WHY CONSERVATIVE VALUES ARE BEING ATTACKED

A quick look around the Western world at the various forms of government now in power would give the astute political observer cause to realize that ALL governments, regardless of where they are placed by some on the political spectrum, now adhere to and promote socialism under the guise of Social Democracy.

Democracy as a form of government was never meant to be 'socialized' but that is where we have now ended up. And even America, a Constitutional Republic, is now being touted as a Social Democracy.

So what does Social Democracy mean?

To answer that question we first need to understand what Socialism is all about. According to the Macquarie Encyclopedic Dictionary, Socialism is described as thus:

Socialism, noun, 1. A theory or system of social organization which advocates the vesting
of the ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land etc, in the community as a whole. 2. Procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.

National Socialism, or Nazism, was based on this theory. So too was Soviet style Communism. However, the main difference between both ideologies was that Nazism permitted, even encouraged, private enterprise in manufacturing and entitlement to ownership of land provided those who participated were members of the Nazi Party and towed the party line. Soviet style Communism allows no private ownership or manufacturing of any kind, and under Soviet and Peoples Democratic Republics, such as China and North Korea, the state controls everything.

Those who are comfortable with government controlling everything, even down to their daily activities like what they can buy, are usually those who support a socialist system. But not everyone who would give their vote to a socialist party, like Labor/Greens in this country or the Democrats in the United States, are truly cognizant of what it is that they are actually voting for when they cast their vote to a socialist party. This can also be true of someone who votes for a party that is considered conservative. And I would suggest that those voters who have voted for one particular party their entire life, and this would also apply to both sides of politics, continue to do so only because their parents voted the same way. Such are the vagaries of the democratic system.

Conservatism is a relatively modern concept and is based on preserving those systems and traditions that have been proven to work over the more ideologically based (theory) practices that have become the hallmark of the left side of politics. Conservatism has taken quite a hit over the past forty years from those who have an agenda to socialize everything, and the Capitalist Free Market system which has proven its worth over the years with the rise of the Middle Class, has also been demonized as a faulty system that brings more ills than good to the world.

So what is the difference between Socialism and the Capitalist system, a system that is now often portrayed as an evil system by Socialists? Let us consult the Dictionary which states:

Capitalism, noun, 1. A system under which the means of production, distribution and exchange are in large measure privately owned and directed. 2. The concentration of capital in the hands of a few, or the resulting power or influence. 3. A system favoring such a concentration of wealth.
 
That modern Western Civilization has become one of the most successful civilizations of all time is completely self - evident, and should be to everyone, but what has made our civilization so successful? Capitalism combined with a Free Enterprise system has made our civilization so successful that we have seen off the Soviet System in Russia while China now embraces some forms of private ownership, manufacturing and wealth, but still strictly under state regime controls.

The Capitalist system has allowed some people to become fabulously rich. But is this a bad thing? While this author has a problem with too few people holding the majority of wealth within this kind of system because it needs to be remembered that money in the hands of some is power and that some of these very wealthy people have developed an elitist attitude that generally expresses itself in the exercising of their influence at the political level. Why politics though? Because it is government that controls the less empowered through the rule of law. Laws, that some of the elite class have no compunction in breaking and will always uphold a do as I tell you, and not as I do approach to life that has now led us to a kind of soft totalitarianism that uses Human Rights Laws and failed lawyers to cower those who have become aware and attentive to the elitists real agenda.

But Free Enterprise was also mentioned which combined with Capitalism has given the West an extraordinary advantage over that of other systems and cultures. So what is Free Enterprise? Again we will consult the Dictionary:

Free Enterprise, noun, the doctrine or practice of a minimum amount of government control of private business and industry.

