Social 'Conservatives' Are Not Real Conservatives
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Schiff for Senate
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« on: July 08, 2022, 04:44:55 PM »

Quite frankly, I believe religious/social 'conservatism' is contradictory to the conservative principle of small government and a strict reading of the Constitution. Barry Goldwater, today probably considered more of a libertarian, was more of a conservative than the moralists who run the Republican Party today, who claim to be fighters for small government but simultaneously favour a government that interferes in the bedrooms of America and comes between doctors and their patients (abortion, but also the Terri Schiavo incident). Their support for small government only applies insofar as to support tax breaks for the rich and a weaker safety net for the bottom 99%. When it comes to social issues, though, they're more than happy to impose the will and the moral agenda of the religious right. That is authoritarian and quite the opposite of small government. Where in the Constitution is the government granted the power to ban gay marriage, or to ban abortion? Yet, no small number of religious 'conservatives' favour both those things. Barry Goldwater was right. Real conservatives support a small government that does not go any further than it needs to - both economically, but ALSO socially. That means supporting (or rather, not opposing or supporting the banning of) gay marriage even no matter how strongly you personally disagree with it, allowing abortion (some limits might be fine, but most certainly not the outright bans many red states are implementing) no matter how strongly you personally disagree with it, and allowing even euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide no matter how strongly you personally disagree with it. That is genuine conservatism, not supporting an authoritarian government when it forces others to adhere to your morals, your principles, your moral code.
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« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2022, 05:07:00 PM »
« Edited: July 08, 2022, 05:15:47 PM by Old School Republican »

And social conservatives would make the same argument in reverse that policies that break up traditional norms due to pro growth policies  are not conservative either . Anyway this is all semantics as everyone knows that what is defined as a conservative here is a coalition of different types of conservatives and not a single brand of it and all 3 contradict each other in some ways and did even in the “3 legged stool” era of Conservatism .

Economic Conservatives: They are for low taxes , less regulation, less spending , generally pro business policies and also “small government”.

National Security Conservatives: They are for maintaining  American Hegemony which means a strong national defense , tougher stance against adversaries , and intervening to promote our interests and to shape the world in our image

Social conservatives: They are for promoting traditional “family values and norms” , are very religious etc


So yes all have naturally contradictory beliefs .

Economic and National Security: Flies right into the fact of economic conservatives that spending should be cut and visa versa

Economic and Social Conservatives: Can contradict small government belief of economic conservatives and promoting traditional values of social conservatives

National Security and Social : Many times goals of nationals security conservatives can push other nations to become more socially liberal.


The job of a political party is to put all these things together and what the GOP generally has done is by choosing the ones that contradict the least from each and dropping the others. So what each has chosen is:


Economic Conservatives: Low Taxes and Less Regulations

National Security Conservatives: More Military Spending and tougher stance against adversaries(Of course what the main adversary is has also changed with time)

Social Conservatives: Anti Abortion and defending norms that have at least 40% support from the nation.
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« Reply #2 on: July 08, 2022, 05:10:24 PM »

Also citing Barry Goldwater is lol given the guy was very much in support of Federalism and generally was not a fan of the Federal Government getting involved in social policy even if it was a law he would support.

Like I am sure Goldwater would be pro choice but pro Dobbs at the same time
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« Reply #3 on: July 08, 2022, 05:37:11 PM »

"Small government" is not real conservatism. And even if it was, you'd still hate it. You are describing liberalism.
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Associate Justice PiT
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« Reply #4 on: July 08, 2022, 05:52:41 PM »

     I find the concept that the core of conservatism is restriction of government puzzling, because it leads to the conclusion (which you reason out but don't explicitly acknowledge) that proper conservatism is not meaningfully different from libertarianism, lacking any ability to push back against progressive ideas or aim to conserve anything through the political system. You say that "real conservatives support a small government that does not go any further than it needs to", but as far as government needs to go is an entirely arbitrary and subjective measure.

