The issue is really the two-party-system. Actually, the party system entirely. Forbid political parties and associations, and you clear up most of the issues. Force people to explain their own views and how THEY would represent you, PERSONALLY, rather than some monolith that may or may not actually care about the represented parties of any given area. No bribing (sorry, "lobbying") one member of the Democrat party and then the whole party voting in lockstep for returns on investment because your first loyalty must be to your party, not your own constituents.
"What is conservatism?" as a question would not matter, because there is no group claiming ownership of the term. People would just have views, and be voted in based on their views, and their views alone. "I like guns" -So you're a republican? "owned by gay married people" -So you're a weird democrat? "who farm and sell weed," -...Libertarian, maybe? "to fundraise for the government's new prison" -I give up.
People like categories, but persons rarely fit in categories so nicely. As your quote says, "conservative" is an empty philosophy. But so is "progressive" by the same measure. "Progressives" today mock trans-species and trans-race, but they do so in the exact same manner "progressives" 50 years ago would mock trans-sex. And 50 years from now the progressives will denigrate the modern-day ones for ever thinking that Karen couldn't be a literal actual bitch. They are defined not by their aims, but merely seek to breach new ground as fast and as recklessly as possible, regardless of sanity or concequences. Conservative vs Progressive is more accurately "Stability-ist vs Experiment-ist".
So you should be able to ask "what elements of society do I want to keep stable, and which elements would I like some experimenting on?". But instead we have parties that are "CHANGE NOTHING!" and "CHANGE EVERYTHING!", because being forced into the Party ownership means they must follow the Party lead, and not have granular, personal, nuanced opinions.
I think that you make some really god points. I will say that in regard to the two party system, that's an inevitable result of the First Past The Post system that the U.S. uses. We'd have to change that in order to break up the two party system.
Regarding having parties at all, I don't have a good answer for that. Washington railed against it in his farewell address and called it fatal to representative republics. Unfortunately, I think that it is human nature to create these political unions, so I don't know what can be done about it.
The issue is really the two-party-system. Actually, the party system entirely. Forbid political parties and associations, and you clear up most of the issues. Force people to explain their own views and how THEY would represent you, PERSONALLY, rather than some monolith that may or may not actually care about the represented parties of any given area. No bribing (sorry, "lobbying") one member of the Democrat party and then the whole party voting in lockstep for returns on investment because your first loyalty must be to your party, not your own constituents.
"What is conservatism?" as a question would not matter, because there is no group claiming ownership of the term. People would just have views, and be voted in based on their views, and their views alone. "I like guns" -So you're a republican? "owned by gay married people" -So you're a weird democrat? "who farm and sell weed," -...Libertarian, maybe? "to fundraise for the government's new prison" -I give up.
People like categories, but persons rarely fit in categories so nicely. As your quote says, "conservative" is an empty philosophy. But so is "progressive" by the same measure. "Progressives" today mock trans-species and trans-race, but they do so in the exact same manner "progressives" 50 years ago would mock trans-sex. And 50 years from now the progressives will denigrate the modern-day ones for ever thinking that Karen couldn't be a literal actual bitch. They are defined not by their aims, but merely seek to breach new ground as fast and as recklessly as possible, regardless of sanity or concequences. Conservative vs Progressive is more accurately "Stability-ist vs Experiment-ist".
So you should be able to ask "what elements of society do I want to keep stable, and which elements would I like some experimenting on?". But instead we have parties that are "CHANGE NOTHING!" and "CHANGE EVERYTHING!", because being forced into the Party ownership means they must follow the Party lead, and not have granular, personal, nuanced opinions.
I think that you make some really god points. I will say that in regard to the two party system, that's an inevitable result of the First Past The Post system that the U.S. uses. We'd have to change that in order to break up the two party system.
Regarding having parties at all, I don't have a good answer for that. Washington railed against it in his farewell address and called it fatal to representative republics. Unfortunately, I think that it is human nature to create these political unions, so I don't know what can be done about it.