re: #107 freetoken

I’ve been thinking about this recently. I don’t know of a time in American history when the self-declared “conservatives” (in the public sphere) ever did, really, play a positive role for any great length of time.

That might sound a bit condemnatory, but I keep thinking of how people like Jefferson really were not conservatives. And in the early 19th century the expansionist US was just that - highly expansionist and opportunistic. By the time of the middle of that century the “conservatives” were fighting those radicals who wanted to outlaw slavery, among other things. And it goes on, to those who opposed TR as he was trying to be reformist, through Hoover, who though being a decent enough guy really didn’t understand what he had to do partly because he was too conservative in thought, through the cold war JBS/McCarthy era, through the modern “conservatism” which is largely based on reactionary theocratic thinking.

Some might accuse me of looking at history with biased lenses - yes, of course I have my own biases, like everyone. Yet I maintain that this nation has always been a crucible for change and new ideas, something which “conservatism” by its nature wants to limit. The great thrust of the American experience has been about progress.

I am convinced that people (in the US and outside) think of the US as being “conservative” (the term “center-right” is often applied) for one important reason: Americans on the whole are more religious than in other first world nations.

It is this religiosity, not political theory or economic theory, that defines why the US is thought of as “conservative.”f

If that is indeed the case, then your assertion about conservatives is really a condemnation of the attempt to maintain ancient religious thought and practices way beyond any possible era in which they were actually useful.

Excellent post!