Conservative Platform
History will record that in the year 2008, conservatives lost the election half a year before any convention was ever held. The presumptive-nominee of the Republican party is barely more conservative, and is arguably no more conservative, than the extreme hard-case left-wing liberal presumptive nominee of the democrat party.
This sorry state of affairs has been achieved by completely plutocratic means — the few dictating the tastes of the many. This is a betrayal of negligence to the American People, because they have been deprived of the chance to vote on what they think of conservatism. It is a triumph of insidious propaganda, because it is only through propaganda that we hear there is any exhaustion or fatigue setting in with conservative ideals. In fact, the situation is worse than that because the evidence we can collect clearly indicates the conservative ideals are as popular with the electorate as they ever have been, if not even moreso.
No, according to the evidence, if the electorate is disenchanted in 2008 with conservatism, at all, it is in fact disenchanted with conservative figureheads. And if it is disenchanted with conservative figureheads, it is disenchanted with them because they are acting like liberals. And so, in sum, what has happened is that we have surrendered the right, privilege, and task of representing the conservative movement, to the figureheads with the highest name recognition; and they, in turn, sold it out.
Conservatives are dedicated to exploiting every possible opportunity, from here on out, to make sure this never happens again.
Therefore, WE SUBMIT TO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, and to the consideration of the electorate, this body of conservative principles. Further, we call on conservative candidates, in the year 2008 and beyond, to accept each of the following in our platform, before they can represent themselves as sincere, true and emblematic champions of the cause.
Conservatives hold the following to be God-given truths, whether they can be proven or not. And indeed they cannot be. They are articles of faith.
They do not necessarily represent the opinions of all those who call themselves “conservatives.” But they damn well should.
Symbiosis
Conservatives believe, in the normal, default scenario, that government action is unnecessary for putting classes of persons in a symbiotic relationship with each other; they believe this because, without any artificial effort to interject, diverse classes of people are already living in such a mutually-beneficial relationship. In simpler terms, conservatives believe that our existences are inherently good for one other. Rich people are good for poor people and vice-versa; men are good for women and vice-versa; people of all skin colors benefit each other by being around.
To put it even more concisely, conservatives believe the same things about legal United States citizens that liberals believe about illegal aliens: That their presence is beneficial, and class lines defining perimeters around them, are harmful. Conservatives believe exactly this, with regard to people the law says are supposed to be here. They do not believe this about people the law says are not supposed to be here.
Doing vs. Being
Conservatives believe people are defined by the things they do, and not by what they are. Conservatives do not believe the sins of the fathers are visited upon the heads of the sons.
Conservatives believe our state, at birth, is pristine. We may be born with some challenges in the terrain that is our lives, but we are not born with hard, impassable barriers in front of us. We may be born with physical ailments, but we are not born with sin. We may be born into impoverished conditions, but we are not born with debt. And, while we may create situations for which we’ll have to apologize later, in the moment in which we are born we do not labor under these yet. We are born clean, pure and innocent.
Constitution and the Creator
Conservatives believe that our Constitution was drafted, and ratified, as a continuation of the Declaration of Independence which was signed as a legal document with binding force in both the older, colonial-era government, and in the post-revolutionary government of the new United States. As such, the Constitution is a document that simply recognizes rights already granted by a Higher Power (a “Creator”), and does not actually grant them.
Conservatives further believe that the word “right” is a heavy-handed, extreme word, that applies to things in human affairs only sparingly. Once you have a right, nobody can take it away. A right does not become weaker when other people deplore your having it or exercising it; even if vast numbers of people so deplore, and even though as individuals their community esteem may be high, and the offices they hold very prestigious, this does nothing to diminish your right. Quite to the contrary — the word “right” applies to things that must be so entrenched, because it is foreseen that these things might be subject to such a challenge. Nobody needs a “right” to do something that is popular. Conservatives believe this is precisely why the language in the Declaration of Independence was specifically formed as “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”; this is so that government officials may not intimidate individuals into surrendering their rights, but rather that the notion of a Creator should be properly intimidating government officials from hounding and badgering those citizens, even lowly laymen, that they purport to govern.
Conservatives believe a government that “gives” rights to people is the very pinnacle of tyrannical governments everywhere; for what is to stop such a government from taking those rights away?
Laws
Conservatives believe that the vision behind a law is to help people, not to hurt people.
For example, the purpose of a tax is to raise money, not to attack a class. So while a tax may be necessary to raise revenue, once it is proposed it should be voted in with the goal of raising that revenue, and passed for that purpose. It is inappropriate for a legislature purporting to represent “all” of the people, to pass taxes for the purpose of targeting undesirable classes among us, such as high-income or high-net-worth individuals. This is in keeping with the conservative belief about symbiosis, that we are already living in a symbiotic relationship with one another and are already invested in the well-being of each other.
Values
Conservatives believe in the value, as a distinctly separate entity from the law. Since conservatives recognize humans as fundamentally smart, capable and decent, they do not believe every single value has to be translated into law.
Some values deal with laws, and therefore should serve as templates for how laws are made.
Other values do not have anything to do with laws, and therefore should remain unlegislated, even though it is a conservative principle that the value is important, meaningful, and either enjoys the agreement of a broad consensus, or should. For example: It is indecent for a young man to wear trousers that droop, and show off his butt. But it is even more indecent to enact a law imposing a fine on him for wearing such trousers. There are many other situations just like this. Inappropriate public displays of affection; doing work or purchasing alcohol on the Sabbath; using coarse humor on a television program at seven o’clock at night. Conservatives, loving freedom, believe in the unlegislated law.
Freedom and Life
Conservatives believe once freedom is present, and recognized, it is inherently event-less. It is a static thing. We do not take steps to “legislate” freedoms we already have, to reinforce it, to codify it, to share it; and, with very few exceptions, we cannot renounce it.
Freedom is not class-dependent. There is no Year Of The Woman, there is no Year Of The Queer, there is no Black History Month, and there is no pressing need to create holidays to “commemorate” or “memorialize” events that ostensibly herald some new arrival of freedom for some specific group. Further, we hold that real freedom depends on this perspective on what freedom is — that it is static, uniform, universal and class-neutral. Thing I Know #196 makes it clear that “[w]hen classes of people take turns, over time, enjoying special privileges, not one man among them enjoys genuine freedom.” The reason for that is clear: If classes must take turns, there must be strong centralized authority somewhere responsible for determining which class is favored today, and which class will be favored tomorrow. This would be contrary to the doctrine that a government simply recognizes rights, and doesn’t take responsibility for “giving” them to people.
