Thought of the Day

After the election on Tuesday, and the campaigns that preceded it, I would like to make a brief statement on political terminology. 

If you seek change - of any kind - you are not a conservative.  By definition, a conservative is someone who seeks to maintain the status quo. 

If you seek change to produce a future that is different, and in your mind better, than what has existed in the past, you are a liberal.

If you seek change to produce a future that is more like the past (because in your mind the past was better), or seek to reverse changes that have become well established, you are a reactionary.

For example, in the time of FDR, the New Deal was liberal, because it sought to produce positive change in society by trying something new.  However, today, seeking to maintain those programs is conservative, because they are well established programs.  Seeking to revoke those programs is reactionary, because it seeks to return to a way of life that existed prior to these programs being established.