Conservative is...(take 2)

My friend Tim is smarter than I am. When he said he couldn't follow my first attempt to describe conservatism, I figured that I either wrote over his head or wrote it poorly. Since I'm a semi-verbal accountant, the latter explanation is more likely. So....

A week ago I bought a bunch of grapes and put them in the fridge for my kid to munch on. She found the grapes to be tasty and attractive - a satisfactory status quo was in place. As the grape supply got low, I bought a second bunch which did not look exactly like the first bunch that she was enjoying so. She remarked that the new bunch looks funny. Paraphrasing Pete Townshend - the new grapes are not the same as the old grapes. A conservative would dismiss the possibility that the new grapes could have any worth because the old grapes are just so darn attractive and tasty. A conservative would hesitate to try the new grapes even after the old grapes were gone. The conservative grape person would hold their stubborness and closed-mindedness up as a righteous virtue, as they are the true upholder of all that is sweet and shiny in the pantheon of grapeness.

Conservative is...

Standard political usage tells us that Republicans are conservative and Democrats are liberal. This is not absolutely true, but relatively so.
Conservative legal thought holds that precedent should be upheld. Whether the precedent is Roe vs Wade or Dred Scott doesn't particularly matter in the legal/judiciary use of 'conservative'. A legal/judiciary conservative would be opposed to legalization of abortion because the precedent is in place, regardless of the moral, philosophical or religious feeling they might have about the procedure. Their conservatism would mean they are philosophically committed to earlier decisions and find change to be more distasteful and the status quo. This is illustrated by the sneering talking point of 'activist judges'.
Conservative economic thought holds that classsical economics are the true word. Market forces are good. Regulation, taxation, protectionism, subsidy and all forms of government market involvement are bad. Always. Again, the purity of the old ideas appeals to the conservative mind. The conservative mindset is closed to new thoughts and truths that suggest classical established thoughts could be anything other than righteous and touched by the hand of their economic God. Modifications to the godly market force is heresy.
Conservative religious thought holds that the theological and philosophical ideas of the elders (whoever the hell they might be) are handed down almost directly from the Almighty. These ideas must not be questioned or altered. Again, adherence to a rigid dogma is the key to conservatism.
In all examples, conservative thought is rigid and closed. It stubbornly adheres to established ideas in the face of any challenge. Closed-mindedness is valued in conservative minds as if it were righteousness. It is not.

Bravo again, Speaker Pelosi

I did not think it possible to pass such a measure as she did today. The military funding bill with Iraq pullout date is a HUGE accomplishment for the reasonable people of the USof A. I would follow her nearly anywhere.

Politics just IS

Politics are not bad, nor are politics good. Politics simply is. One of my least favorite righteous arguments is the accusation that a person is 'politicizing' something that should be 'above' politics. That's bullshit. NOTHING is above politics. Human interaction requires political positioning and technique. All interaction is an exercise in power, however subtle it may be. We may naively wish things to be otherwise, but they are not.

Death, sex, religion, food, drink, love, hate, sickness, jurisprudence, music, sport, humor, art, business and any other form of the human experience involves political positioning when it is shared between two or more people. The simple act of speaking or putting pen to paper invites comparison with the views of others, and an attempt to frame one person's experience in the context of the experiences of others. This comparison and sharing of context is political.