Conservatism: a general state of mind that is averse to rapid change and innovation and strives for balance and order, while avoiding extremes. Originally conservatism arose as a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment (see Enlightenment, Age of). Conservatives advocated belief in faith over reason, tradition over free inquiry, hierarchy over equality, collective values over individualism, and divine or natural law over secular law. At a given time in a given society, conservatism emphasizes the merits of the status quo and endorses the prevailing distribution of power, wealth, and social standing.
The Republican Party had tried and managed to make the word liberal sound like a dirty word so why should we not take a closer look at their word “Conservatism.” And return the favor.
- A general state of mind that is averse to rapid change. In other words they want to keep thing as they are at present. Somehow I get the feeling that there are a huge number of middle class and working class families that would not be overly thrilled with that idea.
- Advocated belief in faith over reason. I think that science is the only thing that should be taught in science class. The church has over history always fought to prevent new science theory from being proven even when they were wrong on the subject. Religion should be keep at home and in church and not preached to our children in science class. Freedom of religion is one of our basic rights in this country and any one belief should not be forced on our children.
- Hierarchy over equality. In other words the rich get richer and the middle class and working class only get poorer. I get the feeling that they have had a lot of success on that front in the past eight years.
- Collective values over individualism. The Republican Party would like us to think that they have the corner on values but just look at the last eight years with one scandal after another from republicans. Just today a New York republican was arrested on DUI and admitted to a love child. Not the type of moral values I want my child growing up to emulate. I always try to support candidates that value family.
- Divine or natural law over secular law. Natural law and for that matter divine law says that we take care of our environment. They call that being good stewards of our world but I don’t see the Republican Party and its candidates doing a good job at being good stewards when they are totally in denial of what is going on all around them.
Somehow I get the feeling that our country is more then ready for the “Age of Enlightenment.” We need to stand up for our candidates on June 3 and say "yes we can" to the whole world once more so that we can bring about real change for Americans.