Whereas freedom is a static thing, conservatives believe life is a dynamic thing. This has a direct impact on the way conservatives look at people from different economic classes. Conservatives do not believe rich people and poor people are born with “R”s and “P”s tatooed onto their foreheads, as liberals do seem to believe. Conservatives believe it is possible, and even likely, for a poor person to be born poor, and become rich.
Liberals are often heard to say conservatives have secret plans to “get rid” of poor people. They’re right. The conservative plan is to eliminate poor people by making them into middle-class and rich people. Conservatives believe this is possible, and that it isn’t even difficult.
Conservatives recognize Americans as a mighty, ingenious and resourceful people, who need opportunity in order to succeed, and very little else that they themselves cannot provide.
Because life is in motion, risk is inherent to it. Conservatives are opposed to governmental intervention to eradicate risk, outside of the malicious life-threat and property-damage risk people may pose to one another. Conservatives believe that once you start to eliminate risk in life, you aren’t going to be satisfied with your efforts until you eliminate any scintilla of risk, from the situation of anyone who is numerically significant; and by the time you have succeeded at this, you will have eliminated life itself.
In the game of eliminating risk from life, conservatives unite in their desire to plagiarize the last significant line from the 1983 summer high tech blockbuster movie War Games:
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
Apart from risk, life also has other exigencies. Conservatives do not believe in “rights” that are predicated on the notion that government should do something about these. And so conservatives do not believe you have a right not to be offended.
Guilt
Conservatives have a grudgingly accepting relationship with the Social Stigma. Conservatives believe the ends justify the means when a community persuades an individual to stop doing an indecent thing, or to start doing a decent one. However, the rights of the individual to chart his own course in his life, is always intact, and is always to be respected. In short — once the mentally capable individual reaches maturity, he is to be treated as an adult.
Conservatives do not respect guilt unless it is self-inspired. Conservatives notice guilt is an overwhelmingly useless emotion, inspiring beneficial actions only rarely like the stopped clock that is right twice a day. Furthermore, guilt has an exceptionally high potential, both in frequency and in effect, as a political tool used to destroy people by diminishing the things they do that define their existences.
Conservatives believe that if a proposed law depends on guilt in order to sound like a good law, it’s most likely to be a bad law. Conservatives do not believe it is government’s job to force, or even to simply encourage, its citizens apologize for their own existences.
Human Lifecycle
Conservatives believe it is a natural state of childhood to need to be told what to do. Conservatives believe the sense of knowing a certain thing has to be done (or to be avoided) is the product of an abstract thought process; that this thought process entails some measure of responsibility; and that children, by definition, are incapable of accepting this responsibility.
However, conservatives believe that as a person approaches the age of majority it is his sacred right and his duty as well, if he is mentally capable, to shoulder this responsibility. Conservatives hold it as a precious cultural value that nobody should interfere with his acceptance of this right and duty. That includes agents of his government, and his parents. Adults make choices; they put work into making good ones; they are taught from an early age how to do this.
Money
As humans complete their maturity into adulthood, they gradually gain the ability to enjoy the right to own property, with the responsibilities that go along with that right. “Money” is simply a descriptive term for property, as a preamble to a process of measuring its net value (gross value minus the value of associated debts). Money, ultimately, is a measurement of the things each person has done, both good and bad, as well as the fortune he has come across, both good and bad — as recognized by the marketplace.
And so, while money applies to the identity of each mature individual who is capable of engaging in its trade, it is not the identity of a person.
It is a deeply-held conservative principle that the amount of money each person has, is of minimal concern to the government. Also, since the government is a non-profit enterprise, it is offensive to conservatives when public servants make their fortunes within government service, since this is plainly contrary to the wishes of the Founding Fathers upon the establishment of the Republic — either through bribery, blackmail or through “on the table” salaries and other compensation. Public service was intended to be a humbling activity, and conservatives desire to see a return to that tradition.
Power
Conservatives believe that power corrupts, and they hold it as a sacred value that the vision of the Founding Fathers should be continued into the future — that power should remain distributed in our government so that our public servants are not corrupted and they do not oppress. Conservatives believe that if a man is suspicious of his government on a Monday, and goes to bed that night with his suspicions put to rest, he should wake up on Tuesday suspicious all over again.
Committees and Executives
Conservatives are righteously horrified at the breezy, casual ease with which committees make bad decisions and then passively refuse to accept responsibility for them.
Conservatives are suspicious of consensus. They understand that once a hare-brained idea has been accepted by five-in-ten, it will probably be accepted by a sixth in record time, based on that sixth person’s career aspirations and desire to get along with the other five; and once that is done, it will probably convert the remaining four as well, without diligent scrutiny or even any further debate. Further, conservatives know that individuals can take blame when ideas turn out to be wrong, but committees cannot. Also, conservatives understand that when an individual makes a plan, his understanding of cause-and-effect is inextricably intertwined with the steps he is outlining in the plan and so it is almost always clear how to assess the success of an ongoing plan — this is not true of the plans made in committee.
When defining exactly how binding decisions are to be made within an authority structure of any kind, conservatives place value on the important decisions being made by an executive. The executive, in turn, may be overseen by a committee; but for any decision that demands accountability and good judgment, the executive is a superior resource.
The United States — What a Great Country!
Finally, conservatives believe the United States is great.
Conservatives believe the USA is the righteous beneficiary of two doctrines of national greatness, a common one and an elite one.
The common doctrine stipulates that any nation, whether great or not, is entitled to have decisions made on its behavior predicated on the notion that that nation is at least good, and deserves to continue surviving. Nobody in that nation’s system of government should make any decision — not even cast a common layman’s vote — who does not hold that nation’s interests at heart. To be destroyed from within, is a fate undeserved by even the most mediocre nations of civilized men.
The elite doctrine stipulates that the United States, while perhaps laboring under the burden of blight in its history (like any nation of note), is nevertheless a beacon of genuine civility in the world. It stands as a shining, glimmering totem on the world’s landscape of what civilization really is. It deserves the respect of all the world’s freedom-loving citizens — but will not wait for it.
Conservatives maintain that although people are born pristine, and their programming has been refined over the years through inherited traits and/or Divine Intervention, it is fundamentally flawed.
Self-Interest
It is a central conservative principle that people, even when living in a community with strong, demanding, energized community goals, will invariably behave in their own self-interest because this is precisely what they are built to do. History’s backdrop is pockmarked with examples of societies based on communism, that the individual should sacrifice his interests for the benefit of “all.” Conservatives maintain there is a common thread in the stories of all these societies that have been shown to be short-lived, oppressive, or both — and that common thread is this: The notion that people would subordinate their individual interests over a longer timeframe to what was demanded by “all,” was always mythical.
