Describe Conservative philosophy.

[Cerberus~]

One need only look at the Dolorian to realize that incorporating a dozen great ideas no one has ever done before into one design doesn't make for the best design - even if the ideas are good.

Well duh! Who wants a Dolorian that can't time-travel? Ya'll needed 13 good idea for that car to take off.

 

[Maxwell511]

As an engineer I can say that engineering is an inherintly conservative field (which is why many engineers are political conservatives). You would not like to drive something that was not vigorously tested - and indeed, designs that are actually revolutionary, introducing dozens of new concepts are most often miserable failures. One need only look at the Dolorian to realize that incorporating a dozen great ideas no one has ever done before into one design doesn't make for the best design - even if the ideas are good.

From your defintion I would be considered a conservative although I wouldn't be consider it from the point of view what I think are conservatives on this forum or yourself. As in I would distrust changes in decentralisation of medical treatment, social welfare etc.

 

[Cerberus~]

I think a distinction needs to be made between old conservatism, and modern Republicanism.

Conservatism is the stand the government sucks, and for that reason, it's control over the population needs to be local and needs to be limited. Federal government is not to be trusted because of the vast amount of power it wields and need to be balanced and checked.

It is the stand that the person should be free from unecessary government influence and beaurocracy and should be personally responsible for themselves and their desicions.

Conservatism is small government, personal responsibility, and decentralized federal government with the power going to the states and poeple.

That isn't a philosophy shared by modern day Republicans, the self proclaimed "conservatives".

Modern Republicans want a federal police power as much as the Democrats, the only difference is what they want to police with that power and have taken giant steps in gaining this power, while at the same time dealing death-blows to state's rights. And they seem to have completely dropped "fiscal conservatism" from their lexicon.

Dispite their intertwining, many of their social policies are as conservative as slavery and Jim Crow laws. The conservative thing to do would be to enact civil unions for homosexual couples, not bar them from having partnership rights just because they're numbers are small and a lot of small minded people think it's "icky". Abstinence-only education isn't a conservative principle. It's a right-wing religious one, a Republican one, but lying to kids and depriving them of vital, life-saving knowledge isn't in tune with personal responsibility.

Many of the same Republicans railing against "judicial activism" seem to think that Roy Moore was just in his judicial activism, and think that striking down sodomy laws, the epitamy of our intrusive government, was catering to the gay agenda.

Calling the Republicans conservatives is as off-base as calling them the party of Jesus.