     Even if we grant that conservatism in its proper state is just libertarianism by a different name, it is worth noting that one of the biggest internal debates in libertarianism is abortion. The reason for this is simple; if abortion really is murder then it is the most clearly justified exercise of government power imaginable. Likewise religious conservatives oppose euthanasia because we believe that killing an innocent person is murder per se, regardless of the circumstances that surround it.

     With that said, I can tell that your response will be that that is my moral code and I am not a real conservative if I want to force it on others. The problem there is that literally every law consists in forcing a moral code on others who may disagree with it, and the concept of any law doing otherwise is an absurdity that is founded in the conceit of assuming that the prevailing morality of the society today is a representation of neutral reality and any departure from that is a moral opinion that seeks to be forced on to others. To genuinely believe this would be a baseless "I agree with the majority", the very antithesis of actually having beliefs and principles. Discarding that notion, if we suppose that forcing morals on others is not genuine conservatism, then the only ideology that could be considered compatible with genuine conservatism is anarchism.
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Schiff for Senate
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« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2022, 04:31:20 PM »

     I find the concept that the core of conservatism is restriction of government puzzling, because it leads to the conclusion (which you reason out but don't explicitly acknowledge) that proper conservatism is not meaningfully different from libertarianism, lacking any ability to push back against progressive ideas or aim to conserve anything through the political system. You say that "real conservatives support a small government that does not go any further than it needs to", but as far as government needs to go is an entirely arbitrary and subjective measure.

     Even if we grant that conservatism in its proper state is just libertarianism by a different name, it is worth noting that one of the biggest internal debates in libertarianism is abortion. The reason for this is simple; if abortion really is murder then it is the most clearly justified exercise of government power imaginable. Likewise religious conservatives oppose euthanasia because we believe that killing an innocent person is murder per se, regardless of the circumstances that surround it.

     With that said, I can tell that your response will be that that is my moral code and I am not a real conservative if I want to force it on others. The problem there is that literally every law consists in forcing a moral code on others who may disagree with it, and the concept of any law doing otherwise is an absurdity that is founded in the conceit of assuming that the prevailing morality of the society today is a representation of neutral reality and any departure from that is a moral opinion that seeks to be forced on to others. To genuinely believe this would be a baseless "I agree with the majority", the very antithesis of actually having beliefs and principles. Discarding that notion, if we suppose that forcing morals on others is not genuine conservatism, then the only ideology that could be considered compatible with genuine conservatism is anarchism.



"Small government" is not real conservatism. And even if it was, you'd still hate it. You are describing liberalism.

Yeah, you're not the only one who's said that 'small government' is more classic liberalism than conservatism. I guess, as OSR also said, it's semantics.

And social conservatives would make the same argument in reverse that policies that break up traditional norms due to pro growth policies  are not conservative either . Anyway this is all semantics as everyone knows that what is defined as a conservative here is a coalition of different types of conservatives and not a single brand of it and all 3 contradict each other in some ways and did even in the “3 legged stool” era of Conservatism .

Economic Conservatives: They are for low taxes , less regulation, less spending , generally pro business policies and also “small government”.

National Security Conservatives: They are for maintaining  American Hegemony which means a strong national defense , tougher stance against adversaries , and intervening to promote our interests and to shape the world in our image

Social conservatives: They are for promoting traditional “family values and norms” , are very religious etc


So yes all have naturally contradictory beliefs .

Economic and National Security: Flies right into the fact of economic conservatives that spending should be cut and visa versa

Economic and Social Conservatives: Can contradict small government belief of economic conservatives and promoting traditional values of social conservatives

National Security and Social : Many times goals of nationals security conservatives can push other nations to become more socially liberal.


The job of a political party is to put all these things together and what the GOP generally has done is by choosing the ones that contradict the least from each and dropping the others. So what each has chosen is:


Economic Conservatives: Low Taxes and Less Regulations

National Security Conservatives: More Military Spending and tougher stance against adversaries(Of course what the main adversary is has also changed with time)

Social Conservatives: Anti Abortion and defending norms that have at least 40% support from the nation.