Conservatives draw a connection between this lesson of history, and the doctrine about the best decisions being made by an individual and not in a committee. A good decision, in times of exasperation, desperation, hardship and uncertainty, depends on a name. Thing I Know #243 makes it clear that the passive-voice expression of an idea, is a precursor to a “cloudy legac[y]…[w]hen [such ideas] are unowned. ‘It was decided that…'” This is a ducking of accountability, and the ducking of accountability is probably needed, or desired, by someone who knows more than they’re saying and doesn’t want to be accountable.
If an idea is worth having, conservatives believe it must be worth expressing in active voice. Subject noun, verb, object noun. And they should be attached to a name. Any consideration that would make that somehow unworkable, is a consideration that probably makes it a bad idea.
Pro-Tribe, Anti-Collective
While people are inherently anti-collective because they are programmed to act in their own individual self-interest, they are nevertheless set up to conduct themselves in tribes, and this creates an inherent self-contradiction in the human condition.
People gravitate toward conducting their lives within groups; they have an interior weakness that makes the lack of accountability in group-thinking, appealing to them.
They tend to be sold on the idea of socializing a group, once their attention is called to the plight of the weakest among them. They rationalize that, just as a large chocolate bar will last longer on a hot day than an equal mass of chocolate chips, so too will a fixed number of people survive longer by facing problems together than they all would alone. The history of collectivist societies provides only an anemic proof of this dictum, if indeed any such solid proof exists at all. That’s because the definition of a person is what that person does, not what he is; what he does, is only what he decides to do; and people don’t decide things with a good sense of judgment, when they do their deciding in groups.
Peerage
People have a tendency to define peerages, even when & where it makes little sense to do so. They tend to form much closer bonds with neighbors who they see as sharing their advantages and laboring under common burdens, than with neighbors who they see as enjoying special, exclusive advantages — or laboring under unique burdens.
People also have an unfortunate tendency to want to eliminate others who are not like themselves; people who live in a different area; people who have a different color of skin; people who believe in different deities; people who have different sexual preferences. Liberals, also, recognize this weakness in human behavior. The difference is that where liberals believe this is to be driven from society by means of a wisely assembled and ratified package of laws, and then tit-for-tat compensations should be delivered to some extent to compensate for historical wrongs — conservatives believe it should be simply recognized as a universal human failing, and systematically expurgated from any decisions made, in the public sector or in the private sector, that actually impact people.
Envy
People are also inherently envious. This is an evolutionary hold-over trait from failed collectivist societies, existing in our past, possibly clear back to the days of the caveman. A man may lack something — he’ll find a way to accommodate his handicap, and put his mind on other matters. When he finds another man is not wanting for the same thing, he’ll pour vast reserves of energy into acquiring this method, or supply, or tool, that he in fact doesn’t really need. He’ll be tempted to steal.
He is also exposed to irrational impulses. If he cannot avail himself of the resource that is missing, he’ll be inclined to find it just as satisfactory to deprive the advantaged of it. In this pursuit, he’ll be tempted toward vandalism. And even more irrational than that — if he succeeds in depriving his neighbor of what belongs to his neighbor, should he find the neighbor doesn’t miss it, he’ll become even more frustrated still.
These are all natural human inclinations. Individuals should not be faulted for having them, so long as they do not act on them, since people are defined by what they do and not by what they are. But they have absolutely no place in public policy.
Decision-Making
Conservatives contend that, whether acting as individuals or in a committee, people always make decisions as individuals.
As individuals, people make their decisions by constructing five distinctly separate parts. As they construct each part to a decision, people are susceptible to all of the weaknesses itemized above, and enjoy all of the benefits of strength they have nurtured over time as mature, thinking individuals.
The first part is the one most crucial, and the one least-discussed when people make decisions in groups. It is the motive. This is the goal of whatever decision is being put into effect.
The ulterior motive is like poison to group decision making. All too often, people put into motion proposals offered by others, presuming the person making the decision is motivated toward the same goals as the person offering the proposal. As failed plans are put into post-mortem, it is often learned that a plan that failed to do something, was, in fact, never supposed to have done that thing, by the person who put the plan together. For this reason, as people collaborate whenever & wherever it is unavoidable, there should be a definition made about what the motive is.
As new articles and sub-articles of the plan are offered, there has to be some kind of agreement on how these new components will contribute toward the stated goal. Human behavior is to skirt past this, which further diminishes the effectiveness humans show when they decide things in groups.
The second component to decision making is the first of the nine pillars of persuasion: The Fact. The fact is, simply, a cognition that can be proven. It may have been empirically observed, it may have been reported by a trusted source, or it may have been proven by a more complex process, such as process-of-elimination.
The third component to decision making is the second of the nine pillars of persuasion, the Opinion. Whereas the Fact is objective, the Opinion is subjective — it is dependent on the observations and thought processes of the person who has it, and is a testament to that person’s sense of good judgment or lack thereof. An opinion may be a Personal Preference, an Inference, or a Relative Measurement. When it is an inference, it forms a vital part of decision making because if a decision has a chance of succeeding above random chance, it must have a decent adherence to the truth of the state of affairs.
The fourth component to decision making is the third of the nine pillars of persuasion, which is the Thing To Do. The Thing To Do is a special type of opinion, that someone should do something. In some situations it can be an opinion that someone should stop doing something, or avoid doing something. It is a sign of intellectual sincerity that the thing-to-do should rest on substantiated Cognitions, but there are many reasons to conceal this: 1) laziness, 2) the party offering the thing-to-do may not wish to explain their true interests/motives, fearing this would arouse unwanted suspicion, 3) the party offering the thing-to-do may desire to conceal the cognitions upon which it rests, due to confidentiality issues, intent to deceive, or both.
The final component to decision making is a reckoning of how the Thing To Do is supposed to work; how it is supposed to service the first component, which is the stated motive or goal.
The five parts of decision making serve to highlight another flaw in human behavior, which stems from the dichotomy that people are inherently pro-tribe even as they are anti-collective. People have a tendency of weakness to, as they construct each of those five parts, to borrow them from others. Thus, it is particularly harmful to their interests to leave the motives undiscussed as they collaborate — which humans tend to do.
Conservatives have it in common that they place value on the following events, phenomena and attributes of persons living together in a society. Since conservatives believe in a difference between values and codes, it does not necessarily follow that all, or any, of the following have to be legislated. Quite to the contrary, a real conservative considers it ideal if none of the following is legislated, anywhere (that is, over & above the ones that already have been). But whether legislated or not, all of what is below is considered good by true conservatives — these are things that make society, as well as the individuals who live within it, stronger and better.
