Dakota Beacon

 The noun "conservative" signifies guardian or defender and expresses the essential motive of a conservator. Those foolish enough to slander and excoriate as ignorant buffoons those people who identify themselves as conservative kick dirt in the face of America's heritage.
 

Classic liberalism disappeared from the public square long ago. From its early roots, classic liberalism morphed from the clear thinking of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes through the warped cogitations of Rousseau and Marx and Lenin to the perverse conjectures of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  Such is the heritage of modern Liberalism's left-of-center "progressive" blush in the twenty-first century.
 

A true conservative is not an ideologue but is principled. Conservatives loathe ideologies. Conservatism is a disposition rooted in human nature observable in the way people conduct their personal affairs. Napoleon first applied the word "ideology" to leftist zealots of the French Revolution.  Meanwhile, Edmund Burke spoke of conservatism in his work "Reflections on
 the Revolution in France." He distinguished between "conservation" on the one hand and "innovation" on the other. The American Revolution was a conservative reaction to innovations by the British political establishment.

Systems for "perfecting" human beings and society are repugnant to conservatives. They know that elitist tools for forcing systems on an unwilling public must be authoritarian by design. Politically correct speech, mandated alternative energy, subsidies, health care, dietary
 restrictions, gun control and safety regulations come to mind.

 In their inmost being, conservatives understand that to truly live is to be free from oppression and regulation to the greatest extent possible, especially from an overbearing government. That is why our founders subscribed totally to limited government. That is why, also, most people
 unconsciously aspire to the conservative principle even if they may not vote that way. Forcing and molding human existence into a uniformly narrow and unnatural society for utilitarian purposes and egalitarian outcomes is the liberal progressive idea for America.

 Conservatives respect the wisdom and thinking of their predecessors. They grow weary and skeptical of proposed wholesale revisions ("innovations") of societal norms and structures. The essence of conservatism preserves the ancient moral traditions of humanity.

 Generations of youth, captured by progressive thought, migrated steadily toward secularization dominated by a material existence in which spiritual life in the western tradition meant little. Progressives swayed many young people from a traditional to a revised social order. The effect eliminated the conscious understanding of civics, family and traditional education. It is possible that much in our culture is still worth protecting, conserving and reviving.

 With this template in mind, progressives and liberals are easily identified. More challenging are the interlopers using conservative rhetoric that intentionally promote confusion. Moderates willing to compromise, independents anxious for acceptance by the ruling class in Washington, DC, and those comprising the professional political order must be identified and dealt with by conscientious voters.

 The Republican establishment is famous for compromise, consensus and bipartisanship in search of independent voters. How soon they forget that it was the conservative appeal to the independents that won the 1994 and 2010 US House takeover by the Republicans and, earlier, the Reagan presidency. Forgotten, too, are campaigns such as that of conservative Senator Mark
 Rubio of Florida who beat Republican establishment heavy favorite Governor Charlie Crist.

 Margaret Thatcher wisely observed, "To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects." Liberals, on the other hand, must clarify their values every two to four
 years reminding the electorate that they, too, are "conservative." They would rather not be called "liberal" and are trying to resurrect a less pejorative term such as "progressive." They look for the right euphemisms to conceal their true beliefs. They explain and reassure and attempt to assume a conservative mantle in order to identify with most Americans.

 Conservatives don't have to redefine themselves. They are who they are as reflected by their daily lives. Liberals cannot win elections by being who they are and by campaigning on issues in which they truly believe. Instead, they must portray themselves as conservatives to gain votes.

 Thanks to great thinkers in the late eighteenth through mid-nineteenth centuries like Edmund Burke, Benjamin Disraeli and Cardinal John Henry Newman followed by twentieth century thinkers like William F. Buckley, Jr., Irving Kristol and Russell Kirk, conservatism's roots and virtues are preserved and are being proclaimed to a new generation.
 
 Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).