Leftist / conservative asymmetry: conservatism and content.

[asher553]

'Conservatism, in its original sense, has no specific ideological content at all, since everything depends on what one is trying to conserve. In the last days of the Soviet Union, for example, those who were trying to preserve the existing Communist regime were rightly referred to as "conservatives", though what they were trying to conserve had nothing in common with what was advocated by Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, or William F. Buckley in the United States, much less Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a leading conservative in the Vatican who subsequently became Pope. Specific individuals with the "conservative" label have specific ideological positions, but there is no commonality of specifics among "conservatives in different venues.'
- Thomas Sowell, 'Intellectuals and Society'

Comments

[marycatelli]

Sounds like a useless term then. We need terms for their actual beliefs.