Community
Conservatives value a sense of community. While a peerage can be treacherous, by excluding individuals thought to be outside of it, to the point of denying them rights or privileges to which they would otherwise be rightfully entitled, there can be beneficial qualities to it as well. A “community” exists as a sense of universality to the peerage within an enclave, and in so doing demonstrates a real potential for realizing all the benefits of a peerage with none of the liabilities. What this does, simply put, is to recognize, and celebrate, that sense of symbiosis among all present — that everyone there contributes in a positive way, by the things he does, toward the interests and general well-being of all others.
Federalism
Conservatives believe local control is superior to global control. because global control must out of necessity become remote control, and remote control does not remain benign for very long, if at all. Furthermore, it is much more plausible to promote that sense of community within a local area, than over a larger area. Remote control has a marked tendency to diminish this sense of community, because it enables people to have control over other people a vast distance removed — and therefore to exercise control without symbiosis.
The United States of America, incidentally, was begun by a revolution that was started over this dilemma of control exercised over a vast distance, without a sense of community or symbiosis. Conservatism promotes the values that began the United States of America, values so important that our Founding Fathers thought they were worth the sacrifice of blood and treasure.
The conservative vision of federal control is a low-level, utilitarian one. It is limited to the authorities specifically granted in the Constitution, and conservatives believe these powers may be expanded only process of amendment to that instrument.
Conservatives are steadfastly opposed to any notion that morality can be legislated. Conservatives believe that if an action is both immoral and illegal, but a man would be otherwise open to doing it if it were only legal — he remains an immoral man, even if his actions are curtailed by the law. To put it another way: Conservatives stand in everlasting opposition to the dictum that a more legally bound people, can somehow through this binding become morally superior people. Conservatives respect the capacity and ability of individuals to think on ethical dilemmas as individuals, and they categorically reject the idea that individuals can somehow ascend to higher planes of moral awareness by being told what to do, or by acting within any other passive role. One only has an opportunity to demonstrate his character and moral fortitude, by taking a leading role; and only individuals can do this. Society itself cannot.
Checks and Balances
Conservatives believe in checks and balances, and are dedicated to the continuing American tradition of dividing executive, legislative and judicial powers.
It should not be up to the official who makes a law, to say what the law means. This is why laws are put into writing, and caution is used when determining how they are worded.
Countering Destructive Agents
Wherever a peerage has been established, be it a formal or informal peerage, it is a conservative value to look beyond the boundaries of it. Humans have, as stated previously, an instinct for diminishing, or outright obliterating, those among their neighbors who are not like them — those who exist beyond this real or imagined peerage. It is a conservative value to countermand that misguided tribal instinct.
It should be noted here that both conservatism and liberalism labor under dichotomies that might seem like self-contradictions to the uneducated mind; these dichotomies come from the situation that (as also has been stated previously) conservatives believe people are defined by what they do, and not by what they are. Contrasted with that, liberals believe people are defined by what they are, and not by what they do. And so, we have the situation in which liberals pass judgment on people by their attributes, even while protesting this is not how they are judging. They judge people based on what their skin color is, how much money they have, what kind of food they eat, where they send their kids to school, and where they live. Conservatives judge people based on what people have done; what they have built, what they have destroyed, who they have helped and who they have harmed.
It is antithetical to conservative values to “target” any person, or class of persons, for denial of opportunity.
The eyes of a conservative are always open to the situation that, while perhaps tragic, is nevertheless lacking in a villain. A true liberal will not be able to understand this. It has become a central pillar of modern liberalism that a “bad guy” has to be invented and injected into any situation that has tragedy; persons, and sets of persons, must be blamed for things like AIDS, the Indonesia tsunami, the Hurricane Katrina disaster, et al.
Conservatives are steadfastly opposed to inventing enemies that aren’t there.
Culture
Conservatives do not find culture to be frightening. They see culture as an attribute intrinsic to a civilized society that desires a long life for itself.
A culture has traditions. Traditions may be secular or sectarian; if it has an attribute of religion to it, conservatives feel no obligation to practice it in secrecy, or to oblige others to practice it in secret, because as stated previously people do not have a right to look at things in the public view and not be offended. Quite to the contrary, conservatism looks down with dismay and scorn upon people who take actual offense at the sight of things practiced by others that do not adhere to their worldview.
A culture that exists within a nation, has an attribute of sovereignty. This is the ability to create, and enforce, laws that may not find favor with those living outside the nation. This is a right — it remains intact, even when found to be displeasing to others, even if the displeasure lies with others enjoying very high authority and esteem.
Conservatives call for the immediate impeachment of any government official sworn to uphold the United States Constitution and other laws, who legislates, enforces, or adjudicates based on the sensibilities of those who reside outside of the country. Conservatives see this as a violation of a sacred oath and public trust.
A strong culture has a language. Whereas other human endeavors benefit from creativity and unconventional thinking, communication is a special case, for its functionality depends on adherence to orthodoxy.
The balkanization of a culture through a duality or plurality of practiced languages, is an insidious toxin. Conservatives call for a singularity of spoken and written language in any culture, and English within the United States of America.
Conservatives vociferously oppose any insinuation that such a proposal is racist, because any race can speak English as any other race, and English has no color.
Decency
Conservatives value decency, although they oppose any effort to legislate it. Literature, slang, gestures of a sexual nature should be kept away from young children, or any venue likely to be populated by them, in time and space. Such items should be construed as contraband in any venue likely to be populated by adults, unless the venue is likely to be populated exclusively by consenting adults.
Consent is the point of acceptable boundary for such material to the conservative who values decency. Whether it be behind the curtain at a video rental store, within a channel on the television, or behind a push button on a web page.
While the cut of clothing patterns, as they intersect with the concept of “decency,” has always been left to prevailing social customs and has always undulated over time — it is the conservative position that women over the age of consent are not now, and have seldom-to-never been, “oppressed” when they choose to wear skimpy clothing. (They have, quite to the contrary, been measurably oppressed when forced to wear burqhas and similar items.)
However, in addition to covering up the body parts generally considered to be acceptable only for private viewing, in a public venue both men and women who desire to adhere to standards of “decency” should cover up their cheeks. Especially the men. Oh, good heavens, yes, especially the men. I don’t need to be seeing that, dude.
Border
A nation that desires continuing survival over time, has a border, along with a coherent policy that defines what it is, how to legally cross it, how citizenship is granted, whether it can be surrendered or revoked, and whether it may be shared with dual-citizenship involving another nation.
