A short while ago I read, and I paraphrase here "that Conservatives talk philosophy, but Liberals talk strategy.". It's an interesting idea. When I read that I thought we do do a lot of philosophy. But it is rare for us to discuss strategy. Why is that?
I think it's because we are individualistic, we have our ideas and thoughts and we stick to them. Unlike those on the broad Left who are collectivists. They tend to move on when the collective wants them too. If they are unable to move on they tend to end up calling themselves "Conservatives" and believing themselves to be so, but they rarely if ever are.
But it is quite hopeless to talk about strategy in isolation, all by yourself. Only a group, even a smallish one, can hope to carry out any kind of strategy. A strategy in this context is a long term plan. But we don't have any long term plans because we don't have any groups to formulate them or to carry them out. Conservatives are a million Armies of one.
How do we effect change if we do not have any strategy?
How do we effect change if we have no one to formulate or to carry out such a strategy?
I assume that if your here reading my blog that your as sick and tired of where the world is heading as I am. In fact I'm not only sick of where it's heading I'm sick of it right now. I don't want to return to a past world, I want to transform this one. I want the world to make sense, I want the natural order restored. I assume I'm not the only one?
But all I see and hear is how the world is going bad and how I'm powerless to do anything about it. There are groups who oppose Islam, or who want to stop immigration, or who oppose Feminism. I support all of those things, not because I hate Muslims or immigrants or women, not even Leftest ones, I oppose them (amongst others) because they are weapons that the broad Left uses to attack us, that they use to destroy us. But I don't want to belong to 3 groups were I support 60% of the agenda. I'd like to support at least 90%, maybe I'm just greedy. But I don't want to support Liberalism and that 40% that I do not support is because they still believe in many of the first principles of Liberalism. That all people are equal for example, or that Feminism is good except for the extreme bits, ignoring the fact that feminism is always extreme.
It may sound as if I'm blaming everyone else for this state of affairs but I am also aware of my own limitations. I doubt I can write any better or think any clearer, this is as good as I get. But it is not enough, things aren't getting any better, we can all see that. I can see my country disappearing right before my eyes and how do I fight back....with a blog!
That's quite pathetic.
When I'm asked what did I do to defend everything that I love, what do I say?
That I wrote a fucking blog?
It's not enough, it was never enough but I am only one man. I'm just another Army of one and they don't win many battles, let alone wars. Well this Soldier feels at times like he should desert, but where would I run, where would I hide? There is no where to run and no where to hide, so where do I go from here?
Until Conservatives decide to fight in groups we cannot do anything but lose. And I don't mind telling you that I'm sick of losing. I wonder if I'm only one?
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Blog
Another Article You Might Like?
Taxes, Budgets and the Economy
Friday, 29 April 2016
Thursday, 21 April 2016
Are Conservatives Cats or Dogs?
Recently I have been thinking of the difference between the belief of Conservatives and our actions. We talk about our Nation, race, ethnicity, society, family, about things that are big and collective, not about individuals but about collectives of people. Liberals on the other hand talk about the Individual, about how it is not the collective that is powerful but the Individual. Which further got me thinking about cats and dogs, cats are individualists, while dogs are collectivists, so what are we, cats or dogs?
Cats were domesticated sometime between the last Ice Age and the birth of Civilization, when Man began to settle in one place and grew crops instead of hunting and gathering. Settlements allowed food to be stored, but stored food also brought rats and mice, who ate our food. It's believed that cats became domesticated because they started to hunt closer to human settlements and humans came to see them as a protector, even as a sign of the favour of the Gods. By nature cats are loners, they live alone and they hunt alone. It doesn't take much for a domestic cat to become feral. A cat is a wild animal who lives in our homes and by and large we both benefit from this relationship. But they are very individualistic, very selfish, they like things their way, they like their own space, they even get jealous. The joke about a cat not having an owner, but instead of cats having a human, rings true because that's how cats seem to think.
Dogs have been domesticated for tens of thousands of years, the relationship between Man and dogs is Ancient. Dogs were domesticated because they could help with hunting, but over time we have trained and bred them to perform numerous tasks. Dogs have been used for hunting, herding, as sentries, for pulling loads, and for companionship, they also made camp life more hygienic by cleaning up stray bits of meat. Dogs are collectivists, they live in packs and humans are simply another pack to them. Dogs need to know their place in the pack, they need to know who is in charge. To a dog your family is his pack and a dog will defend the pack whether it is made up of dogs or humans.
