You’re right: that is a pedantic definition of “conservatism.” By that definition, neither I nor Abraham Lincoln nor Calvin Coolidge nor the modern GOP are “conservative.” That’s perfectly fine, but wasn’t your original point that the GOP’s conservatism is a drift away from Republicanism’s supposedly liberal roots? For myself, I’ve never cared much about the label or its etymology. Two hundred years ago, our position was referred to as “liberalism” (classical liberalism in modern terminology). One hundred years ago, it was broadly referred to as “whiggery” (even after the founding of the GOP). Today our position is called “conservatism.” Our states used to be marked blue; now they’re red. We’ve been left, right, center, and fringe. Fine. I don’t care what we’re called; I care what we stand for, what we have always stood for: free markets and free peoples. Insofar as that is what we have, we aim to keep it. Insofar as it is not, we aim to secure it, even if that means changing the laws. I see no reason to be the slightest bit embarrassed about this: yes, I support the repeal of our unjust abortion laws, and to hell with whatever Maimonides thought, pro or con!

(Your historical understanding of legal practice and Christian thought on abortion is grossly inaccurate, but I neither blame you for this, having been fed half-truths and plain old lies about it your entire life, nor see the need to correct it right now, because it is not relevant to the topic. So I turn aside and return to that topic.)

I grant that there is a peculiar something in our minds that is cautious toward changing the law, and insistent on upholding it, that does not seem to exist in the modern progressive’s. The progressive is happy to achieve desired policy ends through court order or by short-circuiting the deliberative process of Congress or unconstitutional recess appointments or whatever else gets them to the Promised Land of policy. Conservatives tend to insist on the following the democratic process of deliberating, winning hearts and minds, building coalitions, and eventually winning consensus, votes, and constitutional amendments like those that liberated the slaves — even when waiting for consensus hobbles their agenda, as it often has early in the process of changing the nation’s mind. I am not certain why this is. After all, following the three great experiments in unhindered progressivism — the French Revolution, the Revolution of 1918, and the March on Rome — progressive policies were indeed implemented, with lightning-quick efficiency, but they didn’t last. That slow, deliberative America, though, that Great Experiment in classical liberal thought, is still here, lumbering away, refusing to job off the cliffs of risky new ideas until they’ve really been proved.

All the same, as I said at the top, we conservatives stand for life, liberty, and property (in that order!), and we will work to change laws that infringe upon that trinity. We’ll just go about it more slowly and democratically than by, say, ramming a landmark and unpopular new entitlement through reconciliation. When Republicans in Congress did something quite similar with Medicare Part D in 2005, betraying their conservative principles, it was the beginning of the end for them. (Democrats won in 2006 because Republicans stayed home, not because Democrats came out.)

As for the substance of your stand against conservatism — that, “As societies grow in population, there is a need for new rules to govern behavior more closely,” I have seen scant evidence of that. I just watched government policies (especially easy monetary policy, an ancient Republican bogeyman) both fuel and prolong a the deepest economic collapse since the Great Depression. And when I look back to the Great Depression, I see the same thing: government interference permitting the market to inflate to unsustainable heights, and more government interference, from tariffs to the National Recovery Act, keeping us in the longest and deepest recession in national history.

I am not arguing that, without government interference, everything would be peaches and roses. Economies crash and always have. Investors malinvest and have been doing so since Egypt. The business cycle lives on, despite the fiercest attempts by the Keynesians to snuff it out. I just haven’t seen any evidence that government does more good by its involvement than harm. Natural recoveries from natural recessions don’t take four years.

So I don’t really care about the labels, but I respectfully disagree with you on the economic substance you serve up.

We can agree on this, at least, “Things change to match the new needs.” One need we have right now is greater liberty, for all Americans, and I would love to see the next president tackle it.

The thing is, societies, laws, and customs need to change. It is part of the natural evolution of things. As societies grow in population, there is a need for new rules to govern behavior more closely. When economies grow larger, there is a need for more controls to make sure they do not become a detriment. The free wheeling man who stands on his two feet, is all well and good when everyone is expected to die by the age of 65 or younger, expected to live on a farm and live off the land, when their neighbors are a mile away and would take you a better part of half an hour just to get to their place. The economy doesn’t need so many controls when the institutions are not so large, when the trade to other nations can be accomplished in a few months or years instead of in a few seconds. Things change to match the new needs. People like Teddy Roosevelt knew this. It is a shame more conservatives do not see it.