Paul Rosenberg – Conservatives tend to be decent human beings and good neighbors. There are exceptions, of course, but those cluster around people who use conservatism as a cover for their sins. I’ll ignore those people for the rest of this post.

Conservatives tend to focus on principles… on right and wrong. This is generally a good thing, but it’s a problem for rulers, who want to use their power without being critiqued.

When a ruler behaves badly, some conservatives will fall away, but others will rise in opposition, and that opposition is often enough to make things difficult. And so, dealing with “care enough to suffer for it” conservatives, particularly in the US, is a problem rulers have to address. It disturbs their peculiar state of grace. Continue reading →