I have a question for my conservative friends and readers: How would you define your beliefs?
This is a serious request, an attempt to reach beyond the partisan nature of our politics to get at the philosophical underpinnings of what conservatives believe.
If you answer, I’d ask you to remain positive: Tell me what you believe, rather than why the people you disagree with are wrong. And avoid mentioning the names of candidate or current or past elected officials.
Give me five points that sum up your beliefs — either in the comments here, on Facebook, or via Twitter. I’ll try to sum up your responses in a future post and expand the question to cover the full spectrum.
Thanks all.
Hank Kalet 
Right wing or conservative blather:*Limited government (cripple government so it can't do any good for the poor and the middle class)*Personal responsibility (kill off Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA)*Lower taxes (lower taxes for the rich and the corporations, create huge deficits and debt as an excuse to kill off SS, Medicare, Medicaid, ACA, etc.)*Repeat the above 3 points over and over and over and over.*Defund government to the point that it can be water boarded in a toilet bowl.
This isn't helpful in this case. I am serious about this request and truly want to know what conservatives view as their core beliefs. I want to give conservatives a chance to define themselves.
This is my interpretation of conservatism and may, or may not align with other conservatives.1. A Limited role for the federal government. As per the US Constitution, the federal government should provide for the common defense and deal with matters of interstate commerce. That is pretty much it. Items like the FAA for air travel, some overall regulation of business dealings where the general health, safety and welfare of its citizens’ are concerned. All other matters to be regulated by the individual states as they see fit.2. The ability to be as successful as your ambition and talent takes you in an open market. This is not to say that there is not a role for government in the safety of workers and licensing of certain enterprises.3. The sanctity of the home and the family as the main unit of society. It does “take a village” to some extent, but the role of government should almost always come below the educational and moral backbone of the family. As an example, marriage of any kind should be determined by the belief system of those entering into it and not determined by any government agency. If a family is religious-based, the state should not supersede those teachings in favor of secularism. 4. Making the most efficient use of resources. Not spending trillions of dollars for things like corporate welfare or even foreign aid. Those things and many entitlement programs could be better managed through private foundations and individual charity. Making generations of people totally beholden and managed every day to get a helping hand up, does not produce the desired result of productive citizens in the long run.5. The understanding that each citizen should be able to keep as much of the money they earn as is fiscally possible under the law. Taxes should always be used for the most truly needed items in the society and not an endless money pit, padding the pockets of public servants to a much greater extent than what is being earned by most workers in the private sector. Doctors, police, firefighters, EMTs and other critical professions should be justly compensated, but not to the economic detriment of everyone else. The federal budget must always be balanced with the one exception of a war declared by congress (the only really legal ones).With all that said, corporate America must learn to become good neighbors and ensure they pay workers fairly and provide adequate benefits….unlike companies such as Wal-Mart that instruct its bottom paid workers how to apply for benefits instead of doing the right thing and paying them appropriately. If someone is working a full time job, they should at the very least, be able to live in a secure home and not go hungry.Mandated redistribution will not make workers more loyal or better at what they do. It will just make them care less about doing good work. That is not a good formula.
If you want to know what conservatives think then go to all the corporate funded so called think tanks: AEI, Heritage, CATO, Mercator, Hudson, etc. As Krugman has noted, these think tanks take the think out of think tank. The US Chamber of Commerce is also another source of the pro corporate conservatism or right wing libertarianism and Ayn Randian plotziness. One right wing/conservative line of thought goes: let the free markets rule and the best results will always ensue. Baloney; without stiff rules and regulations the capitalists will rape the environment and exploit the workers. Most conservatives that I have ever seen or heard from are rabidly anti-union.
Typical conservative libertarian think tank blather – Heritage Foundation: Heritage Foundation's mission is \”to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.\”It takes credit for much of former President Bush's policy, both domestic and foreign, referring to Bush's policies as \”straight out of the Heritage play book.\”Heritage supports faith-based initiatives, school vouchers, ban on abortion, overturning affirmative action programs.- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/heritage-foundation#sthash.CNfCEO0A.dpufOh sure, let's have limited government so the corporations can run completely wild because, you know, the corporations always have the best interests of the public as their topmost priority, cough, cough. Individual freedom really means you don't need no stinking Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. The US went on a bank deregulation binge while Canada maintained and strengthened a strongly regulated banking system. During the great recession of 2008, the US had hundreds of bank failures while Canada had no bank failures.