What is a Conservative? by johnlance on Blogster

There was a time that Conservative meant the powers that be who controlled our nation. Their views were self centered and meant to perpetuate power. This definition has prevailed for many years. Conservative also carried with it bad connotations such as racists, narrow minded, and many other such adjectives. They were made to appear as ogres to the common man, the enemy of the working man, anti union, etc etc.
Liberals were regarded as "pinko's" lefties, bleeding hearts, communists etc.

All of these stereotypes are wrong. The fact is that Sloan Kettering founded by one of the Conservative Titans of Wealth gave to all of us the world over the great institution for the treatment and research of cancer. Ford, Rockefeller, and men like them also have contributed to the relief of suffering and have supported all kinds of learning institutions. Yes they all were conservative and yes they did wrong to the little guy and yes I can go on and on as to the bad. All of us have good and bad as part of our natures. It is the balance that counts. If bad out weighs the good you have a Hitler, and men of his ilk who dedicated their lives to the destruction of others. The master race concept has been known throughout our History. Hitler did not invent it. The basic thing is whether you are a conservative or a liberal if you do the right thing you benefit yourself as well as your fellow human beings. People who close their minds lose an awful lot. You do not have to agree with the person who has views different than yours, but by listening you can learn.
I sometimes wonder what ever happened to the Arab peoples that in our time they have destroyed everything that was good and admired in their culture. I am continuously amazed at the fact that highly intelligent Muslims do not see that looking to fight with America, to destroy Israel is inimical to their development. It is sad indeed. They could have developed into the most enlightened people and developed the middle east into a Mecca of the World. Instead they went crazy Greed has overpowered them to the extent they are blind.
What has this statement got to do with "Conservatism"? It is the Conservative movement of the Muslims to go back to the law of Shia and live under rules that have been demonstrated to retard growth and development of a people.
Secular Muslims are regarded by those fanatics as "Liberals" You see there should not be such distinctions. People should strive to make their lives better without killing others to do it. There is so much that can be done in this life and world that need be done without War. Yes I am an optimist and I regard myself as conservative with a humanistic bent.

7 comments on What is a Conservative?

centurion said 1 years ago
An informed perspective.
Catidogi said 1 years ago
Good, constructive thinking...
johnlance said 1 years ago
I get the feeling from reading your blog and referenced site that you are Arab and Anti Semitic. You are to be pitied if that is so. This Jewish thing is really crazy. You believe in Islam and you do not know that your religion stems from the "Jews" along with all Christians of whatever denomination they are. An enlightened person can not sit and dwell in the feces of racism or antisemitism.
Catidogi said 1 years ago
I am a Jewish Israeli. My Arab and Bedouin friends are like most people everywhere. I present writers with a Muslim point of view, because the first exchange between east and west should not be war.
For the most part, the western and eastern media are propaganda shills for their respective governments. Consequently, there is much misunderstanding among the parties.
Ancient1 said 1 years ago
A good post. Although, your definition of a conservative does seem to be from an old-time liberal's perspective. No offense intended. May I offer this for contrast. Beginning in the 1960s, liberalism, once the home of many deep thinkers, began to substitute feeling for thought and descended into superficiality. One-word put-downs of opponents' ideas and motives were substituted for thoughtful rebuttal. Though liberals regard themselves as intellectual—their views, after all, are those of nearly all university professors—liberal thought has almost died. Instead of feeling the need to thoughtfully consider an idea, most liberal minds today work on automatic. One-word reactions to most issues are the liberal norm... Here is a list of terms liberals apply to virtually every idea or action with which they differ: Racist, Sexist, Homophobic, Islamophobic, Imperialist, Bigoted, Intolerant. And here is the list of one-word descriptions of what liberals are for: Peace, Fairness, Tolerance, The poor, The disenfranchised, The environment. These two lists serve contemporary liberals in at least three ways. First, they attack the motives of non-liberals and thereby morally dismiss the non-liberal person. Second, these words make it easy to be a liberal—essentially all one needs to do is to memorize this brief list and apply the right term to any idea or policy... Third, they make the liberal feel good about himself—by opposing conservative ideas and policies, he is automatically opposing racism, bigotry, imperialism, etc.

