The United States had its beginning with the Declaration of Independence. Up to this point in history living life without a king, queen or some equivalent was an unknown entity. Many assumed that the yearning for freedom was in the heart of every human being. The following is taken from the Declaration of independence.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —”

The word happiness was settled on as a replacement for freedom so there would be no controversy over the fact that slavery was legal at the time.   Something that is unalienable cannot be transferred and it cannot be taken away. The declaration is full of these kinds of lofty words. There is nothing automatically wrong with lofty words but clarification is needed when the words are in conflict with what is possible in nature.

At the time separation form England was initiated, only a small number of Americans were involved. Most Americans had no idea what was going on. Even during the Revolutionary War, the entire population was not exactly gung-ho about rebelling against King George. The founders of the United States imposed freedom on everyone. Mankind it turns out is not a freedom seeking entity. It is possible that mankind is becoming more freedom seeking by evolution but not much evidence for that has been seen so far. As I have stated many times, to a human freedom is like an asset that can be traded for something else. As babies, individuals begin trading freedom for comfort and security. In our worldly system of dominance and subservience, every person dominates as much as possible and then bargains freedom away for comfort and security, when efforts to dominate fail to elevate them any higher. Those who are adept at dominating others keep rising. Some become presidents or CEOs of corporations. Regardless, all give up some of their freedom in order to facilitate survival.

To have a genuinely  free society, a minimum level of freedom must be imposed on everyone. Freedom is not something that masses of people will ever insist upon. I have noted that in the United States conservative has come to mean favoring small, less intrusive government.  With that you would think conservatives would be working day and night inside and outside of the formal political system to repeal freedom restricting laws and closing government agencies. Today’s conservatives want smaller government, provided no laws are repealed, no government agencies are closed and federal spending is never reduced.  Does that come across as the way a freedom seeking population would behave? Liberals aggressively try to turn life’s issues over to be solved in the aggregate. Both sides are very comfortable and feeling secure. This is not to say that freedom has no value. The issues of comfort and security are settled before the issue of freedom is ever entertained. Freedom is at least third down on the list in terms of priority.

Conservatives have bargained away most of their freedom for the previously mentioned benefits. There is no way in the world they are going to rock the boat at this moment and risk losing what they have gained, by virtue of trading away their freedom.

So, what are conservatives accomplishing? There are no conservative political initiatives in the world today. The constant conservative rhetoric is tribal positioning or herd posturing. The term for this is virtue signaling.  Jesus called it practicing righteousness before men. Being seen and appreciated as a conservative is clearly valuable as a tool for survival. How a person is seen by others is either an advantage or disadvantage in life. Being perceived as a conservative is what motivates a modern conservative. Actually making a change in government is to much of a risk to take. Benefits may be lost. Conservative is still valuable as a perceived attribute.