Ahoy, Mate!

Yes, I have found that I'm not the only Oxymoron ("Conservative Folkie") around these digs, but we are sort of a minority.

I'll tell you this, though; we are tolerated a whole lot better in here than we used to be. At least now the Socialists with an agenda to grind usually have the decency to confine their Marxist rantings to the "BS" threads, which unless you enjoy being vastly outnumbered in a debate and getting well flamed, you may do well to just avoid.

I was one of the first and the few to take a stand against the prevailing dominance and intimidation of the liberal majority on the 'Cat, and I've got the scorched shorts to show for it! I would like to think that I contributed somewhat to the improved level of civility in here, but thanks be a few good, articulate and well informed fellow Conservative Patriots came alongside to help level the playing field. I will admit that I encountered some of the most articulate, intellectually astute, and compelling champions of the political left in here as I have ever known, and I got quite an education from both contending sides.
That's particularly noteworthy as liberals are typically known not for their intellectual or pragmatic appeal, as much as for their routine knee-jerk emotional pitch; ie. "It's for the children!", "Tax breaks for the Rich", etc..

Conservatism, by the way, as I understand it, implies a system of belief in which it is the PEOPLE, NOT GOVERNMENT that make a Civilization work. People are created (usually by a Diety, although we are not all together on that yet) to live in a context of Community with Free Agency, within the structure of just Law, with concurrent Rights and Responsibilities. A Citizen should be free to reap the rewards of initiative and labor, yet liable for the consequences of negligence, incompetence, or the abuse of another's rights.
All participants in the Community are equally responsible under the Law and accountable to it and one another, as they are equally entitled to it's protection.

Conservatives beleive that the U.S. Constitution is the guiding, foundational document of our Nation, and must not be adulterated, modified, or truncated in the interest of "modernizing" it or making it a "living document". We resent politically motivated Judges creating Law from the bench without the consent of the American People or their duly elected Representatives - such as "seeing" a Constitutional "right" to prenatal infanticide (AKA "abortion")in our Constitution when it never was there to begin with, or ignoring rights which ARE enumerated - such as the 2nd Ammendment - in permitting confiscatory "gun control" legislation.

Most Conservatives I know would agree that a woman should have a "choice"... as to how much water she needs to flush her toilet, what kind of car she drives, where she invests her retirement funds, and which School in her locale should be entrusted with the education of her Children - even if she is not wealthy like all of the Politicians who deny her most of these choices yet whose Children are privately educated.

"Liberalism", on the other hand, assumes that the "little people" who wash the laundry and fix the cars, bake the bread etc. are incompetent to make significant decisions in their lives or to take care of themselves or their families adequately. They are "like children" (a similar assumption was made by the Plantation Owners in the South towards Blacks at one time) and need to be "looked out for" by a more enlightened, benificient elite; "The Government".
Since the peasants are obviously too stupid to be trusted with the money they earn, it must be confistcated "for safe keeping" by the Government and "shared" with those more worthy. Of course the "worthy" will be determined by the politcal elite.
Workers must be indoctrinated from an early age (that's what Public Schools are for, you know) to be completely passive and dependant on (and obedient to) "Massah" down in Washington DC, who will do all of their thinking for them, spend most of their money for them, tell them what to beleive in, who to vote for... and de Gubmint will take good care ob dem!
These in a nutshell, I think, are the assumptions of Liberalism.

Others will surely have alternative perspectives.

To my heart and mind, only in Conservatism are the priceless treasures of LIBERTY and FREEDOM to be found. Not without strife, labor and risk, to be sure - but there are yet a few of us old dinosaurs left in this America who are still really hooked on Liberty, and addicted to Freedom - such little as is left to us in our time.

And the chains of liberal / socialist dependancy and subjugation do not appeal to us at all.