American Conservatives: A Misnomer for the Real Radicals

One problem we have with today's debate is the confusion that labels bring. And nowhere is that more evident than with the label of "conservative" used for the people who want to defend the US Constitution and roll back the many governmental policies that have led America to stray from the founding principles of the Great American Experiment.

The reason why "conservative" is not a good label is because "conservative" in the rest of the world and throughout European history means the people who resisted change and wanted to keep the order of things the way they were.

That meant, in Europe, they supported the various monarchies.

The 18th, 19th and 20th century struggle world-wide was between the traditionalist/conservatives who defended the monarchy and the radicals who wanted to tear that down and build up free societies based on equality or citizen rule.

The radicals in Europe gravitated to equality through socialism (See: Alexis de Tocqueville Warns of Socialism: 170 Years Ago!)

That was not the atmosphere throughout America's history. The radicals in America were the Patriots who wanted to set up a free society based on citizen rule. The Tories where the traditionalist/conservatives who wanted to keep things the way they were.

People everywhere gravitate to a government that controls everything and tells you what to do. America is no exception. It never had a monarchy, but the American people still gravitate to centralized government.

How often do you hear people say, "There ought to be a law!"

That role in America has been filled by Marxism. Whether it is Communism, Socialism or Democratic Socialism, it is all the same - a centralized government ruled by an oligarchy who calls all the shots and forces their will on the populace.

This is just what the Patriots where trying to avoid by implementing the principles enshrined in the Constitution.

Since that time, the struggle in America has been between Patriots who believe in the founding principles of equality, freedom, self-governance and the sanctity of private property and those who think that we should give Socialism yet another try - ignoring the ugliness that it has brought upon the world in every form it has arrived.

So the bottom line is that the Patriots of today are NOT conservatives in the historical sense. The American Experiment never fully matured before the tendency for centralized power crept into American government.

Centralized governments have been around for 1000s of years so the people who desire to return to that system - whether it is a monarchy or an oligarchy of Socialists - are the real conservatives/traditionalists. The citizens of America who want to return to the founding principles of the Constitution and further the American Experiment are the true radicals.

We modern Patriots believe that the reason America has led the way during the last 200 years is because of the radical ideas put forth by our founding fathers.

Those principles have stood up in comparison to the alternate governments. Nowhere has life been better than in the USA. And those countries who implement those principles thrive more than the countries who embrace tyranny - whether in the form of Communism (China, USSR, Cuba, North Korea), National Socialism (Nazi Germany), Democratic Socialism (modern Europe), Theocracy (the Muslim world) or Monarchy (every two bit dictator in Latin America, Asia and Africa).

The other source of confusion is to assume that the original radicals in America (Patriots) and the radicals in the rest of the world (Rousseauists/Marxists) are one and the same. Both rejected the concept of divine monarchies. But that is were the similarity ends.

The Patriots want equality of opportunity for the people. Marxists want equality of outcome. The latter has been proven to be impossible.

Another way the lines are blurring is with the rise of nationalism in the European countries. The conservatives there are fed up with the failed and failing policies put forward by the Left and are now using the same language as the Patriots in America. They are trying to supplant the entrenched Socialism with a variation on the American experiment. They are seeking a more sustainable form of government with more freedoms, while preserving their cultures from the engineered homogenization of people through uncontrolled immigration. Immigrants who have no desire to integrate but rather supplant the cultures of Europe with their own cultures.

That is what happens when there are too many similar immigrants arriving all at the same time. Rather than integrate, they form separate communities because they are more comfortable with their own language, morals, religion and culture.

Unfortunately this keeps them and their children from progressing in society due to their self-inflicted ghettoizing.