In 1960 Nobel laureate F.A. Hayak, author of The Road to
Serfdom, as well as other works, wrote a short essay titled “Why I am not
Conservative”. In this essay he describes the definition of Conservative as
meaning opposed to change. I wanted to take the time to reflect on this work
and to add into my own responses as to what is meant and why I feel the same.
The very definition of Conservatism is ambiguous and has changed popular
definition about as many times as America has changed Presidents. So let us begin.
“Let me now state what seems to me the decisive objection to
any conservatism which deserves to be called such. It is that by its very
nature it cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving.
It may succeed by its resistance to current tendencies in slowing down
undesirable developments, but, since it does not indicate another direction, it
cannot prevent their continuance.”
What this is saying is that for all of conservatisms abhorrence
to change it offers no solution to reverse a wrong course because it is
resistant to change. This is a startling
accusation to the now self-proclaimed Conservatives and should be seen as the
main fault of their ideology. The very nature of remaining stagnant even with
certain peril or death around you is foolish and irrevocably dangerous to the
same political gains they are trying to achieve.
Later Hayak writes, “When I say that the conservative lacks
principles, I do not mean to suggest that he lacks moral conviction. The
typical conservative is indeed usually a man of very strong moral convictions.
What I mean is that he has no political principles which enable him to work with
people whose moral values differ from his own for a political order in which
both can obey their convictions. It is the recognition of such principles that
permits the coexistence of different sets of values that makes it possible to
build a peaceful society with a minimum of force.”
Force here indicates that to maintain the status quo the
conservatism relies on its government to regulate and restrict all other
opinions, morals, values and ways of live that others hold. It is through this
force that we find they lean more toward socialism than even they realize. The
keeping of traditions is a fairly innocent notion except when the ways in which
you keep those traditions is to forcefully trample the traditions, and
therefore the free will of others. In this sense the conservative is nothing
more or less than a brute who denies the individual their natural right of
choice.
Hayak also links modern conservatism to Nationalism and
isolationism in his words, “Connected with the conservative distrust if the new
and the strange is its hostility to internationalism and its proneness to a
strident nationalism. Here is another source of its weakness in the struggle of
ideas. It cannot alter the fact that the ideas which are changing our
civilization respect no boundaries. But refusal to acquaint one's self with new
ideas merely deprives one of the power of effectively countering them when necessary.
The growth of ideas is an international process, and only those who fully take part
in the discussion will be able to exercise a significant influence. It is no
real argument to say that an idea is un-American, or un-German, nor is a
mistaken or vicious ideal better for having been conceived by one of our
compatriots.”
This failure to submit to any change places the conservative
into a state of Nationalistic insanity, the nationalist will condone anything
and everything that the government prescribes for the remaining nations and
state even at the expense of rationalizing mass murder, theft plunder, and
world policing. Giving that its use of force is justified so that their ideal
scenarios and moral convictions remain a staple for every person on this
planet, they have in essence created their own enemies, which we are seeing
today with the rise of “terrorism” and “religious radicals”. These we have
created out of using force to subject others to the same religious and moral
choices that the conservative holds. This creates isolation from outside
countries and creates a network of potential enemies for later wars.
For these reasons and others I cannot call myself a
conservative. I belief in the individual right to self-governance and of self-control,
I believe in the right of all free people to live by their own religion, their
own traditions in as so long those traditions or choices do not interfere with
another.
Einstein once wrote that “Nationalism
is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” It can be concluded
that the nationalism that we Americans have so embraced is the downfall to our
free nation. We have created enemies instead of allies, we have placed leaders
into sovereign nations, and we have taken our role as the world police to the
level of the world rulers.
For this and countless other reasons I can say “I am NOT a Conservative.”
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