I said earlier that Conservatives are collectivists and that dogs are collectivists, but I don't think it's that simple. Conservatives have always found it hard to form groups, or to maintain them, why is that?
Liberals and others further left seem to find it much easier to form groups, although maintaining them can be another story. While most of these groups end very messily some have remarkably long lives. Some have marked their centenary, how many Conservatives, even Liberal groups that call themselves Conservative can claim that? Some but not many.
Why is it so hard for Conservatives to form groups? My theory is that we are cats, we are individualistic. I don't know about you but I found Conservatism on my own, I didn't read lofty books on Conservative philosophy for example, maybe that's why I never fell for the Liberal trap of confusing the two. But it did mean that I had many Liberal beliefs, which I thought of as exceptions. I won't say I don't still have any but I will say I have very few left. But so much was done on my own, without other people, sometimes despite other people, because I knew what they were saying was wrong. I remember as a teenager hearing it said that "you should be able to do anything you like as long as it doesn't hurt other people". Even then I knew it was wrong but I didn't know why it was wrong, I now know that it's wrong because actions and ideas have consequences, I also know that it isn't possible to live and not to hurt people, it's not even possible to live and not hurt yourself.
I don't think I'm alone in coming to Conservatism by myself. I think many, maybe most come to it alone. They know they are hearing lies, they know that the world is not as it should be and they search for answers. It means that we aren't very good followers, if we were we wouldn't have gone looking for answers. We would have accepted what we were told but we didn't. The great irony is that we believe in collectivism but we are individuals.
Of course that also means that Liberals, who believe in individualism are collectivists, they follow the leader. I have always been amazed by how they know what is the latest "fashion" within Liberalism. How could they see it so quickly, but I guess it isn't hard when you follow the leader. Of course there isn't a Grand Master of Liberalism, there are many leaders in different fields, but it is these leaders who provide the next "fashion".
So how is Conservatism going to move forward if we cannot form groups, if we cannot put aside our individualistic nature? Or to put it another way how do we herd cats? If you've got any ideas I'd be very happy to hear them.
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
Another Article You Might Like?
The Paradox of the Autonomous Individual and the Expanding Government
Cats were domesticated sometime between the last Ice Age and the birth of Civilization, when Man began to settle in one place and grew crops instead of hunting and gathering. Settlements allowed food to be stored, but stored food also brought rats and mice, who ate our food. It's believed that cats became domesticated because they started to hunt closer to human settlements and humans came to see them as a protector, even as a sign of the favour of the Gods. By nature cats are loners, they live alone and they hunt alone. It doesn't take much for a domestic cat to become feral. A cat is a wild animal who lives in our homes and by and large we both benefit from this relationship. But they are very individualistic, very selfish, they like things their way, they like their own space, they even get jealous. The joke about a cat not having an owner, but instead of cats having a human, rings true because that's how cats seem to think.
Dogs have been domesticated for tens of thousands of years, the relationship between Man and dogs is Ancient. Dogs were domesticated because they could help with hunting, but over time we have trained and bred them to perform numerous tasks. Dogs have been used for hunting, herding, as sentries, for pulling loads, and for companionship, they also made camp life more hygienic by cleaning up stray bits of meat. Dogs are collectivists, they live in packs and humans are simply another pack to them. Dogs need to know their place in the pack, they need to know who is in charge. To a dog your family is his pack and a dog will defend the pack whether it is made up of dogs or humans.
I said earlier that Conservatives are collectivists and that dogs are collectivists, but I don't think it's that simple. Conservatives have always found it hard to form groups, or to maintain them, why is that?
Liberals and others further left seem to find it much easier to form groups, although maintaining them can be another story. While most of these groups end very messily some have remarkably long lives. Some have marked their centenary, how many Conservatives, even Liberal groups that call themselves Conservative can claim that? Some but not many.
