Conservatism in America
The mainstream media in the US has frequently stated that American conservatism is a hindrance to political progress. The constitution of the US is founded on Hebrew and Christian traditions; and that it is these traditions that have given the US its liberty and freedom, and also form the foundations of American conservatism. The US Constitution has enabled the US to record exceptional political and economic successes. It can, therefore, be argued that American Conservatism has maintained the integrity of the political and economic systems in the US.Recently, the trends in US politics show a strong bias towards value-based politics. The insistence that the US is a nation built on values grounded in its religious heritage has led some political pundits to raise concerns about cultural conflicts in the nation.
Scholarly PaperAbramson, P. R. (2011).
Critiques and counter-critiques of the postmaterialism thesis: Thirty-four years of debate. Center for the Study of Democracy.In the scholarly paper Critiques and counter-critiques of the postmaterialism thesis: Thirty-four years of debate which was published in 2011 by the Center for the Study of Democracy; theproponents of the theory of Post-materialism which was initially advanced by Ronald Inglehart, have argued that religious conservatism has altered the course of American politics towards suppression of individual self-expression and autonomy (4). The main postulates of Post-materialism are that individual values must be transformed from economic, physical and materialist values, to values which advance individual self-expression and autonomy (5). Based on the premise of the primacy of individual self-expression and autonomy, the proponents of post-materialism argue that the present trends of American politics do not favor political progress because it is inclined to suppress certain individual rights such as the right to religion and free political expression.
BookPutnam, Robert D., David E. Campbell, and Shaylyn Romney Garrett. American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. Simon and Schuster, 2012. Print.
In the book, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, the authors; Robert Putman, David Campbell and Romney Garrett, document how religion has fostered conservatism in the US. The authors document that leftists contend that religious conservatism has changed the cultural orientation of the US policy towards the values championed by the Christian right, thus, leading to cultural divisions within the US and a corresponding clash of cultures (201).
The book demonstrates how leftists (or progressives as they call themselves) have argued that the catholicization of the American right towards the establishment of a monolithic Christian right does engender the rights of religious minorities and atheists to exercise their constitutional rights, including the right to individual liberty and freedom (217). Nonetheless, most leftists do agree that the US constitution and all the benefits that it affords to US citizens are grounded in the religious heritage of the nation. The book also confirms that the entire political process in the US is strongly grounded in Judeo-Christian traditions, and this is evident from the rhetoric used by US presidents and …
