Conservatism (cont.)

In response to the Caretaker's response, I guess that I would say that the simple definition of 'conservatism' as 'resistance to change' is only partially true.

Let us take the example of the pro-life movement and the Roe v. Wade decision. The conservatism of the pro-life movement is devoted to a principled overturning of Supreme Court decision that is now quite a few decades old. Granted that this is with the 'reactionary' purpose of returning to the status-quo ante. So perhaps 'reactionary' would best describe the pro-life movement rather than conservative. In any case, what they advocate is restriction on the availability of abortion. If this is the status-quo, they are resistant to change. If it is not the status-quo, they try to change it.

The same with the NRA and guns. If guns are freely available, the NRA is for the status-quo and against change. If they are not freely available, the NRA will try to change the status-quo and are therefore for change.

Many Joe Six-packers would resist any change in the availability of their big trucks. If however the law made trucks less available in order to, say, lessen global warming, those same good old boys would become radical antagonists of that law, trying to change it.

Wall Streeters are a curious example. Their conservatism has generally in the past advocated laissez-faire and non-government intervention in the markets. Now that their grubby, greedy, risktaking behavior has led them to bankruptcy, they are hungering for government intervention and protection. Perhaps this is just an example of unprincipled conservatism, i.e. greed, as in get the wealth anyway you can, with or without the government.

Nationalistic conservatives of the patriotic variety are mostly concerned about respect for the flag, love for the nation, and the display of uniformed military. If some politician doesn't wear a flagpin, he is immediately suspect. If you lack enough fervor for the current enemy of the day (Iran, Russia), you are not 'conservative.' So again, it's not so much a 'resistance to change' as it is this worship of the nation.

For libertarian conservatives, whose basic principle is individual freedom and being left alone, they clearly are not 'resistant to change', because they believe that even now, the government has come close to squeezing all freedom out of society. Libertarians are among the most 'revolutionary' of conservatives, advocating radical change a la Ron Paul.

The neo-conservatives are radical Jacobins, according to some thinkers, with a radical democratizing mentality most akin the ideology that took over the French Revolution in its latter stages, leading to the Terror and the effort to invade and transform all of Europe from its medieval throne/altar power structure to an Enlightenment democratic structure.

So political 'conservatism' as it is currently defined is many things, but it is not very often pure resistance to change.