Defining the True Conservative

Reviewed By Stuart Nachbar

“Year after year freedom, diversity, and individual, local, and state responsibility have given way to regimentation, conformity, and subservience to central power.” 

This quote comes from which political party platform: 

A)     The Republican Party in 1936

B)      The Republican Party in 1948

C)      The Democratic Party in 1960

D)      The Republican Party in 1964

        E)       The Democratic Party in 1984 

Defining the True Conservative

Edwards, a former eight-term Congressman from Oklahoma and a former founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation, among other accolades, is as strong an authority on conservatism as you will find. He chaired the House Republican Policy Committee at the beginning of the Reagan Administration, and no one will ever say that President Reagan was not a true conservative. 

Reclaiming Conservatism is compact and reader-friendly and not over-cloaked in intellectual jargon beyond comprehension of an aspiring political science major. Most important, you learn what a true conservative really is—and how the term “conservative” has been used and abused by Republicans since the Clinton Administration. 

Conservatism, according to Edwards, stands for protecting and respecting the rights of the individual as opposed to groups; respect for the Constitution and the separation of powers between the executive branch, the President, and legislative and judicial branches of the federal government. Conservatism recognizes that powers that not implicitly stated in the Constitution are reserved to the states. 

Conservatism, as you’ll learn from this work, is not about a strong President who can ignore the will of Congress by issuing signing orders, suspending the right of habeas corpus, authorizing illegal wiretaps and sending military forces into undeclared wars. It is not about Congress carrying the water for the President. Conservatism is not about social conformity or the government setting moral standards for its citizens; in fact, the idea of culture wars goes against the individual freedom and separation of church and state that true conservatives espouse. 

Also interesting is that Edwards opposed elements of the Gingrich Contract with America, including the line-item presidential veto. He detested the idea of Congress ceding its budgetary authority to a strong president. Edwards correctly warned the Republican leadership that the authority would one day rest in the hands of the other party. 

Reading this book will educate you, but it will also make you angrier about the conduct of the current Bush Presidency. It might also lead you to consider that yesterday’s conservative might be today’s progressive moderate. 

Stuart Nachbar operates http://www.EducatedQuest.com , a blog on education politics, policy and technology. He was involved with education politics and economic development for two decades as an urban planner, government affairs manager and a software executive. His first novel, The Sex Ed Chronicles, about sex education and school politics in 1980 New Jersey, was published this past fall.