Conservatism?

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Why is it again, that Conservatives categorize themselves as "Conservative?" When especially the more prominent ones are anything but Conservative in their personal lives? Flamboyant in dress, frivolous and extravagant with their own finances, ostentatious, vulgar and aggressive in expression. Excessive in behaviour and appearance (note, I said "the more prominent"). They are only Conservative in federal finance because they want to get all the advantages of loopholes and tax breaks for themselves but do not want them for anyone else, not so much because they are concerned with national budgets. Sure, it can be said that they are not the only ones who live thus, ( as I am sure someone will point out), but they are the ones who claim to be Conservative. I don't know anything about the lifestyles or belongings of any WP Conservatives, but some of them are anything but restrained in expression of rhetoric. If it were permitted in WP I have no doubt PPR would be laced with expletives (I fully expect some of the more OCD prone amongst us to sift through my posts to find any profanity I may have used which will amount to no more than 2-3 incidents of me using character substitutes to create a pseudo-expletive, but even were it permitted, you would never see me using that terminology here). Noone in my family or any workplace can ever claim to have heard me use that language.

So, where and how, exactly, does the term Conservatism actually apply?

Titles are just words.

You have to understand political theory and do astute observation of what a group practices to know what they really are.

Modern Democrats are Socialists/Communists.

Modern Republicans are the old Democrats.

The word "conservative" is heavily abused to attract people who really are "conservative" into a camp that does not practice what it preaches.

In America, it generally represents:

- the belief in gun rights
- desire for lower taxes
- desire for less government
- freedom from government intrusion
- "traditional values"

Gun rights - "The right to bear massive amounts of field artillery shall not be abridged."

Desire for lower taxes ... for Big Business only.

Desire for less government ... especially in social programs, environmental protection (EPA), education, et cetera.

Freedom from government intrusion ... unless you happen to say or publish something uncomplimentary to the Conservative Cause.

Traditional values - Women shall be wives, teachers, secretaries, nurses, waitresses, and prostitutes only. Poor people shall be kept poor so as to provide a cheap labor force, and minority children shall have limited educational opportunities so as to keep them poor. The government shall be of, by, and for wealthy, white, land-owning, business-owning, church-going, Christian* MEN.

(* And by 'Christian', they do not mean Roman Catholic.)

Robert Peel basically made Conservatives like classical Liberalism. He stole most of their ideas. Everything from small government, low taxation, to free trade.

The difference is Conservative still support protectionism when it suits.

The reality is modern Conservatism is a mixture of classical Liberalism and Social Conservationism.

There myth is there is single ideal, reality is Conservative parties have both. In many countries like Austria the Liberal part is the Conservative one (possibly Canada not sure).

In fact the modern definition of Liberal has nothing to do with Liberalism. The only reason for this is the cold war. People who otherwise would have called themselves Socialist, or Social Democrat, started calling themselves Liberals (or it may have been derogatory first).

I do know the Democratic party doesn't mean they were social liberal historically.

Jefferson was Democratic Republican, which is a defunct party.

In many forms of communism your income would be controlled so tax is irrelevant. In practice Party members, and Officials get more.