Some very old friends recently sent me a link to the obituary of Sir Roger Scruton, an English conservative.\u00a0 I confess I was not aware of him and so I read the article and wanting to learn about him first hand I went to his website and watched some of his lectures and read some of his papers.<\/p>\n
What I heard and read was very impressive.\u00a0 He was clear, persuasive, intelligent and even funny.\u00a0 But what struck me as important was that he defined what conservatism is and why it\u2019s important.\u00a0 And he did it in a way that was simplicity itself and at the same time showed why it was so important.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cThe real reason people are conservatives is that they are attached to the things that they love, and want to preserve them from abuse and decay. They are attached to their family, their friends, their religion, and their immediate environment.\u201d\u00a0 What could be simpler to understand than that?\u00a0 And what could be more important than that?<\/p>\n
And so, I have found in this an easy way to test if an argument is conservative or not.\u00a0 If someone tells you that being opposed to gay marriage or transgenderism is wrong, I look at how it affects my family and friends and religion and discover that normalizing these things is harmful to all of those things.\u00a0 Children will be told things in school that will confuse them and could lead them into great harm both physically and psychologically.\u00a0 I can thus say that opposing LGBTQ initiatives for these things is conservative and because of the way I\u2019ve just defined it is in the interests of me and my family and friends.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t mean I wish harm on these people who advocate for this agenda.\u00a0 I\u2019m just protecting my family and way of life from the harm they are attempting to inflict on me.<\/p>\n
And likewise with something like illegal immigration.\u00a0 If I oppose illegal immigrants flooding the country that doesn\u2019t make me the aggressor trying to harm these people.\u00a0 It means I\u2019m trying to protect me and mine from the effects of such an invasion.\u00a0 I have nothing against the individuals involved. \u00a0I am reacting to the problems that such a phenomenon will have on the nation, the community and my friends and family in particular.\u00a0 Massive immigration will drive up crime, welfare participation, housing costs and the cost of government and will depress wages and quality of life. \u00a0Even the loss of the traditions and practices we have grown up with is a degrading of the environment that we live in.\u00a0 So once again it is simple to see that conservative principles dictate opposition to excessive immigration.<\/p>\n
As a final example I\u2019ll look at feminism.\u00a0 Here is a philosophy that says that women should be encouraged, even propagandized and bullied into thinking that a career is the only acceptable option for a woman\u2019s life.\u00a0 Marriage and childrearing is a hindrance to this lifestyle and if pursued by her must be done with as little interference to her climbing the corporate ladder.\u00a0 I can think of no project that has had as disastrous an effect on the modern world as feminism has had.\u00a0 Our population is dwindling, children have lost the comfort of their mothers in the most critical years and the flooding of the labor market has depressed wage growth to the point that two incomes is barely enough to support a family. In addition, federal affirmative action discriminates against men in the work place to push this feminist agenda. \u00a0For these reasons, opposing feminism in general and working mothers in particular is an obvious conservative position.\u00a0 Does that mean I hate women?\u00a0 Of course not.\u00a0 But I oppose feminism because of the harm it does to me, my family, my community and the nation.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll have to thank my friends for introducing me to Sir Roger.\u00a0 He has provided me with a definition of conservatism that is simple, powerful and easily applied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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