My main point is that you hear the GOP hark about smaller, less authoritarian government while at the same time supporting laws brutally attacking the LGBT and a woman's right to choose, complain about the deficit while at the same time supporting big tax cuts for the rich and a bloated military industrial-complex. It's hypocrisy and self-contradictory. However, my mistake, it appears, was in assuming that conservatism necessarily equals a smaller government (economic conservatism) rather than supporting tradition and norms (social conservatism). But I nonetheless get what you're saying - it's about coalitions and balancing the different interests and priorities of the 3 types of 'conservatives' (in quotation marks because they have different meanings and do run contrary to each other in many ways...and because you have war hawks and deficit hawks and religious right-wingers all claim to be the real conservatives).

Also citing Barry Goldwater is lol given the guy was very much in support of Federalism and generally was not a fan of the Federal Government getting involved in social policy even if it was a law he would support.

Like I am sure Goldwater would be pro choice but pro Dobbs at the same time

Interesting. I thought about it more in terms of how he was socially libertarian and how he was against the religious right, and would probably oppose, say, DOMA and the Federal Marriage Amendment. I didn't really consider the other side of the coin, and your point is interesting - the same way he'd oppose a federal law restricting SSM, he'd probably oppose a federal law allowing it too (and thus oppose Obergefell) and would favour it going to the states, and the same for abortion (so although he'd oppose any law that sought to ban abortion on a national level, he'd oppose something allowing it nationally too, and though he might personally disagree with AL-type laws banning abortion altogether, he'd still support states choosing abortion laws rather than the nation).

     I find the concept that the core of conservatism is restriction of government puzzling, because it leads to the conclusion (which you reason out but don't explicitly acknowledge) that proper conservatism is not meaningfully different from libertarianism, lacking any ability to push back against progressive ideas or aim to conserve anything through the political system. You say that "real conservatives support a small government that does not go any further than it needs to", but as far as government needs to go is an entirely arbitrary and subjective measure.

     Even if we grant that conservatism in its proper state is just libertarianism by a different name, it is worth noting that one of the biggest internal debates in libertarianism is abortion. The reason for this is simple; if abortion really is murder then it is the most clearly justified exercise of government power imaginable. Likewise religious conservatives oppose euthanasia because we believe that killing an innocent person is murder per se, regardless of the circumstances that surround it.

     With that said, I can tell that your response will be that that is my moral code and I am not a real conservative if I want to force it on others. The problem there is that literally every law consists in forcing a moral code on others who may disagree with it, and the concept of any law doing otherwise is an absurdity that is founded in the conceit of assuming that the prevailing morality of the society today is a representation of neutral reality and any departure from that is a moral opinion that seeks to be forced on to others. To genuinely believe this would be a baseless "I agree with the majority", the very antithesis of actually having beliefs and principles. Discarding that notion, if we suppose that forcing morals on others is not genuine conservatism, then the only ideology that could be considered compatible with genuine conservatism is anarchism.

You are correct. Again, I suppose I was thinking of and defining 'conservative' in a way that's apparently not as common as I thought it was. I did consider conservatism to be quite similar to libertarianism. So you're right, and if I didn't say it explicitly until now, yes, I was under the impression that 'true conservatism' (itself a very subjective phrase that, as you and OSR touched upon, different people define differently) would function very similarly to libertarianism, and that the ideals of 'true conservatism' would be more conducive to the Libertarians than to the Republicans.

To the next paragraph, what you said about abortion is indeed true. It is why I'm not altogether unsympathetic to the radically pro-life argument, because if you do think fetuses are babies or unborn babies, and consider abortion baby murder or infanticide, you'd naturally consider that (even as someone who's really quite libertarian) to be a place for the government to intervene in. With that said, I think euthanasia (and doctor-assisted suicide) really isn't murder if the patient in question has a 'living will' or can otherwise ascertain that they do, in fact, not want to live anymore and want to be euthanised.

To that third one, very interesting. I tend to consider forcing your moral code upon others limited almost always to social issues such as abortion and LGBT issues and euthanasia and the death penalty. But it is true that in a way, all public policy consists of some moral code being enforced - for instance, supporting any war or defence spending could be said to be inflicting the moral code of non-pacifists and war-hawks upon pacifists (who'd oppose it), and taxing anybody would go agains the moral code of those who principally oppose all taxation.