Choice and Force
As stated previously, when people are given the choice about what to do, they choose to support their self-interests. Although given to human failings in their programming, history has shown that in a free market economy, they will band together by themselves in service of the good of all, in service of a self-nurturing and self-replenishing sense of community, even while “looking out for Number One.”
Also, they will own the decisions they make, taking responsibility for what errors they might commit in making them.
This is not the case with force. When people are forced to do things, they don’t take ownership for the decisions they make, frequently hiding behind the “I Am Required To Do This” canard. This lack of ownership is ultimately deleterious to the ostensible service of the public good or the individual good. The conservative viewpoint, therefore, is highly favorable to choice, and highly suspicious of any method involving force.
Mature, thinking conservatives maintain this healthy recognition of the benefits of choice, even if the owner of the choice exercises it in a manner initially displeasing to the conservative. Conservatives maintain a longer-term view, and have the maturity to go beyond their own personal tastes and misgivings about what others may elect to do, so long as those others don’t bring harm to those around them.
Laissez-Faire
Conservatives hold that business, generally, is all about choice; and that government, generally, is all about force.
Conservatives categorically reject Keynesian economics, and hold that a business generally understands how to participate in the commerce in which it is established to engage, better than the government could. Conservatives do not believe in regulation that “makes” businesses do the “right” thing, even things that are supposed to be good for the businesses. The conservative premise here, is that if something is right and good for the business, the business would already be doing it.
Conservatives also note that overall, business can’t make people do anything — businesses can only offer the option to people, and then it is up to people to choose it if it is within their means to choose it. Therefore, conservatives are predominantly friendly to the concepts of de-regulation, privatization and free enterprise.
Extremism and Moderation
Conservatives maintain a healthy and robust outlook on proposed rules and laws, vis a vis extremism versus moderation. It is a conservative value to maintain a good definition about what is moderate versus what is extreme.
That a proposal is found to be extreme, does not, by itself, make it wrong; but it goes a long way toward indicating that it might be. Example: Abolishing the death penalty, to a feeble, uneducated mind, might seem to be “moderate” because death is final and cannot be revoked. However — the operative verb in such a proposal is “abolish,” which would mean for ALL situations in which the death penalty could apply.
If the death penalty is indeed on the table, it is only available for persons who are duly convicted of the associated crime by a jury of their peers, and found to be eligible for it. The debate, therefore, excludes all cases in which there could be legal doubt — it only concerns cases in which all the other filtration devices in the justice system, for one reason or another, are found not to apply. To then impose a broadly-applying policy, countermanding the judgment of the prosecutor, the jury, and the judge, and to say even then that no one can be executed, would be the very essence of extremism.
It is a conservative value to recognize this distinction — to make the effort, intellectually, to see moderation in things that are moderate (maintaining the death penalty), and to recognize extremism in things that are extreme (getting rid of the death penalty).
Additionally, conservatives always recognize it as extreme, when the judgment of an individual is subordinated to the judgment of a group, or when the judgment of any quantity of persons is subordinated to an uncompromising rule.
Society has certain roles to play, that do not belong to any one individual. While conservatives value the good judgment of an individual over and above the judgment of a group, they also value the separation of powers (as stated previously) as a bulwark against the natural corrupting influence of power. Conservatives recognize, therefore, that while some decisions are unowned, this is the desirable state of some decisions for the sake of this separation of powers, so that no individual or smaller group can wield the ability to damage other persons who might be thought of as antagonists in politics or commerce.
Appeal for Redress of Grievances
Society has a role in allowing requests for redress of grievances.
Society has a role in safeguarding the property rights of persons who have been harmed, through the extension of credit, or through damage to property by means of negligence or malicious intent.
Society has a role in legislating, enforcing, and adjucating laws for the purpose of allowing criminal prosecutions in misdemeanors and felonies.
Protecting Life
Society has a role in protecting the life and well-being of the individuals who live within it.
Defining Minimal Standards of Decency
Society has a role to play in defining minimal standards of decency. It is anathema to invididual liberty for any one individual, or smaller coterie of individuals, to define such standards because this would oblige a larger community to play by certain strange new cultural rules codified by a smaller elite faction according to a selfish agenda.
National Infrastructure
Society has a role in building certain things. Conservatives recognize that some of these things will have to be maintained over time, and it would be contrary to the public interest to privatize them.
Society has a role in building and maintaining an infrastructure of some communication media, as well as of roads. It is part of the American tradition, back to the colonial days, that there be a postal system, and the interstate highway system dates back to the days of the Eisenhower administration. Conservatives recognize and support the ongoing maintenance of these infrastructures at the federal level, as a means to prevent finger-pointing over jurisdictional issues that may arise from time to time.
Society has a role to play in providing emergency services, such as for fire and police.
A society that exists within a nation has a definite role to play in providing a border, along with a coherent, workable and enforceable policy to go with it.
A society that exists within a nation has a role to play, and an obligation to fulfill, in providing a vigorous, workable defense. This includes military defense, diplomacy, espionage/counterespionage, associated command structures, associated research & development, and oversight.
Jealousy Damper
A society has the potential, through the laws that may apply within it, to promote or to tamper feelings of envy — which, as stated previously, permeate naturally through this imperfect construct called humanity.
Since humans naturally exist in a symbiotic condition in relation to one another, society has the natural obligation to promote this condition and the recognition of it. In situations where the opportunity arises, society’s mission should always be to unite among classes, never to divide. Where society stands in support of one value, and opposed to an antithetical value, the overriding mission should always be to promote values over values, and not people over people.
Equal Protection
Society has a role to play in promoting equal protection under the law. This was a central purpose to the founding of the United States. The punishment that is visited upon a citizen for violating a given law, should not be derived from his class membership — nor should his tax liability, or his status as the beneficiary of an estate, nor as a plaintiff, nor as a civil or criminal defendant.
Where society has minimal roles to play in its ongoing day-to-day function, individuals have the most intensive roles to play in that interaction.
Productivity
Each individual serves the bulk of the responsibility in safeguarding and enhancing his own productivity. People are absolute masters in determining how much of a materialistic existence they want to conduct in their lives, and realizing the profits from this in full measure.
Trustworthiness
Each individual possesses the absolute mastery of authority and responsibility in determining his trustworthiness, or lack thereof.
However, it is the absolute right and responsibility of others to adjudicate this, since each person has an absolute full right and responsibility to form his opinion about who is to be trusted, and who is not to be trusted. The formation of such opinions is included in the things a person does that define his own existence — therefore, if one person is trustworthy, and a second person chooses not to see it, this choice reflects on the second person and not the first.
