"conserve, to keep in a safe and sound state"*
I am a conservative because:
+ I want to preserve and protect the natural state of things in our nation's forests, river courses and lakes, to prevent wherever and however possible the release of human waste, chemicals and other alien substances into them.
+ I want to see our venerable buildings, houses and other structures conserved for the sake of history so that future generations may be able to appreciate how things were and were done in times before their own.
+ I place high value on the Constitution of the United States and stand in awe of the labors of our Founding Parents in figuring out how the new nation could grow into some semblance of a democracy.
+ I accept the reality that the document initially written prior to 1789 and amended 27 times over the ensuing 227 years needs an occasional tweak in order to preserve its relevance to a nation still striving to be what it was intended to be.
+ I hold as fundamental to our national well-being the conduct of government of, by and for the People, meaning that a lone U.S. Senator or majority leader of either House of Congress should not be permitted to block legislation or refuse to perform clear constitutional duties.
+ I accept that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free State and that the right of the People collectively to keep and bear arms should not be infringed, provided that any militia is to be mustered only on the call of the President of the United States or governors of the several states and function under the command of trained officers -- as the Second Amendment until recently had been clearly understood.
+ I honor the Founders' genius in prohibiting the establishment of religion while at the same time clearing the way for its free exercise. I consider that part of the First Amendment to be a cornerstone in the conservation of the democratic nature of America. The same goes for free speech and assembly, no matter how outlandish the speech and peculiar the assembly.
+ I am proud of the nation for adopting the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th amendments to its Constitution that slavery be abolished in America; that equal protection of the law should be denied to no natural-born or naturalized citizen of America; that neither race, nor color nor previous condition of servitude should serve to prohibit any person from voting; that the right to vote at long last was extended to women -- thus conserving the ideas inherent in the very first words of the Constitution, viz. "We the People . . ."
+ I despise the anti-American forces redolent of Jim Crow, which find new and sneaky ways to undermine those rights by attenuating early voting days and reducing the number of poll sites and -- worse yet -- requiring hard-to-obtain identity documents that surely must remind Holocaust survivors of life under the Third Reich. There's nothing conservative about that.
+ I am fixed on yet another conservative idea that has been with the nation from its beginnings, though often, subordinated. And that is equality -- All men are created equal. For many decades that idea got lost in the spasms of growth, war, expansion and our own Industrial Revolution. It took a citizen from an affluent and conservative background to see that one could not abide "tens of millions of . . . citizens -- a substantial part of [the] whole population -- who . . . are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life," "millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day," "millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago," "millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children," "millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions" and "one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." The candid witness borne to that man-made catastrophe brought healing to the national body and soul by way of a liberal dose of healing conservation.
+ I was reared by parents, one natural-born and the other an immigrant. I can't speak for what my younger siblings were taught, but it was made clear to me that I was never to forget what the previous generation had learned the hard way during the Great Depression, and that I, having been given a leg up through no effort of my own, would have a lifelong responsibility to offer the hand up to another when needed. Both of my parents were conservatives. Surely both of them would wonder how some of today's so-called conservatives dare call themselves by that name.
+ I am my parents' kind of conservative and both proud and humble to be able to say so.
* Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Tenth Edition. 246
NOTE: Within hours of the posting of the essay of 4/15/16, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, R., vetoed the legislation noted above saying, "This bill trivializes the Bible, which I believe is a sacred text ... If we are recognizing the Bible as a sacred text, then we are violating the Constitution of the United States ... by designating it as the official state book." At last report, the legislature seemed intent upon overturning his veto.
