Classical Liberalism and It's Degenerate Offspring

Classical Liberalism is the tree which modern conservatism and modern liberalism stem from today.

Classical liberalism was the ideology of our founding fathers, advocating such liberties as:

* Freedom of speech
* Freedom of religion
* The right to form political parties and vote
* Freedom to invest in and use private property
* Freedom to work as one chooses
* Freedom to enter into economic contracts
* Free trade and freedom of migration
* Sexual freedom
* Equal rights independent of race or sex

Looking at this list you say to yourself "Well gosh, that sounds just like conservatism."

You are right. Conservatism has another addition though. The element of social and civic virtue.

Modern liberalism attests that they have the same views as classical liberals too. But they do not. All you have to do is make your way to any college campus and see otherwise. Who organizes violent protests during a... oh hell... during any kind of rally which opposes modern liberal views. Those that claim they adhere to "freedom of speech" want nothing more than to silence those who speak against modern liberal ideologies. One of the buzz words is "tolerance". But the tolerance they demand from everyone is the same tolerance for such rights as "freedom of speech" which they choose to ignore. Unless it is they who are speaking.

You wonder though when this change happened. When classical became modern. During the 30's we saw the first revolution. This revolution was spearheaded by FDR, who argued that people who lack life's necessities are not free. He believed that to give people these liberties, the government must ensure that the people have them. Thus began the new idea of freedom involving an incredibly greater role of the government unintended by our Founding Fathers.

The second revolution happened in the 60's with a man named Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Before this period Americans attributed their moral conviction to an external force demanding their adherence to it. The Moral Law and Moral Lawgiver. But due to Rousseau's teachings of "looking deep into yourself to find your own morality", we see the emergence of radical factions. The feminists movement, the anti-war movement, and the gay activist movement all took comfort in Rousseau's inner morality argument. This gave them the basis for demanding that current social morality was too narrow and oppressive.

These two revolutions gave way to the degenerate offspring of classical liberalism that we have come to call modern liberalism.

It leaves conservative Americans to wonder whether we should still call ourselves conservatives at all. Because in the true definition of the word we want the complete opposite. We are actually liberals hoping to change this society back to the roots which bore our conservative values.