Conservative Fundamentals

Our political landscape can be summed up as Liberal vs Conservative. But rather than facilitating understanding, those two designations often impede it. First, because these labels are fluid, they mean different things at different times to different people. And second, because they are rarely defined. They are codes that stand for underlying principles which, strangely enough, we rarely enumerate.

Liberals think Conservatives are brainwashed Christian religious zealots, moralist killjoys who want to poke their puritan noses into everybody's business, intolerant, closed-minded, greedy, cold-hearted, mean-spirited, unsophisticated—and violent gun-nuts.

In other words, some weird combination of Mrs. Grundy, Ebenezer Scrooge, and Billy the Kid.

But what do we do to set the record straight? How often do we set out our beliefs in a way everyone can understand? How often do we decode the word "conservative".

Almost never.

I know because when I fell out of love with the Left, I found it difficult to nail down the specific, fundamental beliefs of the Right. I could find opinions about current events, and books about historical conservativism...but no clear exposition of the basic beliefs of American Conservatives Today.

Was that too much to ask?

So I think it's time someone attempted a clear, succinct, explanation of American Conservatism—all the whats and whys—for that next person who pushes beyond the Liberal perimeter, and finds himself alone in the no-man's-land between the two camps without a map!

So, here's my stab at it.

American Conservatism is the belief in the principles that founded the United States of America. Not really too complicated. They basically can be divided into three categories:

1) Inherent Human Rights -These are negative rights summed up by: The Right to be Left Alone.

Rights, as defined by the Founding Fathers, were not the positive "rights" Liberals like to invent, like "the right to a college education", "the right to own a home", "the right to free health care". These are wants and wishes, not rights.

Constitutional rights, by contrast, are negative. If you read any right mentioned in the Bill of Rights, you can add the phrase "without being interfered with by the State" after it and it will make sense:

We have the right to Speak Freely without being interfered with by the State.
We have the right to Peaceably Assemble without being interfered with by the State.
We have the right to Keep and Bear Arms without being interfered with by the State.
We have the right to be Secure in our Persons without being interfered with by the State.
We have the right to practice our Religion without being interfered with by the State.

These are things people do individually and independently.

But the Liberals' invented "rights" cannot be so stated:

"We have the right to free health care without being interfered with by the State."
"We have the right to a college education without being interfered with by the State."

These, obviously, make no sense.

The "right" to free health care must, by necessity, COMPEL the action of another.
The "right" to a college education must, by necessity, COMPEL the action of another.

One may say, "I have a right to learn without being interfered with by the State.
But one may not say, "I have a right a college education without being interfered with by the State.

Learning is something an individual does . But a college education requires action from another. By claiming any positive right, Liberals compel the actions of others. Compelling the actions of others to serve one's own desires and wishes is the very antithesis of liberty.

There are no positive rights. Anything that compels the action of another is quite simply the violation of the Constitutionally guaranteed negative right of the other to be left alone.

That is why Conservatives reject the idea of positive rights to such things as health care, or a college education. It is not that we prefer people remain ill or ignorant, but because the principle of individual rights disallows any such compelling by the State, of action by one individual or group to satisfy the wants and desires of another.

That is, simply, tyranny. No matter how ostensibly beneficial or compassionate the intent.

2) Economic Rights- These follow from the first, the right to own property and to conduct business freely in one's best interests with minimal interference from the State, i.e., free market capitalism, low taxes, few regulations.

In order to be free, one must be alive. Without food and shelter life is impossible, therefore freedom is meaningless. The abstract idea of liberty is not what our Founders proposed or intended. It is the real ability to act as one wishes in the material world that constitutes liberty. In order to be free, one must be able to acquire the necessities of life through his own efforts, independently.

When the State controls access to these requirements for life, all are in thrall to the State. If to eat, you must obey the State, you are a slave to the State. Political liberty cannot exist without Economic liberty...which is why Communism and Socialism are intrinsically, thus invariably tyrannical.

The sanctity of Private Property is the foundation of Economic Liberty. As long as private property is sacrosanct and cannot be confiscated by the State, the people retain the means of production and independent access to the necessities of life rather than being controlled by a monopolistic State. Private Property in the hands of some citizens guarantees freedom from tyranny for all citizens, because as long as there are competing suppliers of the necessities of life, none has the power of life & death over citizens and cannot thereby extort submission or obedience.

3) Virtue - When freedom becomes dissipation, degeneration and libertinism, people become incapable of #1 and #2; and in order to contain the chaos and corruption, big, intrusive government becomes necessary.

In order to remain free, individuals have to practice restraint, discipline, honesty, truthfulness, cooperation, trust, honor, industriousness, self-reliance, self-respect, justice, fairness, and reliability. A free society is threatened when these virtues are replaced by excess, licentiousness, self-indulgence, corruption, dishonesty, indolence, dependence, injustice, irresponsibility.

When public and private virtue are vacated, the leviathan State, with its arbitrary laws, machinery of coercion and ponderous bureaucracies expands to fill the void.

As advertised...this is a bad thing for liberty.

I think that most domestic policies* will fall into one of these categories, and based on how much or how little it complies with the above can be pretty reliably identified as "Conservative" or "Not-Conservative."

*Foreign Policy is another kettle of fish, and I'm still working on that...

The Gunslinger