Rumor has it that Clint Eastwood is a conservative. I am beginning to object to the term conservative because I feel that what we mean when we say we’re conservative is that we’re “Classic Liberals”.
Liberals. As in, Liberty.
And this just about sums it all up:
Conservatism is a bit schizophrenic. You have real conservatism, which is an effort to support the customs and traditions of a society in order to maintain stability. Traditional conservatism is collectivist, viewing society as an organic whole, and was the originator of social welfare programs. Social conservatives tend to be in this tradition. Then you have orthodox/classical liberals. They want minimal government, and tend to reject what social conservatives want. They oppose interventionist liberals (people who are still capitalist liberals, but think government must intervene actively to protect markets and assure equal opportunity), which is what the Democrats usually are. So the GOP is split between traditional conservatives and orthodox/classical liberals, while the Democrats have both interventionist liberals and actual social democrats (people who want a kind of socialism via democratic means). Some states deal with this by having four or five parties; we mesh them together into two!
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