Anyway, thank you for this discussion. I can say that what you three said has evolved my opinion on this and made me think of it in a different, more nuanced, perceptive.
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« Reply #6 on: July 11, 2022, 05:29:37 PM »

You are correct insofar as "conservative" politicians themselves willing conflated their ideology with limited government. But this is as much a case of them failing to be properly conservative as it is them failing to be in favor of limited government. That said, the failure of the two concepts to properly align has been evident for almost as long as the lie itself has been alive.
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« Reply #7 on: July 11, 2022, 05:56:05 PM »


1. Yes keep in mind that in a country like ours it’s impossible to really have one totally coherent ideology as no single wing of either conservatism or liberalism would have majority support so both conservatism and liberalism have to be coalitions here .

- While some might argue why economic conservatives didn’t ally with social liberals and the key is both social liberals  and economic progressives both believe that the government should implement policies to lead to “equality” while both social and economic conservatives fundamentally disagree with that .
 
- while some may try to argue the Rockefeller republicans disprove this point , keep in mind that Rockefeller Republicans were still to the left of Reaganite Republicans on economic issues as well


2. Yah Goldwater was a committed Federalist through and through, which is why I would say he was one of the few people who voted against the CRA based on principle reasons without being a racist .

3. Keep in mind that slogans or catch phrases like “small government” , “pro life” , “pro choice” , “pro worker” are all actually meaningless slogans that have all been marketed tested to advertise their policy Postion as favorably as possible .

This will only get worse as technological advancements also make these types of market testing easier to do
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« Reply #8 on: July 12, 2022, 10:48:35 PM »

To the next paragraph, what you said about abortion is indeed true. It is why I'm not altogether unsympathetic to the radically pro-life argument, because if you do think fetuses are babies or unborn babies, and consider abortion baby murder or infanticide, you'd naturally consider that (even as someone who's really quite libertarian) to be a place for the government to intervene in. With that said, I think euthanasia (and doctor-assisted suicide) really isn't murder if the patient in question has a 'living will' or can otherwise ascertain that they do, in fact, not want to live anymore and want to be euthanised.

     The objection to euthanasia is a bit more tricky to understand in the modern context, but I ground my view in the concept that people have inherent dignity that is inviolable, even by consensual actions. It's also why I lean opposed to the death penalty; many Christian conservatives are comfortable with saying that murderers have forfeited their right to life, but the concept of making that judgment call bothers me.

Quote
To that third one, very interesting. I tend to consider forcing your moral code upon others limited almost always to social issues such as abortion and LGBT issues and euthanasia and the death penalty. But it is true that in a way, all public policy consists of some moral code being enforced - for instance, supporting any war or defence spending could be said to be inflicting the moral code of non-pacifists and war-hawks upon pacifists (who'd oppose it), and taxing anybody would go agains the moral code of those who principally oppose all taxation.

     It's a very common category error that most people make; we only consider positions that most people find contentious when it comes to "forcing a morality". Fact is that objectivists have a morality forced on them by welfare programs. Sovereign citizens have a morality forced on them by driver's licenses. We accept causing these minority groups some discomfort and forcing a moral code on them because we believe that these policies should exist. Likewise, I am willing to cause pro-choice people some discomfort because I believe abortion should be illegal.

Quote
Anyway, thank you for this discussion. I can say that what you three said has evolved my opinion on this and made me think of it in a different, more nuanced, perceptive.

     Happy to hear it. I hadn't put that much effort in a post on Atlas in a very long time, because I find that most people are set in their ways and pretty much just want to push a set of talking points. I'm glad to hear that my effort in this thread was worth it and my post helped you see the topic in a different light.
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« Reply #9 on: July 13, 2022, 03:15:51 AM »

With that said, I can tell that your response will be that that is my moral code and I am not a real conservative if I want to force it on others. The problem there is that literally every law consists in forcing a moral code on others who may disagree with it, and the concept of any law doing otherwise is an absurdity that is founded in the conceit of assuming that the prevailing morality of the society today is a representation of neutral reality and any departure from that is a moral opinion that seeks to be forced on to others. To genuinely believe this would be a baseless "I agree with the majority", the very antithesis of actually having beliefs and principles. Discarding that notion, if we suppose that forcing morals on others is not genuine conservatism, then the only ideology that could be considered compatible with genuine conservatism is anarchism.