Why is it so hard for Conservatives to form groups? My theory is that we are cats, we are individualistic. I don't know about you but I found Conservatism on my own, I didn't read lofty books on Conservative philosophy for example, maybe that's why I never fell for the Liberal trap of confusing the two. But it did mean that I had many Liberal beliefs, which I thought of as exceptions. I won't say I don't still have any but I will say I have very few left. But so much was done on my own, without other people, sometimes despite other people, because I knew what they were saying was wrong. I remember as a teenager hearing it said that "you should be able to do anything you like as long as it doesn't hurt other people". Even then I knew it was wrong but I didn't know why it was wrong, I now know that it's wrong because actions and ideas have consequences, I also know that it isn't possible to live and not to hurt people, it's not even possible to live and not hurt yourself.
I don't think I'm alone in coming to Conservatism by myself. I think many, maybe most come to it alone. They know they are hearing lies, they know that the world is not as it should be and they search for answers. It means that we aren't very good followers, if we were we wouldn't have gone looking for answers. We would have accepted what we were told but we didn't. The great irony is that we believe in collectivism but we are individuals.
Of course that also means that Liberals, who believe in individualism are collectivists, they follow the leader. I have always been amazed by how they know what is the latest "fashion" within Liberalism. How could they see it so quickly, but I guess it isn't hard when you follow the leader. Of course there isn't a Grand Master of Liberalism, there are many leaders in different fields, but it is these leaders who provide the next "fashion".
So how is Conservatism going to move forward if we cannot form groups, if we cannot put aside our individualistic nature? Or to put it another way how do we herd cats? If you've got any ideas I'd be very happy to hear them.
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
Another Article You Might Like?
The Paradox of the Autonomous Individual and the Expanding Government
Tuesday, 12 April 2016
The Thirty-Seventh Month
Welcome to this my 300th post!
This month has been no different on the roller-coaster ride that is blogging. Up and down with a few loop the loops along the way. I recently found out that that Mr. Mark Richardson of Oz Conservative is in the National Library of Australia Pandora Archive. What does that mean? It means that someone at the National Library of Australia has decided that his website is important enough to be archived and preserved for future generations, no matter what happens on the web. Currently it's a few months behind but they have archived everything up until December 2015, check it out: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/tep/64366
As for myself I had a small win, I found that one of my articles had been posted on a click bait site, although when you click on the link it comes to my site. http://beforeitsnews.com/r2/?url=http://uponhopeblog.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/feminism-and-rape-culture.html
Very nice!
This month has been right about average in terms of numbers, but where visitors are coming from is changing. My best day this month was the 22nd March when I had 104 visitors, my worst day was the 19th March when I had 31 visitors.
11th February-11th March
This month has been no different on the roller-coaster ride that is blogging. Up and down with a few loop the loops along the way. I recently found out that that Mr. Mark Richardson of Oz Conservative is in the National Library of Australia Pandora Archive. What does that mean? It means that someone at the National Library of Australia has decided that his website is important enough to be archived and preserved for future generations, no matter what happens on the web. Currently it's a few months behind but they have archived everything up until December 2015, check it out: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/tep/64366
As for myself I had a small win, I found that one of my articles had been posted on a click bait site, although when you click on the link it comes to my site. http://beforeitsnews.com/r2/?url=http://uponhopeblog.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/feminism-and-rape-culture.html
Very nice!
This month has been right about average in terms of numbers, but where visitors are coming from is changing. My best day this month was the 22nd March when I had 104 visitors, my worst day was the 19th March when I had 31 visitors.
11th February-11th March
Ireland is the only country that was in the top 10 last month that went up!
The United States has dropped, but the only reason it was so high last month was due to a link that had been posted to me. Sadly ever other country is also down, Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada and Russia.
Japan and Romania are back in the top 10 and the Netherlands and Brazil have left it..
I have also had visitors from the following countries: Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Ukraine, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Palestine, U.A.E., Pakistan, India, China, South Korea, Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Ethiopia, South Africa, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, Peru, Argentina
I hope to see you all again soon.
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Blog
Another Article You Might Like?
Saturday, 9 April 2016
Things I wish I had Written
Recently I have found some writing I have thought was very good, so good I wish I had written it.
I grew up listening to Marty Robbins and his great Western songs. In fact earlier this week I listened to his Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs album, that link goes to "They're hanging me tonight", a great tragic song if such things appeal to you as they do to me. But until tonight I never knew he had written a political song. How political? His record label refused to release the song, I should also point out that this song was recorded in 1966 when Marty Robbins was still making the Country and Western charts. Ohhh if your not a Lefty you really have to listen to this, fantastic!
