Portal:Conservatism

Introduction

Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in which it appears. In Western culture, depending on the particular nation and the particular time period, conservatives seek to promote and preserve a range of institutions, such as the nuclear family, organized religion, the military, the nation-state, constitution, property rights, rule of law, aristocracy, and monarchy.

The 18th-century Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke, who opposed the French Revolution, is credited as one of the forefathers of Western conservative thought in the 1790s along with Savoyard statesman Joseph de Maistre. The first established use of the term in a political context originated in 1818 with François-René de Chateaubriand during the period of Bourbon Restoration that sought to roll back the policies of the French Revolution and establish social order.

Conservatism has varied considerably as it has adapted itself to existing traditions and national cultures. Thus, conservatives from different parts of the world, each upholding their respective traditions, may disagree on a wide range of issues. One of the three major ideologies along with liberalism and socialism, conservatism is the dominant ideology in many countries across the world, including Hungary, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, and Russia. Historically associated with right-wing politics, the term has been used to describe a wide range of views. Conservatism may be either libertarian or authoritarian, populist or elitist, progressive or reactionary, moderate or extreme. (Full article...)

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Conservapedia is an English-language wiki project written from a self-described American conservative Christian point of view. The website considers itself to be a supporter of conservative, family-friendly content. It was started in 2006 by homeschool teacher and attorney Andy Schlafly, son of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, to counter what he called the "liberal bias" of Wikipedia. It uses editorials and a wiki-based system to generate content. Examples of the ideology of Conservapedia in its articles include: accusations against US President Barack Obama, criticism of Wikipedia's supposed liberal bias, criticism of relativity as promoting relativism, claiming a proven link between abortion and breast cancer and asserting that the goals of a so-called Homosexual Agenda includes indoctrination. Conservapedia also operates the Conservative Bible Project, a conservative interpretation of the Bible. Conservapedia has received negative reactions from the mainstream media, as well as from various figures from both ends of the political spectrum, including commentators and journalists, and has been criticized for bias and inaccuracies.

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To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.

— Michael Oakeshott, On Being Conservative (1962)

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On April 14, 2007, an estimated 300,000 people marched in Ankara to protest the possible candidacy of Justice and Development Party leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Turkish 2007 presidential election, afraid that if elected as President, he would alter the secular nature of the Turkish state. The protests continued over the next several weeks, with over one million reported at an April 29 rally in Istanbul. Early parliamentary elections were called after the failure of the parties in parliament to agree on the next Turkish president. The opposition parties boycotted the parliamentary vote and deadlocked the election process. The AK Party achieved victory in the rescheduled July 22, 2007 elections with 46.6% of the vote, translating into control of 341 of the 550 available parliamentary seats.

Credit: Randam

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Did you know...

...that Fred Ryan was instrumental in the development of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library?

... that author Jonathan Krohn gave a two-minute speech at the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference at age thirteen?

... that Jens Wisløff, a Norway Conservative Party politician, was called "the grand old man of asphalt"?

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Selected anniversaries in October

1899 – the Thousand Days' War begins when Liberal forces attack Conservatives at Santander, Colombia.

1st

1982 – Helmut Kohl, described as "the greatest European leader of the second half of the 20th century" by George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, is elected Chancellor of Germany.