Beautiful. Just beautiful.
I completely disagree with that article. There are numerous contradictions.
I don’t debate with them, period. Debating with them is a lose/lose proposition. There is nothing to be gained.
Why not hold it at your house next year and call it a Christmas party with all of the trappings? 
Edit: nevermind, I saw a subsequent post that next year will be at your house.
I’m sensing a bit of cultural relativism here… as if culture really means nothing… giving that the entire experience of the west is one of culture, who cares right?..
Unfortunately it seems that everything including what kind of toilet paper you use is political now days because… well… you should be boycotting that toilet paper maker because they don’t to this or won’t stay that.
How does what he said listed not contrary to the 4 pillars that you listed or for that matter that many at all actually adhere to those principles?
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On the contrary…if one’s beliefs about Christmas incline toward the Christian significance, then it’s very much in keeping with Western Civilization to overlook the ideological differences and simply celebrate the season with compassion and humility in keeping with the birth of one’s savior.
Peace on earth, good will towards men doesn’t apply only to when everyone else’s beliefs fall into lockstep with your own.
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Oh, I agree.
If there’s such an ideological divide you feel uncomfortable, why go?
It’s a disservice to you.
After a few bad encounters with various family members—I welcome disagreement with me, but not being spoken to in a snide, condescending manner—I stopped accepting invitations. That includes weddings & babies.
Really if they see me on that low a level, what’s the point for any of us my being there? I should be where I’m most comfortable, & they should be around those they respect & value the most.
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No one in my family as far as I know is an atheist. A few of us are ■■■■ according to our DNA. However, no one practices the ■■■■■■ Faith. In fact most of the family is Catholic with the exception of myself and two other’s which are Orthodox Christians. In, fact the very same family members that refuse to utter the words Merry Christmas will be at Christmas Mass.
I have asked a few why they won’t wish people a Merry Christmas and why they have gone out of their way to take Christ out of Christmas. There answers were, we don’t want to offend anyone that does not believe in Christmas. My standard reply is why do you offend me by not wishing me a Merry Christmas? They answer back that I must be the bigger person and accept it.
So it comes down to who you wish to appease. Or it’s just an avoidance of dealing with possible controversy. So why bring all of this into the family? Well, they want their children to learn what they feel is right.
My thoughts are you should be the person you really are. If you wish someone a Merry Christmas and it offends them, apologize. Or better yet just don’t say anything. We are changing our selves to appease a very small percentage of our population.
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“We are changing our selves to appease a very small percentage of our population.”
In total agreement. At this rate Hallmark will have to provide a HAPPY WHATEVER card. Good grief, when my employer gives me a paid day off for a holiday, even if it’s something I consider despicable, like Barak Odummer’s birthday, I’m just going to take that paid day off & not get all offended because it’s not my thing. I’ll just be in bed reading a book 
rather than at work.
And it isn’t just Christmas we’re caving in on to appease a tiny number of individuals. I was enjoying Alafair Burke’s “The Wife” until the main character’s son reveals a new friend at camp—Isaac, who was born Isabelle. 
A 12 year old transgender?! Good God they’re not even the adult majority of GLBTQ.
First … some whining: I may agree with and align with 90% of what the author describes. And yet something bothers me about there being this multifaceted litmus test implicit in the essay. Because along with the (again implicit) statement that says “If you are a conservative, then you align with the conservative thought- AS PRESENTED HERE” there is the statement that says “If you do NOT align with conservative thought-AS PRESENTED HERE, then you are not a conservative.”
Ahh… but I don’t have an alternative to puttting bounds around a set of beliefs and giving a name to that collection. So… fine. Good essay.
Beyond the whining:
If I could suggest a way to improve upon the essay…
I think that we get more insight into what a conservative is today if we describe how we prioritize and trade off conflicting tenets of the pillars when those conflicts arise. In other words … how does a conservative maintain balance and not emphasize one pillar so much that the others are weakened? I usually dont think of “pillars” for this very reason, even though the word “pillar” brings with it the impressive notion of upholding something great. Instead I think of counter pulling guy wires, keeping a tower up. I think it is a more appropriate metaphor, though not as seductive in the appeal to the awe of monuments that pillars have. The wires all pull in their separate directions and it is important that they do, because if one of them stops pulling, the tower falls. But it is also important that no wire pull too hard in its particular direction. Or the tower falls. The key is balance. Freedom pulling against laws pulling against religion pulling against traditions. Yes they can be supportive of one another but only with considered balance.
