On your comments concerning what is and isn’t true conservatism, I’ll cover tomorrow in a circular sort of way. I believe that your arguments contending what is and isn’t conservatism help to shape what actually is and isn’t conservatism which, in a haphazard sort of way, make it de facto conservatism — that is, since the definition of conservatism is constantly changed by the debate surrounding it, the debate is one component of the definition … if that even makes sense.

I’m still not done with tomorrow’s post yet, but it’s 5 pages long at the moment. I could probably write a dissertation on the subject, but dissertations don’t make for great blog posts.

Your list of what conservatism is isn’t bad, although I would disagree with a couple of items. While a strong, hawkish, self-interest governed foreign policy may have worked well at one point, in the modern world, where every country is so strongly inter-connected with every other, it really isn’t possible to think only of yourself. Your actions will have ramifications on other countries which will, in return, come back to haunt you later. Thinking first about yourself is fine, thinking only about yourself causes problems, as we’ve seen in the past 8 years.

Secondly, as a self-described secular conservative, caring about religious values seems a bit off. Conservatives do not show deference for tradition simply because it is tradition, but because it has been shown over time to work. As things stop working or as new, better solutions present themselves, true conservatives should not be afraid to move on and abandon the old ways in favor of things that work better, we simply shouldn’t change for the sake of change as many liberals do. Unfortunately, as we’re seeing in the modern hyper-conservative Republican party, they refuse to change from tradition for any reason, they’re not practicing conservatism, they’re practicing stasis. The simple fact is, most of the so-called religious values are simply unjustifiable by anything but religious faith, there is no secular reason to hold to the vast majority of them. In fact, two of the things that are defining characteristics of a conservative that you missed are a commitment to personal responsibility and keeping government out of the lives of others, the second of which does away with many, if not most of the so-called religious values that have been spouted by Washington these past 8 years.

I look forward to seeing your full write-up on this. Good job.