Over thw last fifty years both parties have moved left. Today's republican party is far more liberal than the democrats of the 1960s. It is very hard to find a successful conservative politician these days and I submit to you that the country is suffering because of that condition. I do believe the bad you pointed to early in your post was not an element of conservatism, but of the men that claimed to be conservatives.
johnlance said 1 years ago
I read your blog. Interestingly you quote my favorite man, Benjamin Franklin. He is my hero a true genius of all time. Did he believe in God? I have read many articles and books about Franklin. One of them mentioned the fact that it was believed that Franklin while in France indulged in a "Cult" believed to be devil worship. I was shocked when I read this and so decided to do some more reading on it. It does appear that he was a close friend of a notorious woman who belonged to this cult and it seems that there are credible accounts of his having been attendant to their rituals. They were known for their sex orgies and complete debauchery. I have not found any real smoking gun evidence that he was in fact a member of same. However if you read his other writings you get a feeling that he believed in a power of being but not in religion as we take it. It was the one unclear area of his life. He was loved by many women and no doubt had many affairs while he was in France no matter the fact that he was considered "Old". There may be smoke on the stack but it shows a fire in the Hearth. Now to your comments about conservatism. I believe that if one keeps a closed mind by using downing words to describe the others view it does nothing to move us forward. I am a man of action. Have been so all my life. Its a waste of time calling the other fellow names when by listening you get a better idea as to what needs to be done. Both sides, Liberal and Conservative do have intelligent people and both do offer good answers to problems. I do not agree that government intervention and monies is always the answer to a problem. Sometimes right thinking men and women can see what harm is being done and correct it by doing the right thing. I am not saying this without concrete evidence. Remember the fellow who made millions of dollars manufacturing a product (certain carpet material) and found that it was harmful and dangerous to people?) He was all over the T.V. because he came out against it and even though it cost him millions of dollars he stopped using it. He did not wait for lawyers to act as his conscience. Remember Ford and the Ford Pinto? The Ford people were told by their engineers that a hit in the rear even a light hit would cause the gas tank to explode and people would burn to death. Ford went to its accounting department and asked them how much it would cost in lawsuits to pay out to the dead families in the event they were sued as compared with the cost of recalling all the cars they produced to correct this condition. The accounting department said it was cheaper to pay off the families of the dead and the pay for the terrible burn injuries they anticipated by people than to do the recall. Of course it was the legal profession who did the job. Ford was sued, fined etc etc and paid out many millions of dollars. That thinking and attitude is what "Liberals" point to. This is the stuff that gives them such ammunition. Now are they right or wrong? I believe you would agree with me that had those guys at Ford been good Christians they would have said, its wrong to think this way. To bring him to God's children. Nope lets do a recall. Did they think that way? No sir. It was the bottom line and that is why my friend you have these issues. I believe that CEO"s are intelligent people and I also believe that some lose it somewhere down the line in the absolute pursuit of the bottom line. Do you agree? Sometimes doing the right thing is costly. Take my other hero Ike Eisenhauer who warned all Americans of the Military Industrial Complex. Should we call Ike a liberal? Of course not. He was my ideal of a "conservative man"
johnlance said 1 years ago
My goal is to be looking at the facts only without too much emotion and to avoid name calling downing those whose views differ from mine. They may be right and I wrong. I confess to being human. Yes some "liberals" have closed minds just like some " conservatives" but if you get reasoning intelligent men you can appeal to intellect and they may come around to see your point and even agree. It is very hard for anyone to admit they were wrong. Unfortunately this fact has caused us great problems as a country because those higher ups in the Law enforcement area have made great errors causing innocent men and women to be in prison and their judgments so corrupted as to result in actual loss of life (September 11, 2001) It is only when Congress got off its a s and enacted some law making all the agencies cooperate with each other that we have a partial solution to a long standing problem. Keep up the good work ancient 1.