Kevin---

On reading your reply I'm reminded of the woodcutter finding himself in Brooklyn. Nothing to cut.

You write: "Are your party’s motives (providing you support one) any better?  I think Bush is showing that he wants to preserve our freedoms from those who would love to threaten them.  We’ve seen what 8 years of a do nothing president brought us with respect to those freedoms." 

In the prior paragraph you state :

A: Are your party’s motives (providing you support one) any better? 

You thereby simplify my question to a simple either/or: ie; David asks what conservatives seek to conserve, therefore David must be for Clinton and against Bush , implying that there are no alternatives to either.

Youre obfuscating. I didnt ask why Clinton is better than Bush, or Bush better than Clinton.

I asked a simple question..."What do 'conservatives' seek to conserve?"

B: You then speculate, writing: I think Bush is showing that he wants to preserve our freedoms from those who would love to threaten them;

Opening yourself up to similarly emotional and unthinking replies, such as "Bush is threatening those who would preserve our freedoms", or "Bush loves to threaten those who love freedom", or "Bush wants to threaten those who would preserve our freedoms"--- all defensible, all meaningless without the data to support the statement. One could equally say "Jane runs down the hill, therefore the hill runs down.", and have a marvelous time reordering the statement to suit whatever ones' prejudices of the moment may incline. You may feel that Bush "is preserving our freedoms" I may feel that "Bush is making a mockery of democracy". Both statements are equally insipid unless they're placed in a context demonstrating their inherent structural logic. Entirely emotional, entirely subjective, entirely meaningless.

You then state that: C: "We’ve seen what 8 years of a do nothing president brought us with respect to those freedoms. "

Wow. A do nothing president. What exactly does that mean? Do nothing for national security? Do nothing for those who would like to chase interns? Do nothing for business? Do nothing for the military? Do nothing? If nothing happened under that administration, even staying within your narrow terms of national security and military strength, how was it that the military could display such a show of uncontested strength? Was that expertise a sudden creation of the 11 month old Bush presidency?

But you've drawn me into a pointless, narrow, partisan trap. I have no interest in debating the merits of a Clinton versus Bush presidency at the moment, and it relates not at all to my initial question.

I asked simply. What are "conservatives" attempting to conserve? What does "conservatism" desire to conserve? It's a simple question. You consider yourself a conservative, clearly, hence your response. So what do you want to conserve, to earn yourself that honorable name?

Nothing in your post explains that. It's quite clear that you don't like Bill Clinton. So what?

I'll ask again. What do you want to conserve, of our land, of our history, of our Republic? I'm sincerely curious. Because I'd like to be conservative too. I'd like to conserve our rivers, and our freedoms, and our discourse, and our history, and our art, and our culture. I just, quite simply, don't understand what it is youre trying to conserve.

You write: "Neither of us are evil, uncaring people, David.  I hope for a better world for my daughter than the one we currently live in.  I know we can do better.  There are always two sides to every story and each of our sides is never without its shortcomings.  I hope this helps."

Amen   David