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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated

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To: Lane3 who wrote (115464)	5/23/2005 2:25:52 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) of 793822

Well look at it this way. There is an element of libertarianism in the conservative movement, but that element is already covered by calling you libertarian to a greater extent than it would be by calling you conservative. If you are a libertarian you probably already support most of the libertarian ideas that would also be called conservative, so supporting those ideas would have very little weight in determining whether to call you conservative or not unless you are in a framework that is only comparing liberals and conservatives and isn't really considering libertarianism, or any other idea that doesn't fit neatly in a one axis left/right schema of political ideas. So other than your libertarian ideas what else makes a conservative? Cultural/religious conservatism Respect for tradition, and reluctance to make rapid social changes at least if they aren't supported by a sustained majority. Strict constructionist on the constitution - Perhaps not the best indicator, a lot of people who are usually called conservatives might not be very strict constructionist, but it is still a useful indicator. "Fiscal conservatism" would be another consideration. Both in the sense of opposition to large continuing deficits, and in the sense of getting control on government spending, esp. the later because support of low taxes would also be an aspect of conservatism. However support for low spending and taxes is firmly covered by the libertarian label as well. Moving to more specific (and for this purpose perhaps less important) considerations - Opposition to affirmative action might be another indicator but might not be a very strong one. Opposition to affirmative action by the government or worse yet imposed on the private sector by the government would be a stronger one, but also would be covered by "libertarian", at least in the "imposed by the government" case. As far as reaction to current events a conservative would probably either be for the war or would be against it based on considerations of American interests, not because it didn't receive a strong UN endorsement or because its unpopular in Europe. (I think you would fall under the "against it based on considerations of American interests" category.) To make the last issue more general I would say a support for American interests (but not necessarily narrow, short term interests) ahead of deference to international opinion institutions when they oppose what is perceived to be American interests. Tim

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