I am a conservative.

By definition that means a person who supports an emphasis on traditions and relies on the individual to maintain society.

A conservative is someone who supports a woman’s right to choose what to do with their own bodies without government interference, but because like or not the right to an abortion is a traditional value as it has been settle law for over fifty years.

A conservative would never force a ten-year-old rape victim maintain a pregnancy that would destroy her life and likely kill her nor prosecute a Dr. for assisting in the termination of that pregnancy. That is, the definition of governmental overreach.

A conservative is someone who supports a person’s right to love whom they choose. Government should not entangle themselves in people’s emotional lives. That is private and no one’s business but their own. It is also a traditional value. Homosexuality, queerness, bi-sexuality, interracial and inter-religious  (to name just a few brands of love) relationships have been around since Homo Sapiens first encountered Cro Magnon. The government should not tell us who we can love.

A conservative supports the constitution of the United States. They believe in country over party. They don’t believe lies never had any basis in truth and were rejected by sixty courts of law. A conservative would never support a person or group of persons who attempt to overthrow the government or interfere with the constitutionally mandated duties of congress.

A conservative does not believe that the United States has a national religion. They believe in the constitutionally mandated and traditional value of “make no law respecting an establishment of a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” A conservative would never say that we are a Judeo-Christian, Christian, or any other sort of religious country. We are by tradition and law a country that embraces all religions and eschews anything that does not separate church/synagogue/mosque/temple/pagan alter from state.

A conservative understands that the second amendment in its originalist form gives the right of gun ownership only for maintaining a “well regulated militia.” It is not so anyone, mentally undone, untrained, and not competent can legally buy a weapon of war and enough ammunition to keep at bay an entire police force while innocent children are being slaughtered on a wholesale basis. A conservative understands the hypocrisy of crying the right to life for a fetus yet not respecting the right to life of those faced with gun violence.

A conservative understands that there is a difference between an enterprise and an individual. Enterprises are run based on the needs of the few for profit. A country is based on the needs of the individual. Respecting the individual over corporations means a respect for privacy and the environment. That if corporations appropriate these rights, they not respecting traditional values or individual rights and should be sanctioned.

Winston Churchill once famously said “If You Are Not a Liberal When You Are Young, You Have No Heart, and If You Are Not a Conservative When Old, You Have No Brain.” (He was likely not the first to say this)  He was right. At least by my contemporary definition of conservative.