Except your (religious) moral code is not a neutral reality. And it's only socially conservative by extension not a priori. The counter morality to it, imparted as it is by broader social consent, has a stronger basis in neutrality.
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« Reply #10 on: July 13, 2022, 03:27:20 PM »

Quoting that message I sent to you in a PM on the same day you posted this thread -



In truth, it is a pretty uniquely American concept for conservatism to be synonymous with small government, and there's nothing inherently nor literally "conservative" about a government which refuses to interfere in the marketplace or refuses make efforts to preserve public morality/tradition.
There's a reason that hard-core free marketers are referred to as liberals in countries around the world. For me, social conservatism is what I consider to be true conservatism - an ideology dedicated to preserving the traditions and morality which sustain the country and lead to a cohesive society. This is of course, not a rejection of change, in and of itself, but rather an endorsement of the Burkean approach to history; recognizing that all we have - our rights, legal traditions, morality, etc have been passed along and fine tuned over generations and there is reason to, at least, give a fair hearing to that which has been passed down.

It is that very adherence to tradition that makes me skeptical and often fiercely opposed to a lot of radical political change, whether of the revolutionary or reactionary sort. It's one of the main reasons I'm so opposed to Trump and his machinations to destroy American democracy - our system works and has worked for two and a half centuries and was designed to prevent the rise of men like him.
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« Reply #11 on: July 13, 2022, 04:18:05 PM »

Since the post-Civil War industrial boom, there has always been a faction in America--allied with Republicans at several points--that strongly believed that the affairs of business should be left to business, and that the results of free economic activity were more or less just. However, this was not necessarily tied to other ideas of freedom of the body or social/legal equality.

It is important to note some currents of the post-New Deal Era. This was a time in which (a) conservatism came more and more to use the language of libertarianism, and (b) an era in which libertarianism itself started to become a discrete concept in American politics (the party was founded in 1971 after disappointments with the Nixon administration). Not coincidentally, the 1950s to the 1970s was a also period in which the federal government attempted to assert itself against the affairs of states and private business in a variety of areas--particularly in the realms of civil rights and racial equality. The ground was, as such, fertile for the rallying of the provinces against "big government liberalism" in the name of "small government conservatism" in a way that had very little to do with the typical definition of human freedom.

You see a similar confluence of right-wingers and libertarians on other social issues even today. Despite being pro-choice and in favor of ending drug criminalization, libertarians are not social liberals. They reject state-enforced equality.
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« Reply #12 on: July 16, 2022, 08:07:14 PM »

With that said, I can tell that your response will be that that is my moral code and I am not a real conservative if I want to force it on others. The problem there is that literally every law consists in forcing a moral code on others who may disagree with it, and the concept of any law doing otherwise is an absurdity that is founded in the conceit of assuming that the prevailing morality of the society today is a representation of neutral reality and any departure from that is a moral opinion that seeks to be forced on to others. To genuinely believe this would be a baseless "I agree with the majority", the very antithesis of actually having beliefs and principles. Discarding that notion, if we suppose that forcing morals on others is not genuine conservatism, then the only ideology that could be considered compatible with genuine conservatism is anarchism.

Except your (religious) moral code is not a neutral reality. And it's only socially conservative by extension not a priori. The counter morality to it, imparted as it is by broader social consent, has a stronger basis in neutrality.

     Did I suggest that it was a neutral reality? My point is that the concept of making laws that are morally neutral is absurd and fundamentally grounded in a basic cognitive error about what morality is.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #13 on: July 16, 2022, 09:23:54 PM »

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/PCom/?20120213-0

Buckle up, its long.
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« Reply #14 on: July 16, 2022, 09:40:41 PM »

Conservatism is not defined by smaller government. The root of conservatism is fear of human nature or human impulse and the desire to reign it in before it does harm. This is why conservatism can manifest in favor of either smaller or larger government in a given context. This is why conservatism of the Federalists in the 1790s favored larger government and more government power, and those of the late 20the century favored less.

