I would encourage everybody who thinks so to pursue basic political and philosophical education. Perhaps with a dash of history.
This definition is plainly wrong on so many levels that it's practically impossible to engage with. But I'll make that mistake and engage on two points.
First, it implies that conservative position has somehow consistent features across time and space. There is difference between conservative in Germany, USA and China. Not to mention conservative in early, mid and late 20th century.
Second, ignoring legal norms is neither stated, nor implicated position of conservative political movements. At very worst, we can accuse them of maintaining laws with discriminatory intents. But not of flaunting those same laws.
If you're in a charitable mood, the context on when, where and who originally made the statement will provide clues on which strain of conservatism the statement is referring to.
So, the original author is an American living in Ohio, and made the comment in the year AD 2018 while critiquing an essay about the New Deal. I'm confident you can make a good-faith educated guess on which country and period they were characterizing.
North American Conservatives (i.e. citizen of the United States) have done olympic-worthy gymnastics to align with the aforementioned felon's redefinition of conservatism belief in America, even while those beliefs actively contradict their religion and life-long belief systems, or even their own on going behaviors and decisions.
I say this as someone living in Pennsylvania, drowning in the hypocrisy and escalating hate this group of people has been spewing for the last ~8 years.
Therefore I can completely understand why someone might focus on that as the most relevant definition on 'conservatism' today in the USA.
> I can completely understand why someone might focus on that as the most relevant definition on 'conservatism' today in the USA.
You don't consider this a problem, that the word "conservatism" when discussed with an unknown recipient online (very possibly non-american) is constrained to the context of the past decade(s) in the United States?
Words have meaning, so if you're going to have a meaningful discussion about a word like "conservatism" or any type of -ism for that matter, I would think it benefits anyone engaging in that discussion to be aware of the different wings present in that word, whether that be across history or across present day geography.
Get back to us when Biden is a twice convicted sex offender, has caused a dozen plus of his inner circle indicted for felonies across many jurisdictions, when several have pled guilty, when he is convicted of felony fraud, when he steals nuclear secrets and gives them to foreigners, and when his decades long employees and own lawyers turn him in with video, audio, eyewitness, photographic, and text evidence.
This definition is plainly wrong on so many levels that it's practically impossible to engage with. But I'll make that mistake and engage on two points.
First, it implies that conservative position has somehow consistent features across time and space. There is difference between conservative in Germany, USA and China. Not to mention conservative in early, mid and late 20th century.
Second, ignoring legal norms is neither stated, nor implicated position of conservative political movements. At very worst, we can accuse them of maintaining laws with discriminatory intents. But not of flaunting those same laws.