[sam h]

The conservative movement in America is young, rising to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s and then really taking off in the 1970s. William F. Buckley is often seen as the major intellectual father of modern American conservativsm, and the presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater is often seen as the watershed moment when conservative politics entered the mainstream.

"Conservatism" of course draws upon ideas and figures who are much older. This all becomes quite complicated, however, because the label "conservative", like the label "liberal," has meant so many different things in so many different places at so many different times.

The most important ideas propogated by the conservative movement in the States over the last forty years have been (a) a belief in limited government and personal responsibility (b) a belief in a society rooted in traditional family structures and traditional family roles and (c) a belief in the importance of religion in the everyday life of society and (d) anti-communism.

Many self-identifying conservatives, of course, will not endorse all of these positions. Economic conservatives are often especially wary of the social aspects of the modern conservative platform. But that's what the movement has been about.