Modern Conservatism In a Nutshell (a repost)...

 

The following is an excerpt from an article ran in AlterNet and posted on this weblog on November 6, 2015. Seeing the dysfunctionality currently affecting the so called conservative republican party, and its affect on the new congress as it attempts to determine a new Speaker of the House is why it is being reprinted today. It has been just over seven years since the initial running and still it remains as relevant and true today as it was in 2015. Perhaps even more so.

Conservativism today is in great need of revamping itself. Specifically so as to remain relevant in the 21st century. Change is the only constant. Yet conservatives struggle and fight mightily to remain reified in the 19th and 20th centuries. A sure fire way to insure a historic social uprising in the future.

After decades of "compassionate conservatism," "a thousand points of light," and "Morning in America," dark talk of class warfare on the right can seem like a strange throwback. So accustomed are we to the sunny Reagan and the populist Tea Party that we've forgotten a basic truth about conservatism: It is a reaction to democratic movements from below, movements like Occupy Wall Street that threaten to reorder society from the bottom up, redistributing power and resources from those who have much to those who have not so much. With the roar against the ruling classes growing ever louder, the right seems to be reverting to type. It thus behooves us to take a second look at the conservative tradition, not just its current incarnation but also across time, for that tradition provides us with an understanding of why the conservative responds to Occupy Wall Street as he does.

Since the modern era began, men and women in subordinate positions have marched against their superiors. They have gathered under different banners—the labor movement, feminism, abolition, socialism—and shouted different slogans: freedom, equality, democracy, revolution. In virtually every instance, their superiors have resisted them. That march and démarche of democracy is one of the main stories of modern politics. And it is the second half of that story, the démarche, that drives the development of ideas we call conservative. For that is what conservatism is: a meditation on, and theoretical rendition of, the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.

If one has taken the time to analyze the political, economic, social, and military trends over the past 35 plus years they cannot escape the reality and truth of the above statements.

A nation founded on liberal political philosophies and enlightened views has, in the modern era, become the battleground of conservative and reactionary politicians and wealthy special interests who desire nothing less than to "take America back". Given their way the USA wil become a modern day feudalist society.

Following this LINK will ferry you to the original posting with some interesting perspectives in the comment section.