What am I?

I read a pretty good posting on Redheaded Ramblings about the need for a new definition to encompass all the supposedly cool, hip new kids joining the Republican Party. PJ O’Rorke suggests “Republican Party Reptiles.” Others have commented on “South Park Republicans.” Fair enough, I suppose both are somewhat accurate for the sort of people who would use them to describe themselves.

Apparently there’s something wrong with the label conservative. Strictly defined I suppose there is. I should think there is only a small subset of conservatives and Republicans who really honestly oppose change. I hope nobody honestly thinks that the good old days were anything but normal days a long time ago.

Still, I tend to think of conservatives as people who believe tradition should be preserved and that change should only proceed at a snail’s pace and even then only after exhaustive discussion and debate. Maybe conservatives should really be called preservatives. OK, maybe preservationists?

I don’t want to return to the days when women were expected to stay home and tend to the chilluns. I don’t want the return of slavery, serfdom, or aristocratic rule. I don’t want to see tarriffs enacted, plutocrats running amok through the economy or JP Morgan able to save the nation from depression solely through force of will (and judicious infusions of cash). I don’t want gay men and women to have to cower in dark corners out of real fear of bodily harm.

But, neither do I want traditional morality (as I define it) to become totally irrelevant. I don’t want special victim groups to accrue rights independent of the rest of us. I don’t want businesses outlawed, penalized or demonized solely for doing business. I don’t want a judiciary independent of the citizens any more than I want a judiciary beholden to political pressures.

In short, I don’t want government in my pocketbook, in my home or in my face. I want people to live as people and to treat others as equal citizens with themselves without some finger-shaking nanny bureaucrat telling them they ought to.

I am a strict constructionist, I am a traditionalist, I am a preservationist. I believe in preserving the system of government the Founders created. You know, the one where the Federal government did two things: facilitated interstate trade and provided for the common defense. I believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not selfishness, libertinism and the attainment of happiness.