Marty Robbins - Ain't I Right
Quadrant is an Australian monthly journal that has been going since the 1950's, It was originally published as part of a pushback against Communist publications in the West, it even received funding from the CIA during the Cold War. It is still published and you can buy it in Newsagents or order it if they do not have it in stock. It is a Classical Liberal/Right Liberal/Conservative hybrid, Intellectual but in the good old fashioned way. Here's the part I wish I had written:
Ideologies Have Consequences/
"Western progressives appear to approach external and internal politics with sharply different mindsets. International relations are viewed through the prism of "win-win". The idea is that hostile ideological regimes like the Islamic Republic of Iran or geopolitical adventurers like Vladimir Putin's Russia can be won over through negotiations, bribery and appeals to what the Western Left considers the "real" (that is, material) interests of the outlier regimes, premised on a global progressive view of the world. In this view, anti-democratic adversaries can be persuaded into abandoning their zero-sum approach to international politics and embracing the globalist "win-win" or non-zero-sum scenario, as Robert Wright (Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny) argued more than a decade ago.
On the other hand, the progressives view domestic politics as strictly a zero-sum game. Their opponents at home, Western conservatives, are often excoriated as racists, xenophobes and reactionary retrogrades. The current President of the United States and the leaders of, for example, the European Parliament and European Commission, appear to expend much more vitriol on Republicans and Eurospectics, respectively, then on the West's anti-democratic enemies. This hostility is often reciprocated, hence the increasing polarisation of Western politics"
Here's some from websites.
Is Lack of Play the Reason Kids are Depressed?
"Many of the older generation, in recalling their own carefree childhood play experiences, are quick to wish the same for their children and grandchildren.
But there is a major difference between those days and today. The older generations were able to play in their backyard and throughout the neighborhood because many of them had a parent at home. Not an overseeing, hovering parent ready to swoop in at the sign of a scratch, but an adult who encouraged children to get out of the house and was a responsible and wise resource in the event of real trouble. The few children who didn't have a parent at home could run with the herd and still be safe because the eyes of so many other parents were upon him.
It's all well and good to say that children need more freedom and opportunities to play, but can this really happen in a society where both parents go to work and bring home a paycheck?"
https://antidem.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/lion-and-ox/
"This, of course, runs up against two of the left's most anti-reality tendencies. The first is its consistent inability to comprehend the difference between the descriptive and the normative - between an "is" and an "ought". To the left, if something ought to be, then it is - or perhaps more specifically, if something must be true in order for their beliefs to be valid, then it is true, and questioning it will be placed beyond the pale. The second is their belief in the power that laws passed by governments have to restructure reality. They protest: "But we have passed laws to ensure equality! We have Supreme Court decisions! The law is clear!" Perhaps it is - but it is also meaningless in the face of implacable reality.
So here is some reality: You cannot pass a law that will make human beings equal. You can pass a law that will force everybody to act as if human beings are equal but that is not the same thing. The government could just as well pass a law forcing everybody to act as if unicorns existed, and enforce it with penalties so harsh that virtually nobody would be willing to speak up against it. In fact, you can go father. You could mandate teaching about unicorns at schools and universities, and indeed, you could even set up whole Departments of Unicorn Studies. You could make sure that films and television were careful to never question whether unicorms existed. You could get people kicked off of social networks for snickering at the idea of unicorns. You could make it so that those who dared to disbelieve in unicorns were fired from their jobs, blacklisted from entire professions, and rendered unable to make enough money to put food on the table for their children to eat.
You could do all of that, and it still won't make unicorns exist."
A great song and three very good thoughts I wish I had written, I hope you found them as enlightening as I did.
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
Another Article You Might Like?
Liberalism Versus Religion
I grew up listening to Marty Robbins and his great Western songs. In fact earlier this week I listened to his Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs album, that link goes to "They're hanging me tonight", a great tragic song if such things appeal to you as they do to me. But until tonight I never knew he had written a political song. How political? His record label refused to release the song, I should also point out that this song was recorded in 1966 when Marty Robbins was still making the Country and Western charts. Ohhh if your not a Lefty you really have to listen to this, fantastic!
