Well. That didn't take long.
Well. That didn't take long.
And under the bus he goes.
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The distinguishing mark of so-called "conservatives" in the US is not, in fact, conservatism — that is, a desire to cherish and protect the good in their society.
Rather, it is betrayal.
They are not conservatives, but rather traitors — betrayers. They betray their faith, placing Trump ahead of Jesus. They betray their country, placing Putin ahead of Washington. They betray their species, placing oil companies ahead of humanity.
Conservatism can only be redeemed by embracing the actual good of our actual society. You can only conserve that which really exists. That includes the "melting pot" of multiculturalism.
It would be cool if they were all about conserving wildlife, natural features, forests, clean air, and clean water. Or the rights to vote and have privacy.
But no, they just want to conserve the power of a small group at the expense of everyone else.
Imagine a pretend political ideology called cleavism. Given its name you say it’s all about cleaving the good in society from the bad, whatever the hell that means. But there are so-called “cleavists” out there who insist cleavism is about joining the bad and the good together. What gives? Well, in practice cleavism has little to do with the two opposing definitions of “to cleave” (“to split” and “to join”). It’s really just named after some guy with the surname Cleaver or something.
Political ideologies aren’t medical diagnoses. You can’t derive their meaning like you can with atrial arrhythmic induced tachycardia cardiomyopathy. If you try this naive etymology out on anarchism then you’ll reduce that ideology to nothing more than a non-substantive, meaningless, circular definition. Conservatives conserve. Liberals liberate. Socialists socialize. See? Meaningless.
Unfortunately for the entire world, conservatism has never been about “protecting the good in society.” That’s just a vapid and empty wish for what you want conservatism to mean. You’d be hard pressed to find any reputable political science text that would trivialize one of the most dominate ideologies of the past two centuries like this. Let alone claim there is some inherent goodwill baked into the ideology.