From that description of Free Enterprise we may take it that if government stays away from over-regulating the functions of business and industry, business and industry will thrive and prosper, which in turn powers the economy of the state and its citizenry though job creation and wealth accumulation. The Western middle class is a product of this system which also, to a large degree, came about due to the actions of industrial unions that (which also led to more government regulations) had the workers interest and welfare at heart and through many years of protracted strikes and demands helped to create an affluent middle class. But union activism for the betterment of its workers has been a double edged sword in the sense that the rise of worker's wages and conditions (also coinciding with the Lima Declaration and lowering of trade barriers) came at a cost to the profits and long term re-investment prospects for business and industry which decided to move to third world nations where labor was cheaper and profits higher. Unions by and large, were also pro-communist by the mid-1930's, and thought nothing of bringing a business to its knees, and in some cases, even to the point of closing it down and the workers losing their jobs due to excessive union demands. And when conservative governments should have legislated to uphold the rule of law against the most militant unions, they failed to do so!

We now have the situation where Western nations which were once self-sufficient manufacturers of consumer goods now face the prospect of being reliant on third world nations for those goods. In an ever increasingly dangerous world it is not an enviable position to be in for any nation to have to rely on those nations that supply its necessities it may one day have to go to war with.

The pro-communist stance by unions has over the decades been allowed to permeate our educational and political circles. Where we once had courteous discourse between political rivals, we now have the phenomenon of Conservatives and conservatism being publicly ridiculed on a daily basis by Socialists who would rather slander and cast aspersions on their Conservative rivals than provide a well reasoned argument that may persuade their audience. But what is Conservatism?

Again, let us consult the dictionary for the meaning of Conservatism:

Noun, 1, the disposition to preserve what is established; (opposition to innovation or change). 2. The principles and practices of political conservatives of right-wing parties.

And Conservative:

Adjective, 1, disposed to preserving existing conditions and institutions etc. 2, cautious or moderate: a conservative estimate. 3, traditional in style or manner. 4, having the power or tendency to conserve; preservative. 5, a person of conservative principles.

The reader will note that this author has placed brackets around that part of the definition of Conservatism that implies opposition to innovation or change. The author believes this is a spurious addition to the whole definition and has been added by those who have a vested interest in denigrating traditional Conservative values which is disposed to protecting that which is considered as beneficial to society.  Conservatives are also innovative and welcome change, but not for changes sake, and unlike Socialists, only if change and innovation can be PROVEN to be beneficial for all.

Pascal Fervor has provided another example for the definition of Conservatism from a 1961 Webster's Dictionary which the author has included in this article for reference to those readers who will note the deliberate alteration of the meaning of Conservatism between the 1961 definition and the 1990 definition as provided by the Macquarie Dictionary the author has used. The definition is thus:

Conservative. n 1 a : Dispostion in politics to preserve what is established b: a political philosphy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change.

By reading and understanding the difference between those two definitions it is plain to see why those who would choose the socialist path, that conservative ideals stand in the way of socialist ideals. It also explains why the spurious addition, that the author has bracketed in the 1990 definition, would have been added to undermine true conservative values which is nothing short of deliberate obfuscation or an act of sabotaging the true meaning. Such is the mentality of some who now profess to teach our children!

There is an old saying that goes; 'if it ain't broke don't fix it', in other words, why try to rebuild something that has been proven to work over many centuries? And that is what socialism is trying to achieve, it is trying to remake Western Civilization into something that will never work and will eventually, as the European Union is now also proving, fail, because the practice of socialism does not fit the theory for Western Civilization. The Socialists also conveniently forget their history of failed socialism. The 20^th Century was a century of many wars which had their genesis based in socialist ideology. For many reasons that ideology has failed those states that embraced socialism and it was not until those states decided to allow some private enterprise to grow, that those nations have prospered. China and Vietnam are prime examples of how the socialist state failed, but private enterprise has given them a new lease of life.
 
Conservatives are by nature cautious of those who advocate radical politics and ideas. Those who do not appreciate their cultural history are those who will embrace socialist ideals, because they really have no precedent in their lives with which to gauge socialist values and the outcomes of socialist ideals.

'Those who forget their history are those who are doomed to repeat it'. That quote is very relevant to today's lack of teaching methods in our schools, which due to political correctness and multicultural requirements no longer teach our children the real history of our Western cultures. It is for this reason that Conservatives are now being openly denigrated, humiliated and sometimes physically attacked. Just because they know history and can see the mistakes now being made by so many who remain so ignorant, and are being lied to, by so few!