Marty Robbins - Ain't I Right
Quadrant is an Australian monthly journal that has been going since the 1950's, It was originally published as part of a pushback against Communist publications in the West, it even received funding from the CIA during the Cold War. It is still published and you can buy it in Newsagents or order it if they do not have it in stock. It is a Classical Liberal/Right Liberal/Conservative hybrid, Intellectual but in the good old fashioned way. Here's the part I wish I had written:
Ideologies Have Consequences/
"Western progressives appear to approach external and internal politics with sharply different mindsets. International relations are viewed through the prism of "win-win". The idea is that hostile ideological regimes like the Islamic Republic of Iran or geopolitical adventurers like Vladimir Putin's Russia can be won over through negotiations, bribery and appeals to what the Western Left considers the "real" (that is, material) interests of the outlier regimes, premised on a global progressive view of the world. In this view, anti-democratic adversaries can be persuaded into abandoning their zero-sum approach to international politics and embracing the globalist "win-win" or non-zero-sum scenario, as Robert Wright (Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny) argued more than a decade ago.
On the other hand, the progressives view domestic politics as strictly a zero-sum game. Their opponents at home, Western conservatives, are often excoriated as racists, xenophobes and reactionary retrogrades. The current President of the United States and the leaders of, for example, the European Parliament and European Commission, appear to expend much more vitriol on Republicans and Eurospectics, respectively, then on the West's anti-democratic enemies. This hostility is often reciprocated, hence the increasing polarisation of Western politics"
Here's some from websites.
Is Lack of Play the Reason Kids are Depressed?
"Many of the older generation, in recalling their own carefree childhood play experiences, are quick to wish the same for their children and grandchildren.
But there is a major difference between those days and today. The older generations were able to play in their backyard and throughout the neighborhood because many of them had a parent at home. Not an overseeing, hovering parent ready to swoop in at the sign of a scratch, but an adult who encouraged children to get out of the house and was a responsible and wise resource in the event of real trouble. The few children who didn't have a parent at home could run with the herd and still be safe because the eyes of so many other parents were upon him.
It's all well and good to say that children need more freedom and opportunities to play, but can this really happen in a society where both parents go to work and bring home a paycheck?"
https://antidem.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/lion-and-ox/
"This, of course, runs up against two of the left's most anti-reality tendencies. The first is its consistent inability to comprehend the difference between the descriptive and the normative - between an "is" and an "ought". To the left, if something ought to be, then it is - or perhaps more specifically, if something must be true in order for their beliefs to be valid, then it is true, and questioning it will be placed beyond the pale. The second is their belief in the power that laws passed by governments have to restructure reality. They protest: "But we have passed laws to ensure equality! We have Supreme Court decisions! The law is clear!" Perhaps it is - but it is also meaningless in the face of implacable reality.
So here is some reality: You cannot pass a law that will make human beings equal. You can pass a law that will force everybody to act as if human beings are equal but that is not the same thing. The government could just as well pass a law forcing everybody to act as if unicorns existed, and enforce it with penalties so harsh that virtually nobody would be willing to speak up against it. In fact, you can go father. You could mandate teaching about unicorns at schools and universities, and indeed, you could even set up whole Departments of Unicorn Studies. You could make sure that films and television were careful to never question whether unicorms existed. You could get people kicked off of social networks for snickering at the idea of unicorns. You could make it so that those who dared to disbelieve in unicorns were fired from their jobs, blacklisted from entire professions, and rendered unable to make enough money to put food on the table for their children to eat.
You could do all of that, and it still won't make unicorns exist."
A great song and three very good thoughts I wish I had written, I hope you found them as enlightening as I did.
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
Another Article You Might Like?
Liberalism Versus Religion
Friday, 1 April 2016
Should We Call Ourselves Conservatives?
Of the five sites that I link to, 3 have expressed to me either a rejection or a reluctance to being called Conservative. The Author of Another Politically Incorrect Blog, calls himself Conservative from time to time but other times rejects the name, I think it is far to say he finds the term conflicting. Right Wing Fighter isn't conflicted he rejects the term and calls himself Right Wing. Over at Oz Conservative Mr. Richardson uses the term but he has in the past questioned it's usefulness. I think it is fair to say that Conservatism has acquired some baggage along the way.
