The Imperial Presidency, Part 2

[Jinx999]

I mean, I fundamentally disagree with that assessment of conservatism. The heart of it to me is Chesterton's Fence: Don't make changes to policy until you understand why the policy was made in the first place. Which is fundamentally trusting the existing social order and distrusting suggested improvements. Which has the effect of supporting the entrenched leading classes/castes. The protection of the in-group is a side-effect -- and one often exploited by bad actors -- but the core goal is the basic human instinct to resist change.

I do believe that there are genuine conservative morals, that there is virtue in honest "old fashioned" principles, that it's possible for trade to enrich both sides, that people with power should be careful about changing things because it's very easy to destroy things and difficult and complicated to build something and that you should stand by your friends.

Which, if you've not spent the last decade in box, clearly means that the modern republican party cannot be described as conservative in the slightest and has betrayed every principle it's ever claimed to support.