Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Several connotations for the word conservative

The term "conservative" has quite a few connotations. On the one hand, there's the concept of investing conservatively; meaning low risk investments.

Then there's the concept of conservation, but for most of my life, conservation of the natural environment hasn't been part of the perception of conservative politics. More recently, there are those who talk about the conservative case for protecting the environment. There's groups like Evangelicals for Environmentalism, but this seems kind of new and only around the edges of political conservatism.

People's concepts of conservatism have been discussed in a few threads. My perception is as follows: at least about political conservatism.

Political Conservatism. Favoring policies that provide and preserve material wealth. Hard work, saving and protecting wealth. Pro military and safety; pro business, pro private enterprise and private development.

Political conservatism often includes principles from fundamentalist Christianity, but there's a tenuous relationship between religious conservatism and promotion of business interests.

In more recent times, conservatives have become increasingly flamboyant. Masters of entertainment, such as Rush Limbaugh. This was less the case in my childhood. There was, tho "Chamber of Commerce" style business promoters.

My mom used to say, about the city of Spokane, WA. which was quite conservative in the 1960s, "Spokane thinks it's big." "Seattle knows it's big."

Spokane seemed to be promoting itself. After all, much of its economy is being a retail trade center. Seattle was a lot bigger and more sophisticated. Seattle didn't need to brag about it as much.

Donald Trump is part of a trend of entertainment, flashy oriented conservatives which seems to be gaining ground in recent years.

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