What Opposites Share
Why are Conservatives proud they're not Progressives? For many of the same reasons that Progressives are proud not to be Conservatives. Contrary to many opinions, both sides share the same human frailties and motives. Since the questioner is, presumably, in the Progressive camp, he/she/? already knows most of the answer. All he/she/? needs to do is answer why Progressives feel the same pride and apply the same reason to Conservatives.
It is true that extreme Conservatives resist any change, but extreme Progressives will accept any change (except when things really need to be changed back; then, they become the reactionaries). Both extremes share mindless attitudes about change.
Domanance
Unfortunately, among Progressives, the extreme has become mainstream, dominating entertainment, news media, education, the Democrat Party, and new-media giants such as Twitter, Google, and Facebook. If your grasp of reason, facts, and history arm you to resist all of that, you have something to be proud of.
Intellectual Honesty
Another difference is that Conservatives are not really that inflexible. They are willing to be convinced when proposed changes are specific, effective, and efficient, and will cause minimal unintended consequences such as chipping away at God-given rights. I don’t see willingness to learn from Progressives. For example, in debate after debate, Progressives repeatedly confuse semi-automatic with assault and confuse scary style with military performance. If there’s a way to obfuscate, they will use it. Conservatives can get things wrong, but since they cling to “outdated” values such as thou shalt not bear false witness, they lack the ability to intentionally spin language that way. And that is another thing Conservatives can take pride in.
Reason Versus Hysteria
Perhaps the biggest difference is that Conservatives rhetoric trends toward deductive, left-brain thinking whereas Progressives rhetoric leans toward inductive, right-brain thinking. And right-brain thinking is the gateway to hysterical, lizard-brained, fight-or-flight thinking. Progressivism is home to unions and Antifa (fight), and to snowflakes (flight). Recent studies have supported this, showing that Conservatives consider a significantly wider range of values and perspectives when thinking about an issue. For example, a Conservative will balance the suffering and loss of life when a child is vivisected during gestation against a few months inconvenience and comfort if nobody will help a mother kill her child. All the Progressive can see is the mother. The person who balances more values and perspectives has good reason to take pride in Conservative thinking.
Consistency Versus Hypocrisy
Conservatives tend to be far more consistent than Progressives. For example, a Progressive holds the lives of murderers sacred, as well as the temporary convenience of a mother who has engaged in risky reproductive behavior, but disregards the life of a pre-born child. They rescue the guilty and help kill the innocent. Progressives condemn racism against Blacks and then institute racism against Whites. Hate speech is speech that Progressives hate. For example, a Twitter user created two accounts and sent out identical rants. One set ranted against “Whites” and the other against “Blacks,” both saying the same words. Twitter censored the anti-black account and left the anti-White account alone. When Conservatives build out applications from principles and balance different perspectives in a consistent manner, they have reason to be proud.
Religion Versus Magic
Conservatives are rooted in reality. Religious Conservatives also look to time-tested tenets of the social contract. Progressives also are rooted in religion, but they hide it behind Relativism. Relativism has led to magical thinking such as, a boy can think himself into a girl, a baby not yet seen is not yet a baby, and if irresponsible reproductive behavior is right for you, then it’s OK. At least the religious Conservatives are honest about the supernatural element behind some of what they think, and it does not conflict with physical reality. Conservatives, even religious Conservatives, can take pride in refuting the delusions of Progressives.
Reasons for Pride
There are fanatics, quislings, idiots, fools, and evildoers in any movement, so this is all painted with a broad brush. Conservatives are standing against powerful cultural influences. They are teachable, more reasonable, more balanced in weighing more principles and perspectives, more honest and consistent, and more rooted in reality. These are all reasons for them to take pride.
Honor, Therefore, Conservatism
But perhaps we are looking at this backwards. Perhaps Conservatism attracts people who have pride, people who have enough honor to take responsibility for themselves instead of blaming others for their place in life.
I started life in abject poverty. I worked my way through college, taking ten years to finish a five-year degree. My career plateaued because less-qualified, favored-class people received the training I needed and the promotions I had sacrificed for. My career collapsed because the Democrat-caused housing bubble trapped me in a 180-mile per day commute. My career died when Democrats decimated my industry, right at the worst possible time, the depths of the recession in 2009. I have gone full circle, back to my roots in poverty.
It is tempting to think the government owes me for what it did to the career I sacrificed to achieve. It would be nice if being a White, educated male did not disqualify me from the benefits that allow my neighbors to live far better than me. But I have not discarded reason and pride, so I remain Conservative (though moderately Liberal by the standards of my parents’ generation). And thus, I retain my honor, too.
