Conservatism is, in a nutshell, political restraint and political practicality. It says that change is possible (and often desirable), but it must occur gradually and naturally, reflecting, like a mirror, what society has become on its own, not the society imposed on us by the government. Government evolves with a given society. Government may be a little slow to respond (and it should be slow and thoughtful), and lagging behind where society is at any given moment, but it will eventually catch up. It is society that leads the change, not the government. But government, in hand with society, isn't a ship lost at sea, or one without a charted/pre-determined course. There is a kind of ultimate destination we hope we'll all reach together, even if some among us lag behind or slow our progress.
That ultimate destination is where we agree or disagree politically and ideologically.
Conservatives want the ultimate destination to be a society with much more freedom than it has today, but it is also a society that must earns those freedoms.
It is like a child growing into a teenager and then an adult, who is given a longer and longer rope, as she demonstrates that she has the self-restraint and wisdom to handle the responsibilities of more freedom, and to make good choices. If she wobbles, then the rope is shortened a bit, and the trust factor has to be reestablished before that same level of trust is extended again.
At times, it can be one step forward and then two steps backwards, until the right balance of trust and freedom is determined, based on the character, integrity, and moral fortitude of the individual (or in this case, the sum total of those characteristics of the society as a whole). It is give and take, where trust is earned and thoughtful use of that trust develops and earns more trust.
"More freedom" doesn't mean license to do whatever someone wants to do. In fact, it means just the opposite. The goal of more liberty isn't a nation of libertines. It means we reach a point where more freedom doesn't result in more libertines. If, for example, we reach the point where recreational drugs are decriminalized, it won't be because people have decided that recreational drugs are socially and morally acceptable. It will be because people have shown the wisdom of restraint and force of will to reject them, and their use is so small, so infinitesimally irrelevant, that we no longer find it necessary to have laws on the books to make their use illegal.
Society evolves to the point where it looks at those drug laws and says "Why do we have those? That's not something we have to deal with, as society has shown itself wise enough to reject their use, making laws like this unnecessary."
There are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of similar examples where society can evolve to a new standard of respect of freedom and of the body—where it rejects activities and pursuits that are damaging/dangerous to the society as a whole, and are damaging to the individual (in spirit/morality which is the source of real "self esteem," and respect of the physical body as a temple).
The decriminalization of something (the act of wiping the laws of it off the books) were not done by the Father of Conservatism and his allies and should not be done now with the intention of announcing to society that this thing, once illegal, is now condoned and socially acceptable (although there are examples of that, such as the elimination of laws that once banned interracial marriage or blue laws that no longer apply to our religiously diverse population, but these were exceptions, as they were temporary aberrations of law, and were "unjust" laws that we corrected). It is done because society no longer engages in these actions so the laws become unnecessary.
It is when we make swift, unearned/unnatural changes to society (imposed on it), and enact laws that go against the decades-long tested history of Common Law or other historical guidelines, where we end up having to reverse them, because they were mistakes. They were social reengineering actions that were unnaturally imposed on society, and that is always a mistake often seen only through the wisdom of hindsight, unfortunately.
If we were to erase a myriad of laws that attempt to constrain society (such as divorce laws, pornography prohibitions, etc.), it will not be because we now believe that divorce is "OK" or pornography as innocent and acceptable as playing Bridge. It will be because people make wise decisions in marriage and live up to their commitments (never needing a divorce), or society has realized that pornography is damaging to the psyche and chooses not to participate as the buyer or creator.
Those are the ideals, the direction, and our actions today and the laws we create to punish them, and the incentives we create to reward the rejection of them, are to move us in the direction of that ideal, not to impose it by judicial or legislative fiat. We realize we may never achieve the goal or get to our ideal destination, but we work towards it, gradually and carefully.
"That every man shall be made virtuous by any process whatever is, indeed, no more to be expected than that every tree shall be made to bear fruit, and every plant nourishment. The brier and bramble can never become the vine and olive; but their asperities may be softened by culture, and their properties improved to usefulness in the order and economy of the world."
-Thomas Jefferson, 1822
That was the great reformation that Edmund Burke began, which gave birth to the idea of conservatism. He and his fellows went through English law and began eliminating those laws which were no longer needed. It erred on the side of liberty for the individual, given the emotional, intellectual, character, and force of will/restraint of the society that the action would affect.