Conservatives recognize these as individual choices. Society has absolutely no role to play in any of this.
Personal Defense
While society may provide emergency services in case an individual is under attack — this does absolutely nothing to abrogate an individual’s right, responsibility and privilege to provide for his personal defense when all else fails.
This is an attribute of humanity; a sacred, God-given right. It is not exclusively concerned with firearms. It applies to children on the schoolyard as well. Punishment is reserved for the person who threw the first punch, not for the person who threw the last one. Society has no role to play at all in punishing violence committed in self-defense — indeed, both society and individuals are obliged to acquit those who engage in such defensive measures, from all harm or retribution, official or otherwise.
Owning Decisions
A mature, adult and free individual is responsible for all the decisions he makes. Even when there is a rule in place requiring him to decide a certain way, be it applicable through his citizenship or through some special office he holds, this does nothing to abrogate his ownership of that decision.
Secularism
Conservatives champion the inalienable right of any individual to maintain a relationship with a diety in whatever manner that individual sees fit, even if this entails no relationship with any diety at all. Conservatives recognize this as an unassailable American tradition dating all the way back to the founding of the nation.
Conservatives further oppose any litmus test of personal religion for any public office, in keeping with the letter and the spirit of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
However, conservatives do note that the nature of the rights we enjoy, is derivative of the premise that there is a Higher Power at work. They further note that throughout the twentieth century, some of the planet’s most oppressive governments have originated from secularist regimes. Conservatives hold this connection to result from the relationship between a government, and the rights held by its people that it recognizes; as stated previously, a government that provides rights can revoke them at any time, for any reason, but a government that recognizes rights provided by a Higher Power must hold those rights sacred in all conditions.
Conservatives do not believe “atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color” — in otherwords, they do believe atheism is a religion (at least, gnostic atheism), since it supports articles of faith about how things came to be. Conservatives therefore oppose enshrining atheism in the United States government, just as they’d oppose enshrining any other religion in the government.
Conservatives support engraving “IN GOD WE TRUST” on United States currency. In fact, they insist on it. They oppose any measure to secularize the government, for the potential this has to produce an oppressive government where a benevolent one once stood, is nothing short of horrifying.
Affirmative Action
Conservatives oppose affirmative action, because it violates the letter and spirit of equal protection under the law, even in its very most innocuous forms. Conservatives oppose any timetable for disbanding these measures; they insist on their nullification completely, unconditionally and with immediate effect.
Voter Fraud
Voting is the keystone to the functioning of our democratically-representative republic, and it is under assault. It’s high time the process of voting got some defense from the legislators who are sworn to defend it.
Conservatives call for immediate repeal of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993, also known as Motor Voter.
Conservatives further call for all states in the union to pass aggressive, state-level mandates to confirm voter identities by means of photo I.D.
If anyone anywhere, individual, politician, advocacy group, or miscellaneous troublemaker, objects to this, conservatives call for that person or group to be aggressively investigated to see if they’re engaging in some kind of shenanigans, because they almost certainly are.
Conservatives oppose electronic, paperless voting, and call for a tamper-proof paper trail at all voting stations, in all precincts, all counties, all states, all elections.
Diplomacy versus War
Conservatives support solutions involving diplomacy before military force.
However, when military force will work and diplomacy will not, conservatives are broad-minded enough to recognize this is the situation as it exists.
Conservatives further recognize a rich panoply in history’s backdrop of episodes in which smaller wars were successfully engaged to prevent larger ones, as well as episodes in which larger wars took place because smaller wars were resisted even though they were unavoidable. Conservatives are therefore opposed to deciding by policy what ought to be more properly decided by the executive that is the United States President.
The conservative platform on diplomacy versus war, is best expressed by the Ronald Reagan quote (about the Air Traffic Controller’s strike), “If there has to be a bloodletting, let’s get it over with.”
Gun Rights
Conservatives respect and uphold, with enthusiasm, the recent Heller vs. District of Columbia decision which finally settled that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. It is a right intrinsic to the God-given right to self-defense.
Conservatives further call for the immediate impeachment of any of the justices on record casting a vote against the plaintiff, Dick Heller. Our reasoning is simple: With a typical Supreme Court decision dealing with constitutional interpretation, there is a modicum of subjectivity that could figure into any conclusion to be reached. Heller vs. DC was not one of those decisions. It is logically unsustainable to suppose any Justice could join the dissent, and simultanously fulfill his or her sworn oath to defend the United States Constitution. It was Either-Or in this case — mutually-exclusive objectives. Our traitors are defined, and it is up to our Congress to deal with them.
Advocacy Groups
Conservatives call for all advocacy groups to stand down, be they government agencies, private foundations, whether they are 501(c) organization, 527s, churches, or just miscellaneous busybodies and noisemakers.
Advocacy groups represent an assault on the democratic process and they are inherently dishonest, for they represent themselves as friends of the disenfranchised, when what they really are is in competition with individual voters. They exist to promote causes that would be voted down in a heartbeat, and to defeat measures that the voters would pass. They lend their support to bad ideas, with such cockeyed slogans as “There is still some _____ism out there” — in this way, they set themselves up as enemies of free, individual thinking.
Conservatives oppose racism, ageism and sexism. But a campaign to conduct search-and-destroy missions on patterns of individual thinking, no matter how noble the goals involved, and no matter how offensive the portrayed target, is inherently anti-American. This is America, a place where individuals decide what is right and wrong. Advocacy groups who want to take on that responsibility, are invited by all good-hearted conservatives to leave and to find another country more supportive of their busy-body, nanny-state efforts.
Immigration Control
Conservatives call for a coherent border policy, as well as an impregnable border wherever it is tactically required.
Acknowledging that our immigration quota may be in need of a periodic review, conservatives call for the national debate about immigration to be shifted toward that. The conservative position regarding the actual enforcement of such laws, is that they should be enforced just like any other law.
Conservatives see a federal role to play in the abolition of “sanctuary cities”; they do not see the municipalities as having the authority to enact such policies municipally. Conservatives call for the federal government to forcefully intrude on such cities, overrule the sanctuary laws with legally binding effect, and prosecute the local officials responsible for enacting such ordinances. This should include both criminal and civil action, to recover the costs of law enforcement action against the illegal aliens being aided and abetted in violating our nation’s laws.
Family Law
Where marriage exists in civil law as a means to extort money or new obligations from one of the spouses in the course of a dissolution, conservatives call for a complete overhaul of family law to bring to an end what has come to be nothing short of legalized theft.
