Progressive” which is probably even more contradictory than “liberal” in their case.
I think many of us would have liked to read the original.
He hasn’t done nearly enough damage to be elected as a Democrat.
On the other hand, support for Reagan principles and voting for Biden, ARE incompatible.
Well, Jerry said it better, and with less damage to our supposed bonhomie here. Included the word “bedpan”.
Mark Levin did not like that article. lol
First hour, Friday.
I think he basically made BDB’S argument.
#148
Heh. I’ll go check out the latest ML.
EDIT: Gonna have to wait for that to drop I guess.
He is a bit of a foodie after all.
Trump added 11,231,326 votes in 2020 compared to 2016.
However, in 2020 Biden added 15,415,210 compared to Hillary in 2016.
Biden added 4,189,884 more votes than Trump did.
There was an MSNBC clip from Matthew Dowd that I thought was pretty educational, too. Those people are such prostitutes.
If you download talk stream live onto your phone or your computer, there will be a feed from his headquarters that runs 24 seven. It will start that hour at 8 PM central. You have to click a button on there to get to that feed unless that’s the only one that is playing.
It would be easier to use the Mark Levin app, actually.
Hahahaha! Amazing what a combination of typo and autocorrect can come up with.
It’s far more likely that Trump’s added votes were legitimate, than that Biden’s were.
Indeed, there’s a good chance that many of the Biden “votes” were actually votes for Trump.
Yeah, I’ll just get it through the podcast software here. I don;t even run apps from people I like, because the honoroable and forthright content creators have nothing to do with the back-end library crafters inserting their own junk into your phones and PCs. Apps are crap, even from our friends.
I listened to the first few minutes of the discussion, so far. It seems that Stephens wants to conserve the ideology of the 60s radicals, the “me” generation. It does seem to confirm the Chesterton quote that Doug posted in comment #8.
Agreed! Your emphasis on duty and freedom v freedom alone was right on track.
Didn’t get my vote.
You may have different ideas about what constitutes a “win.” You tend to think in party-centric terms.
Trump was restoring the country but was rejected by too many. So much for restoration.
I heard a talk show host today relating a statement by Bill Gates that the long-term effects of the Ukraine/Russia conflict will be a positive because it will bring Europe together in the push for green energy.
Following Jon’s example I quote G.K. Chesterton from Orthodoxy, 1908.
“Only the Christian Church can offer any rational objections to a complete confidence in the rich. For she has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man’s environment, but in man.”
And here’s one from Carl Jung.
“It is becoming more and more obvious that it is not starvation, not microbes, not cancer, but man himself who is mankind’s greatest danger, because he has no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, infinitely more devastating in their effect than the greatest natural catastrophes.”
We just went through this Covid pandemic which produced our greatest current example of what is said in the above quotations. Dr. Robert Malone pointed out the mass formation psychosis induced by government polices mandating masking and vaccinations. Gates, mentioned in the opening of this comment, is a large financial contributor to vaccines and to green energy.
We need big energy behind a restoration movement.
Y’all counted yourselves out already. Rob Long is the exception. He gives us a great platform and I appreciate it. The NR cruise won’t be the same without Rob and James.
I thought James was hoping to go, but there haven’t – yet – been enough paid participants for him to be invited.
Y’all voted for Biden indirectly. Since you have made that honorable and fashionable, those on the MAGA side could return the favor.
You and those like you value personality over restoration. We can do better.
Trump earned a record number of votes without y’all.