Further, Edmund Burke understood fully (and better than most others) that these types of actions could not be applied universally, and never imposed on a society that hadn't already got there on its own (or by itself). All laws were not stripped away. Only those laws that were no longer necessary were erased. To do otherwise defeated the purpose and the wisdom entirely, and was counter to what conservatism meant.
These actions were taken with an intimate and thorough understanding of the society in which it was occurring. Removing the laws in England did not mean that those same laws could be abandoned in other places in the world, as other nations and societies/cultures are always at different stages of their evolution. What works in one place may work in another, but it is because the societies and cultures are similar, not because the action/idea is portable to all immediately.
This is why, when faced with the revolutionaries in France, Edmund Burke (who had been a champion of American Independence) rejected the French version. It was not because he was opposed to liberation and revolution as a method of achieving liberty, but because he understood fully that the French were simply not ready for it.
I flatter myself that I love a manly, moral, regulated liberty as well as any gentleman of that society, be he who he will; and perhaps I have given as good proofs of my attachment to that cause, in the whole course of my public conduct. I think I envy liberty as little as they do, to any other nation. But I cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to anything which relates to human actions, and human concerns, on a simple view of the object, as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. Abstractedly speaking, government, as well as liberty, is good; yet could I, in common sense, ten years ago, have felicitated France on her enjoyment of a government (for she then had a government) without inquiry what the nature of that government was, or how it was administered? Can I now congratulate the same nation upon its freedom? Is it because liberty in the abstract may be classed amongst the blessings of mankind, that I am seriously to felicitate a mad-man, who has escaped from the protecting restraint and wholesome darkness of his cell, on his restoration to the enjoyment of light and liberty? Am I to congratulate a highwayman and murderer, who has broke prison, upon the recovery of his natural rights? This would be to act over again the scene of the criminals condemned to the galleys, and their heroic deliverer, the metaphysic knight of the sorrowful countenance.
When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation of a troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really received one. Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. I should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France, until I was informed how it had been combined with government; with public force; with the discipline and obedience of armies; with the collection of an effective and well-distributed revenue; with morality and religion; with the solidity of property; with peace and order; with civil and social manners. All these (in their way) are good things too; and, without them, liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not likely to continue long. The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations, which may be soon turned into complaints. Prudence would dictate this in the case of separate, insulated, private men; but liberty, when men act in bodies, is power. Considerate people, before they declare themselves, will observe the use which is made of power; and particularly of so trying a thing as new power in new persons, of whose principles, tempers, and dispositions they have little or no experience, and in situations, where those who appear the most stirring in the scene may possibly not be the real movers.- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution, 1790
Their revolution would lead to anarchy because they did not yet have the foundations of laws (and respect for them), nor the social traditions of Common Law, as the American revolutionaries had with their two-hundred year history of respect for law and assimilation of the English Common Law in their society and culture.
Without a respect for law, the recognition of the equal rights of all, and a culture of respect for legal and cultural precedent, anarchy would surely be the result, followed by totalitarian tactics which become necessary to restore order from madness. Burke believed it would be a brutal, bloody disaster and he was right on all counts, as are so many conservatives when they apply the lessons of history to newly presented "fresh" and "new" concepts, but which have proven to be doomed to failure.
Which brings me to today and how gradualism has been twisted by progressives and manipulated by those not quite so sympathetic to government changing to reflect the current-evolved society.
With progressives (and they may be called "liberals" or "Left" interchangeably) they desire to make new laws and eliminate old ones, but not in the same way, or using the same criteria/methods of conservatives. Progressives attempt to change society with government, i.e., the government acting as Jack Booted Thug to alter and reengineer society into the ideal progressives desire, which is tyranny, regardless of its flavor as communism, socialism or fascism.
Progressives impose change on society with gradualism to achieve their objectives. Conservatives recognize changes in the society itself, and respond to them gradually, and most importantly, carefully, with the goal of greater responsibility and liberty for all.
Liberty and responsibility cannot be separated. Well, they can, but the result is not liberty, but chaos. True liberty is realized when it comes with the wisdom and the force of will to accept the responsibility for exercising those liberties, and the acceptance of all the consequences that go with it. A liberated individual (psychically aware) does not choose actions which put himself at unnecessary risk, but more importantly, he doesn't engage in actions that put others at risk. More liberty comes with the associated responsibilities. Without a full-boat acceptance of those responsibilities, liberty is a simply a guise for degeneracy.
