(noun) Those who want to turn back the clock of the Republican Party to its pre-1980 libertarian roots of self-defense, constitutionalism, and shrunken government

This is the sad story of a cruel saga…

To understand where I am coming from, you need to be acquainted with the roots of conservatism. American conservatism did not evolve to conserve “social norms.” This is a common misconception. In fact, this only holds true for neoconservatism (new conservatism) which made a name for itself in the 1980s with the Christian Right and the Moral Majority movement. While I hold President Reagan with high regard and believe that he was a conservative for the most part, I say “pre-1980″ because of the emergence of the neoconservatives during this time.

The only neoconservative Presidents thus far have been Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush. It is a relatively new trend in comparison to the history of conservatives.

Many people are surprised to find out that conservatism (now disrespectfully called the “Old Right” by the neoconservatives) actually shares its beliefs with the classical liberalism of the 1800s, which aimed for both economic and social freedom. Because of this, I always like to proudly proclaim that conservatives are even more liberal than modern day liberals!

What’s the Deal with Classical Liberalism

In its day, classical liberalism was referred to as plain old “liberalism” and is only called “classic” retrospectively. Classical liberalism belatedly embodied the beliefs of the Founding Fathers. Classical liberals were extremists for freedom. They were for free markets and free minds, economic liberty and social liberty. Politically, they were Republicans because of their republic-minded nature. After all, the U.S. was founded as a constitutional republic.

Towards the turn of the 19th century, a faction broke off from the classical liberals. These were the progressive liberals (modern day Democrats). Although they were an abomination of the term “liberal,” they eventually hijacked the term and liberals considered relabeling themselves “conservatives” to distance themselves from the progressives.

Progressive liberals were different than their classical counterparts in that they wanted less economic freedom, because they believed that it would result in more social freedom. They were moderate socialists. Liberals claimed that this was absolute baloney and completely contradictory to liberalism, but they could not win.

Let it be known that in pretty much every country in the world today “liberal” refers to those who favor economic and social liberty, while socialists embody what a Democrat would define as a liberal.

I will refer to classical liberals as “conservatives” for now on to reflect the changing meanings of the terms.

The Conservative Years

The ultimate showdown between the progressive liberals (Democrats) and the conservatives (Republicans) emerged with the Great Depression and the succeeding New Deal.

The Democrats blamed the Republican’s economic freedom for causing the Great Depression, while the Republican’s blamed the Democrat’s lack of economic freedom for prolonging the suffering for a decade. Even today, this is a heavily debated blame game. Although I have more research to do, I personally do not believe economic freedom caused the Great Depression, just as social freedom did not cause slavery. I also agree with my conservative counterparts in that the New Deal was monstrously destructive.

Out with the Old and in with the New

It wasn’t long before the classical liberals-turned conservatives found their label at threat again. Now conservatism was being hijacked by a defector group of progressive liberals and socialists who aimed to create a new conservative movement.

The Old Right was considered to end with 1964 conservative Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, a man who I truly admire.

Even though Barry Goldwater was for civil rights and signed such legislation before, he had some disagreements over the 1964 Civil Rights Act due to unconstitutional proponents. Because of this, he ironically won the South due to him being the lesser of two evils for them at least, ending the Democrat’s stronghold on Dixieland.

He lost most of the Republican states and the Presidency in part due to the influence of the Rockefeller Republicans who were moderate conservatives. Goldwater was often blunt (even a little insulting at times) and this made him a lot of enemies. Hey, I would have voted for him! He was a funny guy, too, once threatening to saw off the Eastern seaboard.

From then on in everything got screwy. The South felt abandoned and marginalized by their once heroic Democrats and saw this as a chance to create a new conservatism based on conserving social norms rather than the Constitution.

They called it the “New Right,” and the rest is well, history…

Our Future

Just as the term classical liberals evolved to refer to original liberals, in the 1990s “paleoconservatism” was coined to refer to original conservatives and thus to the classical liberals in turn.

So that is what a Retro Republican is in old and modern day terms. Sorry if I crammed a lot of information down your throats, but it had to be done.

I like Retro Republican better than paleoconservatism in that it does not sound like a dinosaur and could be more appealing to the younger generations and my age group. I also like to use the terms “Constitutional conservatives” to refer to the Old Right and “Christian conservatives” to refer to the New Right (i.e., putting the Bible in higher legal importance than the Constitution).

However, I will admit that I feel highly pessimistic. In a decade or so, I think the neoconservatives will have finally hijacked the term “conservative” to the extent that we will have to completely change names again. Maybe this blog is just one of the many last dying breaths of true conservatives.

From the looks of it, our future may lie in libertarianism and the Libertarian Party. At least, until that distinction is eventually hijacked from us.

After all, Ronald Reagan once said:

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

Despite this, I feel obligated to prevent our namesake from being taken away yet again. I will fight to stop them. Join me and the Retro Republican movement, and let us restore the Republic!

Where do we start? Getting Ron Paul to be taken seriously…

[This endorsement is not necessarily representative of the ACYU]