It is anathema to the notion of equal protection under law, that any marriage participant should become entitled to the property and labor of another partner during a dissolution, solely because of sex. Conservatives call for an end to any and all judgments for spousal support, for any reason. Child support payments should be a derivative result of parenthood, not of marriage.
Paternity fraud should be prosecutable as both a civil and criminal offense, with jail time.
Reparations
Conservatives oppose any tit-for-tat measure, even to ostensibly right historical wrongs, but most especially on an interclass basis. As mentioned previously, conservatives are steadfastly opposed to the notion that the sins of the father are visited upon the heads of the sons.
Same-Sex Marriage
Conservatives hold that “recognizing” the union between people for matrimonial purposes, is an individual role. Society has no role to play in definining this.
Regarding insurance privileges, for the purpose of extending family benefits, this is a decision to be reached by negotiation between the policy holder and the insurance company. Society has no role to play there either.
Conservatives see the institution of marriage, whether it exists between gay or straight people, to exist purely as a religious custom with no legal ramifications whatsoever.
As stated previously, where marriage exists in civil law as a means to extort money or new obligations from one of the spouses in the course of a dissolution, conservatives call for a complete overhaul of family law to bring to an end what has come to be nothing short of legalized theft.
After that’s done, whoever wants to appear in front of a spiritual mentor of whatever flavoring, and call themselves “married,” can go ahead and do that regardless of sexual persuasion.
Conservatives insist that all children, whether adopted or not, are entitled to a mother and a father, and it is a crime to deny either one of those to any child, no matter what the circumstances.
Judicial Activism
Judicial activism is a definable practice of handing down rulings on the interpretation of law in anticipation of social consequences of the ruling, rather than as a reasoned pondering of the spirit and letter of the law.
Conservatives call for an end to this practice, through forceful legislation, holding as punishment immediate and automatic impeachment proceedings against any judge or justice engaging in the practice. (When I Start Running This Place, Item 29.)
Abortion
Abortion is currently held as a constitutional right through a series of court rulings, especial Roe vs. Wade and Griswold vs. Connecticut. Conservatives are agnostic on whether these rulings should be overturned — it is beyond the authority of any deliberative body in the government, short of the Supreme Court, to overturn them anyway — and leave it to those officials entrusted with this authority to do what they may.
However, conservatives call for an immediate end to the absurd practice of holding confirmation hearings solely, or even mostly, on the basis of this consideration. A single issue should not be a litmus test for confirming judicial nominees onto any bench.
Nationalism
As stated previously, sovereignty is an attribute intrinsic to any developed and strong nation. Therefore, conservatives support nationalism over internationalism.
Gold Standard
Conservatives advocate a return to the gold standard for United States currency (When I Start Running This Place, Item 28.)
Labor Unions
Collective bargaining is a derivative of free enterprise. However, conservatives oppose it when it transgresses upon the freedom of individuals.
The conservative viewpoint on labor unions comes down to this: If labor and management arrive at an empasse over some issue and a union of 1,000 participants votes on a strike, and it passes 501 to 499 — the company should continue operations (if it can) with 501 empty chairs, not 1,000. The majority cannot interfere with the freedoms of the individual. (When I Start Running This Place, Item 15.)
Participants in labor unions should benefit from “paycheck protection,” in which they are free to withhold dues, or at the very least, impose restrictions on how those dues are spent for political purposes. This is in keeping with the conservative value of choice over force.
Also, out of respect for the individual, conservatives are everlastingly hostile to the practice of referring to those participants as “workers.” The word “employee” is much better. The word “associate” is better still.
United Nations
Conservatives support the United Nations in delivering aid to poor nations in need, but oppose any role it may have in resolving international disputes.
This is not out of principle, quite so much as pondering the results of historical events. The “strongly worded letter” from the United Nations has become a disgraceful object of self-parody, and it is the conservative viewpoint that the United States should strongly resist any further perpetuation of it and anything like it, to the point of threatening withdrawal of participation in the U.N., and revoking any dues, along with the land used in New York City for that organization’s seating.
Flag Burning
Burning the flag, as an expression of speech, is free speech just like any other odious statement.
Conservatives oppose the prosecution of any free speech, in whatever form it might take. However, if the flag belongs to someone else, of course, that would probably be vandalism depending on the jurisdiction in which it takes place, and would be prosecutable as such. But as an expression of speech, it is as protected as any other in the conservative viewpoint.
Offshore Drilling
Conservatives call for an immediate repeal of all restrictions against drilling for petroleum, natural gas, or other similar resources.
Conservatives view the “environmental” protections, including protections for “endangered species,” to be ill-advised mistakes in our nation’s past. They are skeptical of even so much as a single endangered species that might have ever been protected, universally or locally, by any such prohibition. Conservatives see these laws as nothing more or less than attacks on capitalism and attacks on humanity.
Environmentalism
Conservatives call for anyone sponsoring or lobbying for “environmental” legislation to be immediately deported from the country. Conservatives are fed up with tolerating socialism masquerading as phony concern for animals, especially by so called “environmentalists” who’ve never been out of the city their whole tender lives. There are plenty of other countries that are more friendly to socialism in whatever form it may take. Let them move there.
Isolationism
Conservatives oppose summary isolationism, as an extreme measure. However, in keeping with the recommendations in Washington’s Farewell Address, they support a reasoned wariness with regard to foreign entanglements.
Protectionism
Conservatives oppose protectionist policies, such as import quotas, tariffs, wage and price controls, as an unwarranted encroachment on laissez-faire business practices.
The Dime
Conservatives everywhere hereby call for Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s facial likeness to be promptly removed from the United States ten-cent piece, otherwise known as the “dime,” because of his efforts to pack the Supreme Court and his violation of the fourth and fourteenth amendments when he locked up U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry. The United States stands opposed to racism, and in picking out racism to oppose, we start with his. (When I Start Running This Place, Item 6.)
Price Caps
Conservatives oppose price controls on any commodity, including rent controls and wholesale energy, as an unwarranted encroachment on laissez-faire business practices.
Child Labor
Conservatives demand a massive drawdown on child labor rules, both with regard to the “hard” laws on the books, and the “soft” cultural expectations.
Child labor laws represent nothing more than another elaborate ponzi scheme. More laws, mean fewer kids working; fewer kids working, means more kids idle; more kids idle, means more crime and trouble; more crime means another excuse for liberal politicians to make more laws that don’t help anyone (and pass more taxes to pay for more crap that doesn’t work). It also creates more of a sense of dependence in the citizenry, as more and more voters become estranged from the idea of working for a living.