"When [the moral sense] is wanting, we endeavor to supply the defect by education, by appeals to reason and calculation, by presenting to the being so unhappily conformed, other motives to do good and to eschew evil, such as the love, or the hatred, or the rejection of those among whom he lives, and whose society is necessary to his happiness and even existence; demonstrations by sound calculation that honesty promotes interest in the long run; the rewards and penalties established by the laws; and ultimately the prospects of a future state of retribution for the evil as well as the good done while here. These are the correctives which are supplied by education, and which exercise the functions of the moralist, the preacher, and legislator; and they lead into a course of correct action all those whose depravity is not too profound to be eradicated."- Thomas Jefferson, 1814
If we take a particular issue, I may better illustrate the two approaches:
Progressives wish to change civil marriage, not with the goal of strengthening a social institution they respect, understand, and admire, but to shatter it, with the goal of its eventual elimination. Progressives wish to eliminate the social institution of marriage by gradually hammering away at its foundation.
Conservatives, on the other hand, wish to strengthen marriage, as conservatives recognize that social institutions such as marriage are the foundations of a healthy society.
The social institution of marriage has beneficial outcomes for society as a whole, but it also has the much more important desired impact of creating stable and productive citizens, and psychology/socially well-adjusted children; thus, the product of marriage is what is desired, not the title/deed of being married itself. It is not a title, such as "doctor" or "emperor." It is an institution, which has a high bar for entry and continued membership.
There is an old saying (unattributed) that goes "that which you sanction/condone you get more of." It is something we understand with our common sense, to the degree that we have any. When you make something cheaper or easier to buy/acquire, such as pornography or bread, you get more customers for it, and more producers of it, since the market for it is now larger.
When you make divorce easier, you get more divorce. The effect on marriage is also painfully obvious for those who use their common sense: Since marriage is easier to get out of, it is entered in to more carelessly and thoughtlessly. Making divorce harder (painfully difficult as it was until the 1960s) meant that people chose more carefully. They had longer courtships, longer engagements, and the institution was respected because once entered into, it was understood it was a life commitment, i.e., until death did them part.
There were rules in the civil marriage commitment. It required fidelity, responsibility (in many forms), and trust between the couple. Divorce was possible if there were grounds for divorce, which didn't include trivialities such as "we decided we don't like each other anymore."
Because divorce was so difficult and so shattering to one's social standing and financial stability, couples had to demonstrate restraint with each other. They couldn't allow an argument to escalate from smoldering embers to blazing firestorm. They knew they'd have to face each other the next day, and the day after that, and there was no escape from each other. This demanded of them an approach of rationality, of respectfully discussing their differences, of learning to come to a compromise, and the necessity of developing, above all else, a friendship between themselves.
Love may or may not last as the titillation of infatuation and romance may gradually fade, but the friendship can and must endure, as well as the respect and trust the friendship/bond engenders. That friendship/bond, in itself, may have kept the passion-embers burning, but even if it didn't, and all that remained was a friendly and cordial friendship/bond, that was enough, and was important and valued.
When divorce is easy, there is no need to show restraint, no need to develop that trust and bond, and the marriage crumbles. When the emphasis of marriage is one of physical "fun," indulgence, and passion only, it cannot endure the trials and tribulations of day to day life, and the fading of youth and beauty, and it will end badly. Marriage doesn't live up to the advertising of "fun" or "romantic" but it was never advertised as that in the past.
Easier divorce means more divorce and it makes marriage less happy for those who enter into it, yielding even more divorce. A viscous, horrid cycle is created.
It ends badly for all of us. The disastrous financial impact of divorce is well understood. Single mothers are the ones who make up the lowest quintiles of the economic tables. Their children fill the psychiatric hospitals, the courts, and the juvenile jails.
Divorced men (who may or may not have the ability or fortitude to support their children by court order) see the physical manifestations of their hard work and financial achievements irrevocably split and splintered, and their loss of daily contact with their children creates a distance and a sadness, all of which result in a loss of face, happiness, and self-esteem. This makes men demonstrate behaviors of brooding, anger, and selfishness, contrasted with the stereotypical role of the woman as victim, resulting in whining, bitterness, and desire for revenge.
These stresses and strains have grave consequences for the individuals involved, as well as the society in which they live. They use more services, such as family courts, psychiatrists, and police as the psychological impacts of divorce lead to all sorts of other undesired behaviors and outcomes.
