what is "Conservatism"?

Ordinarily, I like to include, at the head of my online essays, some or another "x-large" image, one that is relevant to what I want to say.  Only, in this case, I've made the image as small as possible and yet still be discernible.  It is a photograph of Milo Yiannopoulos "bathing" himself in pig blood.  OK, so he's what? expressing his defiance of Islam's prohibition against everything pertaining to pigs?  Yet, the image is not only gross to look at, but it is somehow disturbing ~ or, at least, it ought to be disturbing ~ to one's sense of what is within the bounds not merely of decorum and civility but, moreover, even of sense and reason.  In other words, the image is dehumanizing.

Milo is the late poster-boy (no pun intended) for a number of leading "conservatives" in America.  Which leads to the very important question: What is "Conservatism?"

Milo Yiannopolous was (until a couple of days ago) editor of the well-known online news source, Brietbart.com.  He resigned from Breitbart, because of accusations that he seemed to endorse pedophilia, in a video that recently surfaced (source, here).  Not insignificant, Yiannopolous is a homosexual; which, he does not merely admit to, but he appears to vaunt his homosexuality, perhaps, as a marketing strategy (if he does not actually glory in his perversion).

Milo has also been a very popular speaker amongst many "conservative" groups on college campuses across America.  A leading conservative figure, David Horowitz (founder and president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center 'think tank,' and editor of the Center's FrontPage Magazine), has claimed that he was Milo's mentor.  Notwithstanding the recent controversy involving Yiannopolous, Horowitz appears still to support him.

Here's another case involving a high-profile conservative leader.  Betsy DeVos ~ wife to the heir of the multi-billion dollar fortune of the Amway company's founder ~ was recently appointed by President Trump, to be the Secretary of Education.  I can tell you, from first-hand experience, that Amway is a pseudo-Christian enterprise.  Doubtless many conservatives view Mrs. DeVos as a staunch conservative; judging from the overwhelming support she received, amongst conservatives, in connection with her appointment as Sec. of Education.

But Betsy DeVos evidently is a supporter of sexual perversion, i.e., transgenderism.  In a recent article published by Breitbart.com (the above-mentioned "conservative" news source), DeVos was reported to have "opposed changing President Obama's pro-transgender policy" (article, here).  For those who may not know what that means: Obama's "pro-transgender policy" ~ as that pertains to public schools nationwide, mandated that all public schools in America must allow students unhindered access to the restrooms/locker rooms/showers of their choice, without regard to their biological gender.  And the new, "conservative" Secretary of Education, Mrs. DeVos, allegedly did not want to change that policy!

If Milo Yiannopolous and Betsy DeVos are leading conservatives, then, what on earth is Conservatism?  Did Yiannopolous and DeVos somehow manage to climb their respective way up the conservative ladder, without anyone amongst the broad base of their conservative supporters noticing Yiannopolous's flaming homosexuality or DeVos's perhaps less flagrant support for transgenderism?  I seriously doubt that was the case.

Some years ago, I studied government and public policy at Regent University, which, it's slogan, then was, "America's leading Christian graduate school;" today, it's slogan is: "Christian leadership to change the world."  (I left that school when I figured out that it was anything but Christian.)  My professors at that time were exacerbated when ~ contrary to my professors' stated belief, I insisted that Americans could not be divided into two ~ and only two ~ groups, namely, "liberal" and "conservative."  There is a third alternative, I urged, which is "Christian."

If Conservatism is "broad-minded" enough to embrace sexual perversion and deviancy, such that LGBT advocacy is now among the policies and platform of Conservatism, then Conservatism, as such, is infinitely too broad for any Christian to embrace as part of his or her own identity.  I am not a conservative nor am I a liberal: but I am a Christian.

If liberals and conservatives both endorse LGBT ideas and agendas (and they do), then Christians have no real voice in contemporary American politics.  I am convinced that the reason why it is that both of America's major political parties have at last embraced the LGBT movement, is because that Christians have for too long remained silent in the face of encroaching darkness.  The now defunct Obama administration ~ if it did any positive thing at all, at least it highlighted not the ineptitude but the duplicity of the Republican Party ~ which is supposed by many to represent the bastion of Conservatism in American society.  But what a farce that is!

The endorsement of sexual perversion is not the only thing which now characterizes Conservatism as well as Liberalism.  Increasingly it is the case that many conservatives, no less than liberals, are supportive of multifarious movements, including but not limited to the following: environmentalism and climate change; globalism; humanism; transhumanism; abortion and euthanasia; et al.  The lines between Liberalism and Conservatism are now so faint as to be hardly distinguishable.

One might then be excused for wondering why it is that there appears to be such a sharp and bitter divide between liberals and conservatives; recent and ongoing protests (in public and in media) against Trump and his supporters being the most visible expressions of that apparent divide.  The answer is simple: the man Donald Trump evidently is not a card-carrying member of the globalist elite ~ a cabal which is financing and orchestrating efforts to subvert Trump and his administration.  Though conservatives and liberals, by and large, are not in fact at war with each other; there now being so little disagreement between them that there is not much, apparently, to fight about.

Recent debates related to immigration policy may seem to be an exception to that, however.  But immigration policy is a relatively new concern to the majority of Americans.  And as it happens, immigration policy is intimately related to American's concerns involving Islamic terrorism, which that is a relatively new phenomenon in America.  Important to note, the camps of both liberals and conservatives seem to be divided on the issue of immigration policy.  Which suggests that such concerns may have less to do with Liberal or with Conservative philosophy, as such, than they have to do, on the one hand, with a visceral reaction on the part of many who believe that uncontrolled mass immigration poses a serious security risk; while, on the other hand, there are those, whether 'bleeding-heart' conservatives or 'pie-in-the-sky-multiculturalist' liberals, who want an open-door immigration policy for America.

Things have changed in America, and they are going to continue to change.  The rate of change, moreover, is continuously accelerating.  One of the most basic tenets of Conservatism is continuity of historical tradition.  With respect to America's national culture, the "historical tradition" which for generations (until recently) served as the foundation of American society was its heritage involving Judeo-Christian beliefs and history.  Now, that is all but gone, having been renounced by the majority of Americans, in favor of new religious ideas related to Humanism.

But Humanism does not lend itself at all to be the ground for Conservatism.  Humanism, by definition, attempts at the same time to free the individual while also exalting the collective human species to the place of divinity.  But without the true God, mankind is left without any kind of unifying principle ~ except coercion.  Whereas there was a time in American history when Conservatism was closely associated with (though never identified with) Christianity.  Those days are long gone.  And as recent generations of conservatives have come more immediately and more directly under the spell of Humanism (in order as the Apostasy has rapidly advanced, from about the mid-twentieth century until now), Conservatism has now reached the point where that it hasn't a leg to stand on.  As Jesus said, in his message to the church at Sardis (Rev. 3:1): "I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead."

Conservatives have a name, but no substance, no life.  Conservatism, just like its evil twin, Liberalism, is a dead religion.