And how a conservative balances those tenets (the guy wires in my analogy) that the author associated with his “pillars” is at least as important as the pillars themselves.
So if I were tasked ( dont even think about it) to improve upon this essay, I would construct a matrix, four rows and four columns, one for each of the author’s pillars. And in each cell, where a column intersects a row, there would be a mini-essay on how those two tenets can become unbalanced and what choices a conservative has to balance them.
Just thinking “out loud” …
(Actually using this as a diversion from writing a boring engineering report that is due today) 
Regarding those philosophical belief structures…
When people try to approach matters of faith using worldly methods, I always tell them they are using the wrong tool… like trying to eat broth with a fork.
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Conservative: Holding to traditional attitudes and values.
I really don’t like that brief definition of Conservative. In my opinion, the word values need to be changed to principles. Values and principles are not the same.
Principles represent an objective reality that transcends cultures and individuals. For example, Dr. Covey cites various principles, including fairness, integrity, and honesty. He declared, “A principle is a natural law like gravity. If you drop something, gravity controls. If I don’t tell you the truth, you don’t trust me; that’s a natural law.”
There are certain principles that transcend cultural differences and do not change over time. They determine the ultimate outcomes or consequences of behavior and actions, as much as gravity determines that something will fall when dropped.
In contrast, values are beliefs and opinions that people hold regarding specific issues or ideas and are ultimately internal, subjective, and malleable. They may change as demands or needs change. If a given belief or opinion is something that might be altered if the conditions are right, then it’s a value.
Don’t get me wrong, we all have values, however, I see Liberal Democrats forging policies based on values when it should be principles. The majority of all expecting mother’s valued the life of their unborn child as though it was a living breathing human. That value has changed today. Not all women still believe in that.
If you believe in God and the Bible then you should be able to see that Adam was a Conservative and Eve was a Progressive Liberal.
Many believe in Me first that includes their unborn child. It’s all about me, the new paradigm in the US.
I disagree with his pillars.
But being a man of faith, I expect true science (if it can outlast Communism) will prove him correct in every detail.
Ok…so this is a continuation (with slight modification) of the post that I started on Christmas
It read
Someday- but not today- I will take up this issue again… the issue of dogmatizing an ideology. I’m OK with categorizations and taxonomies that seek to place a particular ideology in some context of other ideologies for academic purposes. But this “TRUE conservative” idea by which some establish the goodness and rightness of a political figure smacks of a quasi-religious adherence to a belief structure… the kind we often accuse Progressive Liberals of having. Furthermore, I cannot for the life of me see how the operational tenets of an ideology can possibly remain the same while the history of the world marches onward around it.
Let me be more specific. I hold as a possibility an evolution of practical tenets driven by world events such that intervention in the past but isolation in the present are the right policy tools that are necessary to maintain and protect what the American conservative mind holds dearest. In other words, it is not the methods and policies that define conservatism… it is the goals.
But as I said…not today.
Hey … I’m still working on this but have a family Christmas to be part of
So forget the part that I struck out. I think that where I’m headed with the word “goal” is going to have similar characteristics to a dogmatic belief structure. But it is a higher abstraction of “conservative” than the methods used to achieve the goal of conservatives… the methods being non sacred and subject to even complete reversal if need be in order to achieve the goal.
More:
There was a day when the methods were what separated us. We all wanted a strong America, and to have freedom and liberty.
But the progressive liberal has disdain for these things now. They apologize for the strength. They extol the virtues of government- the very agent from which we need freedom. And liberty is constrained to be consistent with their ideals only.
So it no longer is sufficient to define us and categorize us by our methods. The goals are different.
While that difference does not, per se, necessitate a change in methods, I’m saying that it should permit a change- even a reversal- if required while still holding the goals of the conservative relatively constant.
We probably first have to agree on what those goals and their prioritization are before this discussion can get specific and productive.