The above are the least important, as the institution of marriage was honed and perfected over the millennium with the goal of raising healthy and productive offspring. Civil marriage (originally religious-only, or Royal-sanctioned marriage for those couples who had demonstrated their fertility) has the main goal of producing offspring—offspring that will give society a new generation, allowing the society itself to endure. Marriage, therefore, is the vehicle/method by which society continues and prospers.
Children of divorce are not as well off as their stable-family peers. This is also well documented, with statistics that prove that even a peaceful and cooperative, mutually-agreed-upon divorce affects children negatively. Stepmothers or stepfathers help, but they don't eliminate all the negative outcomes. A single-parent household is the worst, regardless of it being a single woman or man.
Other than homes with physical and/or emotional abuse (a violation of the marriage contract in itself), children really are better off with both parents in the home, even if they aren't madly in love with each other.
Ideally, we wish that all married couples are as delightfully and passionately in love on their 50th anniversary as they were on their wedding day, but mutual respect and friendship is not a bad outcome either. The latter, while not the advertised outcome in today's "marriage is about love and passion only" propaganda, is a thoroughly reasonable and normal outcome of marriage for some couples. The recognition that the purpose of marriage (that existed for hundreds and hundreds of years) is that marriage's purpose is to have the outcome of delivering to society children who grow up to be productive, happy, and prosperous individuals. It was once thought of as an ideal, with the friendship/bond of the couple a marvelous, life-sustaining and fulfilling outcome, but a side benefit. Marriage was always for the children, not the parents. Children will be better off in every measurable way, and society will be better off in every measurable way if the couple stays married.
That is why conservatives value the institution of marriage and reject any progressive notions of changing it to carelessly bring more people into it, or to make it more casual (even easier to get out of than it is today), or to redefine the desired outcome to something akin to "sexually and selfishly satisfying and all other expectations be damned, and can be discarded like a used Kleenex if it no longer feels good."
Marriage should be difficult to get into and have a reasonable degree of exclusivity (with minor exceptions of chance and circumstance) to those who promise to deliver to society the desired outcome of marriage: healthy, prosperous, happy, and productive children.
It is civil society, through their government not by their government, that grants and recognizes a couple as "married." It is a reciprocal relationship, between the society and the couple who lives within that society. It is recognized, sanctioned, and granted with expectations—expectations that are rewarded because of the known benefits the relationship provides, if the couple lives up to their commitment to each other and the society who bears witness to their promises. The rewards/benefits that society confers on a couple are stripped from them if they break their promises to each other and the society that witnessed and allowed it.
Marriage isn't a "right," as so many progressives assert. It never has been. It is an institution, and it is a "privilege" to be allowed into it, only by those willing to accept and live up to the requirements and rules.
The marriage example is an ideal one, because it demonstrates so clearly the cause and effect, tit for tat, and benefit/reward ratio of an individual (or in the case of marriage, a couple) and society. Government has no role in this, except to recognize society's goals and desires and to codify what society wants more of by creating rewards/benefits or punishment. "What we sanction/condone we get more of" and "what we prohibit/criminalize we get less of."
There are hundreds of examples of this: when welfare is easy and comes with no stigma, we get higher welfare rolls; when bastard children are condoned and the mother supported in it, we get more unwed mothers and negatively affected children (and more crime, depression, anxiety and suicides of those children); and when indulgencies and immoral/casual/selfish acts are condoned and accepted, we get more pornography, more drug use, more idleness, and more casual sex (and the negative psychological/social impacts of those actions which create a burden on productive members of society, as well as the creation of diseases and the higher risk of pandemics that effect all of society, not just those who engage in risky behaviors), and when having children is considered an act of "self-fulfillment," rather than a duty and a responsibility, we get fewer children, and fewer healthy/happy children, as well as a change in how society views children (and larger families), and the society itself is at risk.
Society is burdened with the outcome of irresponsible behavior so it has every right to demand that its government do all that is reasonably necessary to adjust the laws to prevent or reduce risky behaviors, and encourage healthy, responsible, and productive behaviors.
The family unit has lost much, but not all of its value. There are wondrous and miraculous holdouts of happy, prosperous and productive marriages and families, despite so many laws and actions that work against them. Those family units are the ultimate protection and defender against tyranny.
