Why I Am a Conservative Leftist

Edmund Burke by Sir Joshua Reynolds
(Image by (From Wikimedia) Studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Author: Studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds)   Details   Source   DMCA

I came to reflect on some of the ways in which I’m temperamentally fairly conservative. On a gut level I care a lot more about my friends & family than I do about the masses. I view with skepticism people who want to preach to me, from on their high horse, what I should be thinking & doing in the name of justice. I see our political system as being, on balance, one of the more half-decent ones that history has produced, & I’m somewhat horrified by radicals who think that its very real & deep flaws & sins justify tearing it all down. Human societies, like human beings, are flawed, imperfect, frail things, & as such deserve both idealistic prods to be better than they are & some measure of tolerance & compassion for the many ways in which they’ll inevitably fail.  These are all perspectives that fit comfortably under “conservative.” Yet my overt politics are democratic socialist.