The word Conservative originally meant to "to conserve" and it is in that meaning that the Frenchman Franois-Rene de Chateaubriand first used it in a political context in 1818. As an aside the word Liberal has been in use since the 1300's but only gained it's political meaning at around the same time as the word Conservative did. The original Liberals were those Spaniards who supported the Liberal Constitution of 1815, The political word Conservative comes from France but is not French, the political word Liberal comes from Spain but is not Spanish. Since that time the Western World has divided itself into Conservative and Liberal camps, although the meaning of the two terms has been anything but consistent.
Even today, while many other political philosophies exist, most people think in terms of the two sides, Conservatives on one side and Liberals on the other. It's why you get various meanings of the two words. In the 1800's Conservatives were Conservative, they believed in tradition, order and family, they were trying conserve. But due to Liberalism's need to constantly change what tended to happen was Liberals who had gone so far but could no longer believe in going any further went over to the other side, and started to call themselves and believe themselves, to be Conservatives. Over time young people grew up with a more Liberal society and saw that society as the one they had to conserve. Both of which diluted the idea's of tradition, order and family.
In the Twentieth Century both of those trends continued, even accelerated. The Conservatives became more and more Liberal. They even took up Classical Liberal economic ideas and started to call it Conservative!
Today we are left with every Right of Centre party calling itself Conservative, and most of them believe that they are. The media calls them Conservatives, even their enemies think they are Conservatives, in a way it is quite bizarre.
So is the term Conservative still useful?
I believe that it is and here's why. First of all we need a name, you cannot go around without a name because over time someone else will give you a name and then your stuck. Secondly it's a name everyone knows, sure it has it's baggage but it is still respectable (I'll come back to this point). Thirdly it still has it's original meaning, to conserve.
The real problem with the term Conservative is that it's too broad and it has picked up too many meanings. That can be fixed by attacking Liberalism, when Liberals call themselves Conservatives point out why they are Liberals. When Liberal policies are called Conservative point out how they are really Liberal policies. The British Conservative Party legalised Homosexual marriage because it supports the family. Conservative? No of course it isn't, you cannot defend the family by redefining it, you cannot defend marriage by redefining it. The policy is Liberalism supported by Liberals, no real Conservative would ever support it, this is the type of thing that needs to be pointed out and attacked. Just because it is now law does not mean it is anymore worthy than it was before. The policy is not tradition, therefore it is not Conservative. The policy is not order, you cannot refine order as that is the road to chaos, therefore it is not Conservative. The policy is not Family because you not defend the family by redefining it, therefore it is not Conservative.
One mistake people make is to think that as we support tradition then we support every tradition, we support everything that has happened in the whole of history. Of course we do not, supporting tradition means supporting the best traditions not the worst, it means supporting the natural order of things, not inventing "better" ways, artificial ways.
If we did change our name what would it be, Alternative-Right, Neoreactionary, Manosphereian or some other term? The truth is that they have their own baggage, as is only natural, to try to invent a name with no baggage is to invent something no one objects to. If you invent a political name or philosophy that no one objects to then we will all start calling you the God-Emperor of the Universe, because that is what you would be. Sadly I do not see that happening for you or for anyone else.
Conservatism is still respectable and unlike Liberalism it will remain respectable. Liberalism keeps changing it's name, one decade it's Progressive, the next it's Liberal and on it goes, why? Because it uses up it's good name and goes searching for a new one. That has happened to Conservatism as well, when Liberals reject any further Liberalism they call themselves Conservatives, why? Because we are still respectable, for all of Conservatism's up's and downs we are still respectable after two centuries. Liberalism cannot say that.
Further to that point is that if we did change our name we would not escape. They would still accuse us of everything that they do now, their deserters would still try to join our ranks and dilute it. We could call ourselves anything we wanted, we could call ourselves the Insane Clown Posse, we could call ourselves Rapist-Murders and in 50 years time we would have Liberals claiming that they are the real Rapist-Murders and that we should stop calling ourselves that as we are destroying their good name. And what would we do then? Start a completely new name or pley the Liberal game and go back to the old one?
If you believe in tradition, order and family your a Conservative, get used to it.
