The thoughts below are taken from an article in "First Things" August/September 2006


So, who is a real conservative?

Here are some definitions:

"He is interested in the verities of human nature, not the possibilities of social progress.

He avoids the language of progress and improvement."

Bob Dylan put it this way,"Well for me there is no Right and there is no Left. There's truth and there's untruth, y'know? There's honesty, and there's hypocrisy. Look in the Bible, you don't see nothing about Right or Left. Other people might have other ideas about things, but I don't, becouse I'm not that smart. I hate to keep beating people over the head with the Bible, but that's the only instrument I know, the only thing that stays true." This is spoken like a Bible-thumper who believes that human nature neverchanges and that morality is a matter of personal integrity, not political revolution, and that people usually need to hear the very thing they most resist, which is to say, this is spoken like a true conservative.