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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
Just to be clear, I think we do need to fix a few things by force, but not to the extent in that article.
They get to this at 29:00 approximately, but you should listen to the whole thing.
Comrades! Be Moral And Productive! lol
Perhaps add to this a restoration of education completely to the state and local levels of government; remove all federal dollars and regulations. All.
There is no hard evidence for this. As Rudy Giuliani told Arizona Speaker Rusty Bowers, “I have lots of theories, but no evidence.”
Cut a check to the parents. The Education Edifice adds zero value.
Biden won some 7 million votes more.
Winning politics is addition not subtraction as Reagan taught us, winning 49 states.
I agree with both; however, I would add that actively removing federal rules and regulations needs to happen at the same time. Every $ that flows from the feds comes with a cobweb of entanglements.
This is what’s known as “The Big Lie.”
By running out Flake and McCain, Arizona now has two Democrat Senators, and for the first time since 1964, the Democrats have a majority in the Arizona Congressional Delegation. So much winning, for the Democrats.
Biden increased by 4 million votes more than Trump increased in 2016 to 2020.
Nobody ran out McCain. He died. Remember that? But dude. You know your campaign contributions are a matter of public record. They show you donated to McCain’s Democrat opponent. If anyone was trying to get rid of McCain, you were.
It sounds like you adhere to the Trump view that “Either I win, or they cheated.” Is it possible that Biden won because people rejected Trump in 2020?
I’m not totally up on this. The way I remember it, he was pretty libertarian in the house of representatives. He gets into the Senate, probably has to moderate. The way I remember it, he was initiating a lot of criticism of Trump out of nowhere. I don’t particularly remember a lot of bad policy positions like the other three.
He didn’t bother to run for re-election. He was a quitter. And he (and Gary) blame his qutting on Trump voters, as if Flake had no agency at all.
Absence of evidence (at present) is not evidence of absence.
But that’s more just the lawyer-speak. There’s actually lots of evidence, even if it can’t be tied to individual voters – which could be intentional.
What you don’t realize is that McCain’s 2016 opponent was Flagstaff lawyer Ann Kirkpatrick, a personal friend. In the end in 2016, I left my ballot blank for the McCain-Kirkpatrick race, as I could not stand to vote against either of them.
My point is, he initiated his own running off. That’s the way I remember it. Bitching about Trump out of nowhere.
The other three can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. I don’t get the enthusiasm for Murkowski over what’s her name. Trbiska or whatever.
What article are we talking about? I have been looking all over the comments trying to figure that out.
Seems like a good time for this again:
[continued due to word limit]
It’s referenced in the OP from the Federalist. John Daniel Davidson or something like that.
I’m not really fired up about that article to the extent he is, but he is really smart. I mean when he goes one on one in the Federalist podcast or anything really. Same with the other writer, Chris Bedford.
It was all over the conservative world in like a nanosecond.
If you look at BDB’S #148, mostly I think that is the way to look at it. That was Mark Levin’s view and of course he was really mad. lol
The thing is, the government and the Fed have screwed so many things up, there is no straight line back to ordinary conservatism and libertarianism.
The Davidson article was on the right track until it started pushing for big government. We have too many “conservative” movements doing that already.
However, I strongly agree with this:
You don’t need big government to enforce those kinds of laws.
We should count one major blessing as we go into battle against the Left. We currently have the best Federal Judiciary in generations, no thanks to the Chief Justice. If it stays the way it is, it will become increasingly difficult for the Left to continue its unconstitutional impositions.
Yeah, maybe I’m dreaming. But with government out of the way, people would start to bear the consequences of their stupid behavior. That would force some of them to straighten up. Darwin will take care of the rest.
The problem is, it’s not like this and every single institution is taken over by the left and is failing from a conservative and libertarian point of view.
So you get the NatCon Convention and articles like this that make Mark Levin insane.
Except for the way so many of them already reproduce even before finishing High School. Darwin didn’t take that into account very well.
That problem is partially mitigated by the fact that abortion is still legal in California and other blue states.
I share that concern-and also Levin’s insanity, however that problem may have already started solving itself. There is one heck of a backlash building up steam right now.
To a degree, in that it would probably be even worse without that; but for example the black teenage out-of-wedlock BIRTH rate is also very high, not just the pregnancy/abortion rate.