Man is a social animal and he will form bonds and allegiances out of necessity and instinct. Without a family unit to be protected, respected, and nurtured, he will find surrogates and form unhealthy allegiances with cults, racketeers, gangs, and most importantly (for the progressive goal of communism, fascism, or socialism) a bond with the State, as the replacement for the figurehead and security of Mother and Father, or of being Mother or Father.
Without a strong family bond to which there is the ultimate and sacred allegiance (that no man may put asunder), any family/tribe replacement is possible. History has borne this out, with the allegiances to the SS, and the communist party thugs in Russia and China. All of these abominations and horrific genocidal actions began with the careful and premeditated destruction of the family, elevating the State as the replacement for it, with propaganda infused with the banner of protecting family and children. These are/were brilliant acts of family destruction, under the guise of family protection, by appealing to the worst fears and traits of humankind.
This is why National Socialism (NAZIs) took children from their parents (the "Hitler Youth"), to be raised by strangers of the State, who punished them for demonstrating individualist ideas and compassion, rather than responsibility for family and children. The allegiance was no longer to the family, but to the "Fatherland."
It was cult/brainwashing taken to the universal level. The team/group was elevated above the individual, and respect for the sanctity of individual conscience and individual-healthy pride was punished. Nationalism replaced patriotism. The State replaced mother and father and the family itself. Without the moral, ethical and social restraints of family shame and pride, the worst characteristics of human beings could be brought to bear against others. It was premeditated.
This is why the education of Cuban, Soviet, and Chinese children (and all socialist, communist, and totalitarian regimes) are performed exclusively by government schools, with state-required curriculum (originally designed by John Dewey, but revised and rejected by the Russians because they realized that it resulted not in socialist drones, but in irresponsible hoodlums and thugs) that proceeded these nation's desires and attempts of world domination, by force, if necessary.
It is, as I stated, the family unit itself that is the ultimate barrier against complete State control and all that the outcome of that creates: tyranny, misery, and illusions of grandeur that enable totalitarian domination of the individual, and consumes the society itself.
Idealistically wrong-headed and progressive ideas of "all getting along" and "all speaking in one voice" are dangerous. Unity is necessary in a society when it is threatened from the outside, but unity and "one voice" are contrary to individual liberty and respect of conscience. There must be allowed in society family units that have different opinions and ideas, who educate and raise their children differently, as long as those opinions and ideas do not become exceptionally hurtful or harmful to the children in their care. It is the bond and protection of a hundred million individual family households, valued and having primacy above the State, all having unique and respected ideals and values, competing and speaking their minds, and coming to a compromise that allows all to coexist that creates a compact of a society for the mutual protection of their individual families, and the individual members of those families.
It is in the family where an individual learns to compromise, to make allowances for the differences of others, while still accepting and loving them. We learn forgiveness, tolerance, and the delight of diversity from family, not from artificially imposed, statistical-based laboratories that attempt to create diversity and tolerance on the outside. Yes, exposure to people of different backgrounds and views can be beneficial to a child, but only after he has become immune to propaganda and manipulation.
Allow me to switch issues to define and detail a problem, with suggestions of gradual and careful adjustments to address it.
The gravest of issues is the one of abortion, not simply because it is such a charged issue and so politically divisive, but because of its impact on society. That degree of divisiveness is not a healthy thing for society, but the way that abortion has changed society's direction with respect to loving and delighting in children is its worst impact.
Yes, abortion itself is a horrible thing (even if some agree that it is a necessity at times), but the greater impact is longer term, even longer than the lifetime of the child lost in the choice to abort, or the life of the mother who chooses it.
We could move, gradually and carefully, in a direction where abortion is limited in cases where a significant majority of us recognize its practice as an abomination.
Most of us realize that a late-term abortion, where there is no risk to the life of the mother and the baby is viable on its own, is wrong. While making it illegal (unless, as I stated, it is a life threatening situation for the mother and if the baby is at viable stage), is one way of addressing the issue, we (more importantly) need to agree (despite our differences of opinion of the legality of abortion) that gradually moving to a reduction in the number of abortions is the direction we all want to go.
- We need to do more than addressing it only in criminalization of the practice in extreme circumstances (or even getting to the point where it is criminalized, if society moves in tandem in that direction).
- We need to make adoption easier.
- We need to work towards reducing the stigma of "bad mother" when a woman decides to put the child's well-being above her selfish desire to raise the child on her own.
- We need to respect, laud, and support a pregnant woman who tells us that she is giving the child up for adoption!
