Portal:Conservatism

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Introduction

Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology, which seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in which it appears. In Western culture, depending on the particular nation, conservatives seek to promote and preserve a range of institutions, such as the nuclear family, organised religion, the military, the nation-state, property rights, rule of law, aristocracy, and monarchy. Conservatives tend to favour institutions and practices that enhance social order and historical continuity.

Edmund Burke, an 18th-century Anglo-Irish statesman who opposed the French Revolution but supported the American Revolution, is credited as one of the forefathers of conservative thought in the 1790s along with Savoyard statesman Joseph de Maistre. The first established use of the term in a political context originated in 1818 with François-René de Chateaubriand during the period of Bourbon Restoration that sought to roll back the policies of the French Revolution and establish social order.

Conservatism has varied considerably as it has adapted itself to existing traditions and national cultures. Thus, conservatives from different parts of the world, each upholding their respective traditions, may disagree on a wide range of issues. Historically associated with right-wing politics, the term has been used to describe a wide range of views. Conservatism may be either libertarian or authoritarian, populist or elitist, progressive or reactionary, moderate or extreme. (Full article...)

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Ronald Ernest Paul (born 1935) is an American medical doctor and was a Republican U.S. Congressman for the 14th congressional district of Texas, which encompasses the area south and southwest of the Greater Houston region. According to a 1998 study published in the American Journal of Political Science, Paul had the most conservative voting record of any member of Congress since 1937. His son Rand Paul was elected to the United States Senate for Kentucky in 2011, making the elder Paul the first Representative in history to serve alongside a son or daughter in the Senate. Paul has been called the "intellectual godfather" of the Tea Party movement. He has gained prominence for his libertarian positions on many political issues, often clashing with both Republican and Democratic Party leaders. Paul has run for President of the United States twice before, first in 1988 as the nominee of the Libertarian Party and again in 2008 as a candidate for the Republican nomination. On May 13, 2011, he formally announced he would run again in 2012 for the Republican presidential nomination. A 2010 scientific poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports among likely voters found Ron Paul and Barack Obama to be statistically tied in a hypothetical 2012 presidential election contest.

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To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.

— Michael Oakeshott, On Being Conservative (1962)

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On April 14, 2007, an estimated 300,000 people marched in Ankara to protest the possible candidacy of Justice and Development Party leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Turkish 2007 presidential election, afraid that if elected as President, he would alter the secular nature of the Turkish state. The protests continued over the next several weeks, with over one million reported at an April 29 rally in Istanbul. Early parliamentary elections were called after the failure of the parties in parliament to agree on the next Turkish president. The opposition parties boycotted the parliamentary vote and deadlocked the election process. The AK Party achieved victory in the rescheduled July 22, 2007 elections with 46.6% of the vote, translating into control of 341 of the 550 available parliamentary seats.

Credit: Randam

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