Burke spoke of the danger of tyranny from above and from below when discussing the French revolution and justified the American and Glorious Revolutions on the grounds that they were a preservation of legal tradition and also fighting against governmental tyranny, while at the same time opposition to France's revolution was born of opposition to mob rule, "rule by men instead of rule by law" and the fear of the tyranny that such a system would lead to in government if allowed to exercise power. Burke also predicted France's descent into dictatorship following this tumult.

The embrace of small government by Conservatives, is a reaction to the New Deal and Progressive eras and it is a marriage of convenience with classical liberalism in opposition to a common enemy. However, as I stated in this lengthy post , conservativism doesn't have a broad natural base and thus is always working to peel off various groups from the other side and the embrace of such economic neo/classical liberalism is an example of this in action.
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Schiff for Senate
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« Reply #15 on: July 18, 2022, 05:27:07 PM »

Conservatism is not defined by smaller government. The root of conservatism is fear of human nature or human impulse and the desire to reign it in before it does harm. This is why conservatism can manifest in favor of either smaller or larger government in a given context. This is why conservatism of the Federalists in the 1790s favored larger government and more government power, and those of the late 20the century favored less.

Burke spoke of the danger of tyranny from above and from below when discussing the French revolution and justified the American and Glorious Revolutions on the grounds that they were a preservation of legal tradition and also fighting against governmental tyranny, while at the same time opposition to France's revolution was born of opposition to mob rule, "rule by men instead of rule by law" and the fear of the tyranny that such a system would lead to in government if allowed to exercise power. Burke also predicted France's descent into dictatorship following this tumult.

The embrace of small government by Conservatives, is a reaction to the New Deal and Progressive eras and it is a marriage of convenience with classical liberalism in opposition to a common enemy. However, as I stated in this lengthy post , conservativism doesn't have a broad natural base and thus is always working to peel off various groups from the other side and the embrace of such economic neo/classical liberalism is an example of this in action.

This is all true, and I get it now. As I noted elsewhere in the subforum, I’ve been reading a biography of John Quincy Adams (Militant Spirit). In part thanks to that, I’ve understood that historically, the definition of conservative is being anti-revolution, and pro-tradition, pro-institution, pro-establishment, and pro-big government and authoritarianism; while (classic) liberalism is anti-institution and anti-establishment, libertarian and anti-big government. Thus, as you said, by that definition JQA and the Federalists would be conservative and the Democrat-Republicans liberals - Adams and Federalists thus also  opposed the lawlessness of the French Revolution, while Democratic-Republicans were more sympathetic if not outright supportive of it. The Democratic-Republicans also indeed favoured a less centralised and powerful government (being more populist, libertarian and pro-revolution, and being more wary of Great Britain and America following in its footsteps to become authoritarian) while the Federalists supported the opposite. The Democrat-Republicans were also against monarchies, which the more pro-establishment and anti revolution Federalists tended to support (or at least, they strongly opposed violent revolutions and overthrowings of those monarchies).  Also, the book has in fact several times referred to Adams’ Burkean conservatism and called him a small-r republican.
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« Reply #16 on: September 13, 2023, 07:35:32 PM »

Question:

Was it the case that the most powerful institution before the Industrial Revolution was the state/crown and that this changed with the advent of combustion, electricity, secularism, and other things like that and as a result, either 1) what being "liberal" or "conservative" at least changed for a while, or 2) that it never changed but simply what constituted "traditional authority" did?

That is, is there a case for a narrative where a conservative in 1723 supported a strong central government because it was, especially when it controlled religion, the dominant source of tradition and authority and if that same person was a vampire or a wizard and lived to 1923 without changing their underlying worldview, they would be more hostile toward centralized government because they then would see the source of traditional authority more vested in large businesses, their owners, and  independent-from-the-state religious figures of the community's dominant religion?
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