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
Another Article You Might Like?
The Stock Market
The word Conservative originally meant to "to conserve" and it is in that meaning that the Frenchman Franois-Rene de Chateaubriand first used it in a political context in 1818. As an aside the word Liberal has been in use since the 1300's but only gained it's political meaning at around the same time as the word Conservative did. The original Liberals were those Spaniards who supported the Liberal Constitution of 1815, The political word Conservative comes from France but is not French, the political word Liberal comes from Spain but is not Spanish. Since that time the Western World has divided itself into Conservative and Liberal camps, although the meaning of the two terms has been anything but consistent.
Even today, while many other political philosophies exist, most people think in terms of the two sides, Conservatives on one side and Liberals on the other. It's why you get various meanings of the two words. In the 1800's Conservatives were Conservative, they believed in tradition, order and family, they were trying conserve. But due to Liberalism's need to constantly change what tended to happen was Liberals who had gone so far but could no longer believe in going any further went over to the other side, and started to call themselves and believe themselves, to be Conservatives. Over time young people grew up with a more Liberal society and saw that society as the one they had to conserve. Both of which diluted the idea's of tradition, order and family.
In the Twentieth Century both of those trends continued, even accelerated. The Conservatives became more and more Liberal. They even took up Classical Liberal economic ideas and started to call it Conservative!
Today we are left with every Right of Centre party calling itself Conservative, and most of them believe that they are. The media calls them Conservatives, even their enemies think they are Conservatives, in a way it is quite bizarre.
So is the term Conservative still useful?
I believe that it is and here's why. First of all we need a name, you cannot go around without a name because over time someone else will give you a name and then your stuck. Secondly it's a name everyone knows, sure it has it's baggage but it is still respectable (I'll come back to this point). Thirdly it still has it's original meaning, to conserve.
The real problem with the term Conservative is that it's too broad and it has picked up too many meanings. That can be fixed by attacking Liberalism, when Liberals call themselves Conservatives point out why they are Liberals. When Liberal policies are called Conservative point out how they are really Liberal policies. The British Conservative Party legalised Homosexual marriage because it supports the family. Conservative? No of course it isn't, you cannot defend the family by redefining it, you cannot defend marriage by redefining it. The policy is Liberalism supported by Liberals, no real Conservative would ever support it, this is the type of thing that needs to be pointed out and attacked. Just because it is now law does not mean it is anymore worthy than it was before. The policy is not tradition, therefore it is not Conservative. The policy is not order, you cannot refine order as that is the road to chaos, therefore it is not Conservative. The policy is not Family because you not defend the family by redefining it, therefore it is not Conservative.
One mistake people make is to think that as we support tradition then we support every tradition, we support everything that has happened in the whole of history. Of course we do not, supporting tradition means supporting the best traditions not the worst, it means supporting the natural order of things, not inventing "better" ways, artificial ways.
If we did change our name what would it be, Alternative-Right, Neoreactionary, Manosphereian or some other term? The truth is that they have their own baggage, as is only natural, to try to invent a name with no baggage is to invent something no one objects to. If you invent a political name or philosophy that no one objects to then we will all start calling you the God-Emperor of the Universe, because that is what you would be. Sadly I do not see that happening for you or for anyone else.
Conservatism is still respectable and unlike Liberalism it will remain respectable. Liberalism keeps changing it's name, one decade it's Progressive, the next it's Liberal and on it goes, why? Because it uses up it's good name and goes searching for a new one. That has happened to Conservatism as well, when Liberals reject any further Liberalism they call themselves Conservatives, why? Because we are still respectable, for all of Conservatism's up's and downs we are still respectable after two centuries. Liberalism cannot say that.
Further to that point is that if we did change our name we would not escape. They would still accuse us of everything that they do now, their deserters would still try to join our ranks and dilute it. We could call ourselves anything we wanted, we could call ourselves the Insane Clown Posse, we could call ourselves Rapist-Murders and in 50 years time we would have Liberals claiming that they are the real Rapist-Murders and that we should stop calling ourselves that as we are destroying their good name. And what would we do then? Start a completely new name or pley the Liberal game and go back to the old one?
If you believe in tradition, order and family your a Conservative, get used to it.
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
Another Article You Might Like?
The Stock Market
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)