What makes a consevative a conservative?

[Gups]

Just goes to show the impossibility of trying to shoehorn everyone into one of two categories.

Hitler was radical as was Reagan, Thatcher, Lenin, Mao, Attaturk, FDR

Churchill was a conservative as was Eisenhower, Brezhnev, Bismark

[Richard Hakluyt]

It would depend on the circumstances for most people I would suggest. I'm fairly conservative living as I do in the UK, if I was a Greek citizen I would be far more tempted by radical potential solutions.

[Viking]

If I had to list a few of the axis I suggest

Conservative vs. Radical
Authoritarian vs. Liberal
Communitarian vs. Individualist
Traditionalist vs. Progressive
Idealist vs. Empiricist
Libertarian vs. Collectivist
Redistributionist vs. Non-redistributionist
Mercantilist vs. Free Trader
Nationalizer vs. Property Rights Advocate

etc. However, since so many of these terms are closely related or are often 100% overlapping (how often do you find a libertarian mercantilist?). The entire Right-Left distinction started after the 1815 Restoration in France where there was a sitting chamber of deputies in an amphitheatre style semi-circle (as opposed to the opposite facing benches of westminster). The King opened the chamber and made speaches and the royalists assembled at the king's right hand, the traditional place of honor, while the bonapartists and republicans assembled on the left making the point that they didn't want or need the kings favor.

All of this due to cowardly greek hoplites drifting left to hide behind the next man's shield resulting in the bravest soldiers standing on the far right demanding and getting glory for this brave task. Either that or the king wiped his arse with his left hand and the place of honor was the one next to the king but not on the dirty hand side.

[The Brain]

Libertarian Socialism will prevail. It is known.

[Admiral Yi]

Mentioned it several times before.   US conservatism is composed of two elements: prohibitionism and libertarianism.  Don't think it's properly Burkian.

Open question: what's the difference between classical liberal and libertarian?

[PDH]

One wore a toga?

[crazy canuck]

The word conservative, like the word liberal, has been misused so often that it has become devoid of meaning. 

[Viking]

The word conservative, like the word liberal, has been misused so often that it has become devoid of meaning.

Yeah, great contribution there.

[sbr]

Mentioned it several times before.   US conservatism is composed of two elements: prohibitionism and libertarianism.  Don't think it's properly Burkian.

Open question: what's the difference between classical liberal and libertarian?

I read those elements as opposites, is that fair?

[Martinus]

What is the conservatism at it's most basic?

Have I taught you people nothing in the decade plus I have been here?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke

This.

Liberalism is Mill/Locke and socialism is Rousseau. Period.

[derspiess]

The word conservative, like the word liberal, has been misused so often that it has become devoid of meaning.

Yeah, great contribution there.

He's got a point, though.  This entire thread has been and will be a debate over semantics.

[Martinus]

Burke was not a conservative he was a liberal in the classical sense.

That's totally not true. He was a conservative in the classic sense. J.S. Mill and J. Locke were liberals in the classic sense. The discourse between Burke and Mill/Locke is what informs much of Anglo-Saxon (or indeed Western) political thought to this day.

What people are missing in this discourse is the third leg of the tripod - Rousseau with his collectivism (and its "godly" version in the form of the Catholic Social Science), which informs much of continental European thought (from communism to socialism to social democracy to fascism to nazism) but is largely alien to Anglo-Saxon mindset which leads them to fail to understand Hitler or German Christian democracy, for example.

[Viking]

Burke was not a conservative he was a liberal in the classical sense.

That's totally not true. He was a conservative in the classic sense. J.S. Mill and J. Locke were liberals in the classic sense. The discourse between Burke and Mill/Locke is what informs much of Anglo-Saxon (or indeed Western) political thought to this day.

What people are missing in this discourse is the third leg of the tripod - Rousseau with his collectivism (and its "godly" version in the form of the Catholic Social Science), which informs much of continental European thought (from communism to socialism to social democracy to fascism to nazism) but is largely alien to Anglo-Saxon mindset which leads them to fail to understand Hitler or German Christian democracy, for example.

"Totally not true" ?

He was a Whig in favor of Free Trade and tolerance for Catholics. His objection to the French Revolution which he initially supported was that it hadn't been liberal enough and the not worth killing the king for. He was a liberal that objected to violent revolution. His conservatism was limited to the process and his defense of institutions was always related to their value for liberty.

At least we agree Rousseau was a scumbag, that he was the fountainhead for both nazism and communism and that nothing good ever came out of geneva.

[Kleves]

A better question: What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?

[Martinus]

Viking, did you receive any university degree formal education in history of ideologies and political ideas? If so, how was Burke presented? In my class he was considered the father of conservatism, on the same footing as the other three I mentioned for liberalism and collectivism, respectively.