- We need to, gradually and carefully, move the ball backwards a bit on this issue by reasserting and reestablishing that a family of children does not necessarily mean that they are all the biological children of the parents. We need to respect paternity (and therefore "parental rights") by marriage exclusively, not by biology.
- We also need to make adjustments in other aspects of our laws and policies to make housing for larger families easier (and cheaper), and not be shocked or alarmed when we see large families. We should applaud them. Perhaps we could allow multi-family dwelling permits or make easier to obtain, so when a single mother wishes to live amongst a larger family unit, to (at minimum) give her own child exposure to a mother/father unit, even at arm's length, she would be able to do it. If that single mother cannot find the courage to give her child fully to an intact family, perhaps she could live among them. We could also make adoption faster, easier, and free.
- It is also the stigma of adoption, and the idea that children will be forever damaged by adoption that we need to work on to eliminate it from the zeitgeist. That is often why women choose abortion, rather than carrying the child to term and giving the child the chance of a life, and a better life, with a family who recognizes that all children are gifts. There are families who desperately desire more children, who will raise the child as their own, and society benefits and endures when it has another life to cherish and nurture.
These are not radical changes, as they were once the norm, and the direction that we have reengineered in society is the abomination we should work to destroy. We can and should do it carefully, without reintroducing the flaws that caused us to eliminate it in the first place, which led us in this wrong direction, with all its unintended, but predicted consequences.
Those are just a few of the issues and I hope the above illustrates the conservative approach to addressing them, as opposed to the progressive method of imposing artificial values on us that undermine our authority, as well as distort our ability to live happily.
What I have described above is secular conservatism, where secular retains its original meaning and is not (as it is often used today) a euphemism or guise for being "anti-religious." Secular is defined as distinctly different from religion, i.e., that which is not religious, but it is like an agnostic, who recognizes that the secular realm and the religious realm must and can co-exist.
Our values and our culture may have been passed along by religion initially, but it evolved into a secular culture and society, that coexists with religion (and religious diversity). Co-existence demands that each be respected, but each resides in a separate sphere, even if they may also co-reside in the head of a single individual. Co-existance does not mean that one has primacy over the other, only that the spheres do not cross or intrude where one is not appropriate.
"And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him."- The Book of Mark 12:17, New Testament (King James version)
People may continue to choose to believe that the source of our culture and values is religion and their God's Commandments, but there is also secular evidence to prove that their ways are often the better ways, and better directions and destination. The data demonstrates so convincingly and without exception that family and children are the way to go, and the only way that our liberated and free society can endure.
When I read of progressive ideas of using judicial activism to alter society in the direction of socialism or communism, I reflect on how dangerous and anti-liberty and anti-freedom that is.
Freedom cannot be given to people, as one might pass out chocolate. It is so simple, but it is so easily missed and misunderstood: Liberty must be earned and maintained with respect for law, mutual liberty, and the property of others.
Liberty, prosperity, and happiness is something that an individual in a society earns, supported, encouraged, and enabled by a society's foundations for respect of the pursuit of happiness.
An individual (their soul, self-esteem, and respect) is destroyed when these things are handed to them without conditions and without effort.
Happiness is not defined by license, of doing all that feels good and making selfish choices, or being handed the things that others have without earning them, but in recognition that we are temporary, that what we are/have is what we earned ourselves, and it is for future generations (and our own) that we restrain ourselves, and guide all that we do.
Being stewards of liberty requires a respect for individual conscience (both religious and secular), the love of children, respecting the property and privacy of others, and the protection of the sacred and valuable intuition of marriage. It is in those values and ideals where true happiness (not temporary satiation) is found. It may not be the same degree of sacredness or joy, or even the same definitions or rules for everyone, but marriage, and the responsibility for our progeny is what we must, gradually and carefully, return to.
"We" end when we stop producing children. Society and our culture is precious and anything we do or wish to achieve must be done carefully, and gradually, and we must earn and rise to it.
We protect and allow our society to continue by demanding that government respond to what we want and desire. We reject a government that initiates change on its own. We determine the change we want, without government meddling, unless we specifically ask for it.
Society's goals and the direction that society chooses to go have not been ceded to the government to determine for us. We must refuse to progressives the goals of eroding our values, of using government as the method of imposing change on us, or to force their failed ideologies and restrictions on the liberty and prosperity that we have ourselves earned.
We must reject all incarnations and intrusions of it, forcefully.
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