The Proper Definition of Conservative
By JB Williams
Before we can have a true “conservative” revival in America, we must first properly define what it is to be a conservative. The nice thing about being an opinion writer is that I get to write my opinion on a subject without concern for the opinions of others.I realize that academics who write dictionary definitions and accounts of history have their opinions about words and events. Sadly, most of them are left-wing in their world views, which usually drives their left-wing definitions and accounts of history.
Don’t confuse common definitions with proper definitions. Clearly, our Founders didn’t mean food stamps or free cell phones for Obama supporters when they wrote the “general welfare” clause in the constitution. But that’s how left-wing academics define that clause today.
As a lifelong “conservative” myself, let me tell you what it means to me to be conservative. Although the term is used to identify the political views of an individual, this is only the natural political manifestation of being a conservative. The foundations for conservatism are based in personal life convictions, not politics.
· An individual who seeks to uphold and abide by an American set of principles and values
· A sound and uncompromising moral compass
· Ethical behaviors that exhibit a personal conviction to moral foundations
· A fiscally responsible reverence for free-market economics and limited government
· A political view that aligns with all moral, ethical and fiscally responsible convictions
In short, a conservative is someone who lives by a code of fundamental decency and honor, someone who never chooses the politically expedient over basic right and wrong. Their political positions are driven by their personal convictions and they are not at all prone to compromise as a result.
Can this definition be applied to anyone representing the people in Washington DC today? No… But the people I work with every day, share all of these conditions.
Today, most Republicans are not conservatives by this definition and that’s why the Republican Party remains in a death spiral, despite the fact that the Democratic Party (Democratic Socialists) is highly unpopular as well.
Today’s Republican politicians do not provide any real alternative to the Democratic Socialists currently seizing freedoms and liberties and running the greatest nation on earth into a corrupt immoral socio-economic abyss.
“We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.”- From the Democratic Socialists of America which operates through its Congressional Progressive and Black Caucus’s
Most second and third generation Democrats have no idea that they are voting for and supporting unbridled Marxism. They think they still belong to the party of Jefferson and JFK. Locked in blind party loyalties for generations, they are voting for Marxism and just don’t know it.
By my definition, I believe that most Americans are in fact conservatives. Why is this not reflected in recent elections? Political lines are totally blurred today, that’s why.
Simply stated, neither primary political party represents these Americans today. Conservatives want their governments run the same way they run their homes, their businesses, their churches, their lives, and raise their children to become decent, honest, productive members of society. They want a moral, ethical and fiscally responsible government that reflects their personal convictions and above all, protects individual freedom and liberty for all. No such political party exists at present.
This explains why half of registered voters no longer bother to vote at all, and why many voters have sought a new political home in a litany of failed 3rd party explorations.
It also explains why today’s “conservative movement” is struggling to gain any traction. Most of the people in today’s so-called “conservative movement” are not conservatives, at least by my definition.
Many are politically homeless lifelong members of the Democrat Party, fed up with the socialist takeover of JFK’s party and the nation. Others are modern libertarians, having little more than lower taxes and smaller government in common with conservatives.
Today’s “conservative” movement is full of non-conservatives. While Reagan’s Big Tent theory for the Republican Party might have looked good on paper, it has been disastrous for the GOP. The GOP is not even recognizable as the conservative party of Ronald Reagan anymore. As long as that remains true, the GOP will remain in steady decline, or become more and more, only a sub-party of the DNC.
The GOP was once the “conservative” party in America. Now it is little more than a temporary resting place for those currently without a political home of their own, of all political persuasions. As a result, the party spends most of its time in internal power struggles, incapable of confronting the Marxist left running today’s DNC and the country.
And “we the people,” which many originally thought to be a “conservative insurgency,” like the GOP, is more divided than ever due to competing political views and agendas within the movement, in the end, leaving only an impotent force of no real concern to the Marxist Left.
Like the movement itself, the current GOP is a blurry abyss of competing interests. Before any real conservative revival can happen, these groups must purge themselves of non-conservative people and their agendas. It’s time to secure the “conservative” tent and forget about the notion that a “conservative” revival can happen via non-conservatives.
As our Charters of Freedom and nation were designed and formed by “conservatives” with a focus on moral, ethical and fiscally responsible self-governance via a Constitutional Representative Republic, only a conservative insurgence can secure and preserve these principles and values.
Until we can agree on what it means to be a conservative, no conservative insurgency is possible.
But, that’s just my opinion….
JB Williams
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JB Williams is a writer on matters of history and American politics with more than 3000 pieces published over a twenty-year span. He has a decidedly conservative reverence for the Charters of Freedom, the men and women who have paid the price of freedom and liberty for all, and action oriented real-time solutions for modern challenges. He is a Christian, a husband, a father, a researcher, writer and a business owner. He is co-founder of action organizations The United States Patriots Union, a civilian parent organization for The Veteran Defenders of America. He is also co-founder of The North American Law Center, a citizen run investigative legal research and activism organization preparing to take on American's greatest legal battles. Williams receives mail at: jb.uspu@gmail.com
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