Essay:The evolution of conservatism

This is quite likely wrong on many points. Feel free to correct any points without altering the underlying message of the essay. Thats why its an essay and not in some other name space.

Originally, there were to main schools of thought about how to run a nation. One suggested that the government should be all encompassing and supportive of its citizens - making an attempt to guarantee each a minimum standard of life which was paid for by the citizens most capable of doing so. The other suggested that the government should simply protect the nation and control the interactions between its states and whatever else happened, happened - keeping as small of a federal government as possible. The former was 'liberal', the later was 'conservative'.

Ultimately, some compromise between these points became the status quo. The government did offer some minimum standard, though it was far below what one would consider 'acceptable' without working for ones self.

This went on for some time until a President Nixon (conservative) abused executive power. In seeing this, the liberal school of thought sought to remove power from the executive branch. The followers of the conservative school rallied to the defense of one of their own. This was a pivotal change in how the conservative school looked at the federal government. What was before a small government and small power became a big government and significant power in the hands of the executive branch.

Part of this power to the executive branch was because America was at the time in the midst of the Cold War and national security (the other part of the original conservative school) was of the utmost importance to the political world.

Some time passes with the ebb and flow of politicians and small but very vocal part of the American population starts getting active. The Christian Coalition found that it was possible to mobilize small town politics to fight what was perceived as the atheistic and evil Red Empire (communism). In doing so, it aligned itself with the conservative school and helped win elections for it.

Much of the power that the Christian Coalition had was in the districts that had very motivated and active people. With the abysmal voter turn out it was possible for even a minority of the population to all show up and win an election. School boards, local elected offices and through the power of the electoral college in awarding a disproportionate amount to states with a low population (rural).

As an aside for those not familiar with the electoral college and the impact this has, each state gets some number of votes for the president - the number of representatives it has in congress - the house and the senate. Wyoming gets 3 votes (1 + 2), California gets 35 votes (33 + 2). Wyoming has a population of 500,000 while California has a population of 35,500,000. Dividing the people by the votes, Wyoming has 1 vote for every 250,000 people while California has one vote for every 645,000 people. Thats 2.5x more voting power.

What once was a party of small government and national security became a party of national security and the moral mandate of the Christian Coalition. Every conservative who has sought the presidency has had to make promises to this part of the nation to keep that vote. When this coincides with a candidate who is part of that Christian Coalition or Values Voters group, the notion theocracy is only semantic difference way.

The 2000 election happened to have a vice president selected who had argued for restoring the pre-Nixon presidential powers. With the republican congress at the time, much of this expansion of the executive power was overlooked or even accepted.

However, a new force is emerging into the Christian voting block - the youth. No longer afraid of the Red Empire and genuinely outraged at the cost of human life abroad the voting Christian youth are not necessarily post Nixon conservative. The issues are moral rather than political. There is a perceived disparity between concern for life before birth, but not following through with supporting the child after birth. Social justice is important. Some traditional things fall under the 'moral' umbrella (restriction of abortion, gay marriage) but there is a difference in the opinions of a 20 year old evangelical Christian and a 40 year old.