On Conservatism

Well! Pretty Lady notes that the vast majority of her dear, dear friends--half Liberal, half Conservative, and 2.6% Shrubite (really truly? Or was someone Joking Around?) seem to have Nothing To Say about the information that our allegedly 'conservative' Administration is lavishly funding private healthcare for Chilean war criminals, while righteously withholding it from American veterans. Or didn't you read it? It's right there, two posts down.

Nothing like those conversation-stoppers.

Really, it seems to Pretty Lady that so many of our modern controversies would be obviated if more American citizens were culturally, historically and socially literate. Raised in the degenerate Public Schools, most of us, we lack the most basic understanding of English vocabulary. We hurl around words like 'liberal' and 'conservative' and 'appeasement' the way Enron accountants coped with the laws of mathematics--scraping off the more appealing Fringe Benefits and leaving the Central Facts under the rug.

This is certainly what the Bush administration did with the term 'conservative,' at any rate.

¹con·serve

Pronunciation:

\kən-ˈsərv\

Function:

transitive verb

Inflected Form(s):

con·served; con·serv·ing

Etymology:

Middle English, from Middle French conserver, from Latin conservare, from com- + servare to keep, guard, observe; akin to Avestan haurvaiti he guards

Date:

14th century

1: to keep in a safe or sound state conserved his inheritance>; especially : to avoid wasteful or destructive use of conserve natural resources>

²husband
Function:
transitive verb
Date:
15th century
1 a: to manage prudently and economically b: to use sparingly : conserve

As we have seen from the events of the last eight years, conserving and husbanding the country which he was entrusted to govern was Shrub's lowest priority, falling somewhere far behind golf. Enron-like, he took 'conservative' to mean, generally, 'government isn't responsible for anything,' and used this as a license to behave with gross irresponsibility. From appointing an incompetent crony to manage federal disaster relief, to decimating the landscape, to invading another country under false pretences, Shrub has proved himself to be an anti-conservative of the most monstrous order.

Much has been made, in the circles of punditry to which Pretty Lady is privy, of the manner in which Conservatism may make a Comeback. Her private opinion is that first, one may wish to take a look at the definition of the terms one is trying to resurrect, before barrelling ahead with Political Agendas. It may be that stewarding, husbanding, caring for, and educating the citizenry are not incompatible with the concept, and that eradicating these aspects of 'conservatism' is what destroyed it in the first place, before the 'liberals' ever did a thing.