Conservatives support hard, manual labor for children as young as ten years old; and if some of them can be persuaded to accept this kind of responsibility at seven or eight, so much the better.
Carbon Emissions
Conservatives oppose limits on carbon-emissions, including cap-and-trade schemes, as an unwarranted encroachment on laissez-faire business practices.
Social Assistance
Conservatives support social assistance for those who need it, provided the following criteria are met:
1. That the alternatives be exhausted, systematically, in this sequence: a) services; b) non-cash assistance (food stamps); c) cash assistance.
2. That the beneficiary, if able-bodied, be entitled only to temporary assistance only.
3. If the beneficiary is not able-bodied, other forms of assistance (insurance, annuities, charities) be exhausted first.
Social Security should be phased out, over a period of several years, with all current beneficiaries entitled to their stated benefits in full. In the meantime, while that is going on, Social Security should be implemented according to its original design — as a crooked pyramid scheme, but with no one entitled to a payout unless they’ve paid money in.
Conservatives protest with righteous fury any time any beneficiary of social services, under any program, can watch television on a 100 inch screen, while those who pay the taxes that go into the program have to make do with a 27 inch screen.
Healthcare
Conservatives envision health insurance as a personal expense. They do not recognize any role to be played in this transaction by employers or by society as a whole.
Conservatives deplore the escalation in health costs, and for this they do not blame capitalism, because why should they? Health care has been a capitalist enterprise for a very long time now; it only became nightmarishly expensive went the health care industry became antagonistic to capitalism, not when it embraced capitalism. Health care has been a business since the first doctor was paid in cash (or in livestock) to make a house call and attend to the birth of a child; in other words, for hundreds of years. Conservatives call for the health care industry to become friendlier to free enterprise, and not more inimical to it.
Taxes
Conservatives insist that taxes, as stated previously, exist for the purpose of raising revenue, not to punish any particular person or class of person.
Conservatives call for an immediate repeal on estate taxes and capital-gains taxes.
Furthermore, since all expenses involved in a successful business are going to be passed on to the consumer, conservatives call out any and all corporate taxes as nothing more than an elaborate and cynical shell game, and call for the immediate repeal of any of those. (When I Start Running This Place, Items 34 and 41.) Any politician caught resisting this is to be impeached immediately for trying to deceive and fool the public, and betraying the public trust.
Anyone who thinks people should be punished for having too much money or for making too much money, via taxes or by some other means, is invited by all good conservatives to leave the country and go live in another. (When I Start Running This Place, Item 42.) The planet is covered with envy-inspired socialist enclaves that will be most eager to accommodate…provided they let your miserable pinko communist ass in.
The Minimum Wage
The Minimum Wage, together with its state-level counterparts, represent nothing more or less than an attack on free enterprise.
Actually, it’s a little bit more than that. It’s a kickback to the labor unions. They make their dues as a percentage of what the “workers” get paid, so every few years our liberal politicians get to make a big show out of “boosting” the minimum wage. This means millions of dollars of added revenue to the labor unions, which will then attack not only free enterprise, but democracy itself, by diverting millions of dollars of forcibly-seized “worker” union dues into the campaign chests of those liberal politicians. It’s a real sweetheart deal that doesn’t benefit anyone else, and actually hurts the “workers” who are supposed to benefit from a minimum wage. Because the money isn’t being made available to raise these wages. All those laws do, is outlaw jobs that might pay less.
It is the conservative position that it’s up to the American Voter to keep in mind what the law really does — it doesn’t increase anybody’s wage. It simply creates a new parameter around legal jobs, outlawing any job that pays less. Once the American Voter realizes that, the minimum wage will die a natural death it so richly deserves.
Smoking and Helmet Laws
Smoking is a bad idea, and riding a motorcycle without a helmet is a bad idea.
Nevertheless, people do not labor under an actual obligation to refrain from smoking, or to wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle, until society has some program in place to pay for their medical costs. The authority society has to make rules, in this regard, begins and ends there.
Conservatives would favor a program of self-insurance for such catastrophes, and once such programs were in place they would encourage the participation of anyone so inclined. If society is protected from having to pay the medical costs that result from smoking, or from riding a motorcycle without a helmet, then conservatives maintain the individual is empowered to engage in as many bad ideas as he wants to.
Term Limits
Conservatives call for a term limit of two terms in the Senate (twelve years), and three terms in the House of Representatives (six years).
Conservatives maintain that this is needed because the notion of public service has been abused throughout the twentieth century, during which time the government has become less responsive to the will of The People.
Tort Reform
Conservatives support a loser-pays system, to filter frivolous lawsuits out of our civil court system.
Conservatives further support tort reform in the form of summary dismissal of any personal injury suit in which the plaintiff was engaged in illegal activity at the time of injury, e.g., falling through a skylight while robbing someone’s house.
Death Penalty
Conservatives support the death penalty in cases where the defendant has been found guilty of the crime of murder, or rape.
Conservatives further note that to abolish this type of punishment is extreme — since such abolition would pertain to ALL criminal cases, even where a jury would think it fitting — and to support its availability is the essence of moderation.
Stocks and Whips
Conservatives would support a bundle initiatives to bring back “classic” punishment, in the form of physical beatings, and public humiliation such as wood stocks in the town square.
Conservatives further note that to abolish this type of punishment is extreme — since such abolition would pertain to ALL criminal cases, even where a jury would think it fitting — and to support its availability is the essence of moderation.
Net Neutrality
Conservatives oppose so-called “net neutrality,” since it would essentially put the government with some agency full of nameless, faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats, in charge of what business manage today. Since business is about choice and government is about coercion and force, the private sector is better entrusted with this jurisdiction.
Laffer Curve
Conservatives unite in questioning the common sense and sanity of anyone who would dare to challenge the Laffer Curve, let alone refer to it as “the discredited Laffer Curve.” It is not discredited, nor can it ever be. The two endpoints of the curve — which say that zero dollars would be collected by means of a zero percent tax rate, and (essentially) zero dollars would be collected with a hundred percent tax rate — are indisputable, or might as well be indisputable. Anything in the middle, which would rise up into non-zero dollars of revenue collected for a more optimal tax rate, would be likewise indisputable.
And so the ultimate conjecture offered by the Laffer Curve, that there is some mid-point that offers a maximum revenue production in exchange for an optimal tax rate, simply makes good sense; it is likewise durable logic that at some point, the point of diminishing returns can be exceeded. Conservatives maintain that the only legitimate debate that can possibly occur with respect to the Laffer Curve, is whether the point of diminishing returns has in front of, or behind, the status quo. Everything else is simple common-sense commentary on human behavior and economic science.