J.R. said:
honest question. I hear the term "Conservative " thrown around this board incessantly , so I thought it would be interesting to hear from "conservatives" on this board how you would personally define it. The term has become somewhat illusive to me in the past 15yrs or so.
It is a confusing time.
A lot of people assume that if you are anti-woke, then you are a conservative. This is a big contributor to the confusion.
To be anti-woke, is to simply have common sense. A man cannot become a woman.... duh!
So there are tons of people who are traditionally considered liberal, but are also anti-woke (aka -they aren't totally insane).
FLBear was pretty accurate with his answer. Needs of the nation change, and so do the priorities of a conservative. In the 1980s, the need for a strong military was extremely high, and so conservatives were cool with expanding government spending and deficits in order to win the Cold War. Now, not so much. Conservatives believe in a strong military, but we don't believe that we need never-ending military expansion.
The Neo-Cons came in to power, and pushed never-ending military expansion in order to make money for themselves and other gov contractors.
This is an example of extreme external conditions, creating opportunities for conservatives to compromise their values for the immediate situation. Sadly, this also opens the door for conservative pretenders to take advantage and create long-term programs that conservatives would normally oppose.
Another great example is 9/11 and the Patriot Act. Many conservatives supported the Patriot Act, the creation of the DHS, and the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq... all because of the extreme situation created by 9/11. Now, most conservatives realize that the nation created even bigger problems with these "short-term" solutions. The Patriot Act was supposed to expire within a few years... yet it lingers. The war in Afghanistan was supposed to be about destroying the Taliban and killing Osama Bin Laden. It was turned into "nation building" by the Neo-Cons... a huge waste of blood and a massive money laundering scheme for gov contractors. The Iraq War was less justifiable, but it was supposed to be about getting rid of Sadam. It went the same way as Afghanistan.
COVID was another extreme situation, but many conservatives realized it was being used by fakers... sadly, it was too late. Most conservatives were opposed to the continuation of the lockdowns, beyond the original "15 days to slow the spread". Most were also opposed to the idea of changing regulations & rules in order to speed up the process of creating a "vaccine". Even more were opposed to the idea of changing the definition of a "vaccine" to include this Frankenstein MRNA drug. No actual conservatives were ever in favor of mandated vax jabs.
It is confusing, but the basic ideas of conservatism start with what FLBear posted. There are a lot of pretenders who claim the title of "conservative". There are others who get labeled as such, just because they have common sense and oppose the woke mind virus.