A conservative and a conservationist conversed in a conservatory.  The conservative, Conrad, and the conservationist, Constance, agreed to a rational discussion where each would try to persuade the other to change their core values.

Conrad said, "You can't have values if they change.  If your position changes over time, that means you don't have any core values to anchor your philosophy."

Constance said, "If your core value is change, specifically improvement, then your subsidiary values would necessarily change while your core value remains constant.  At any rate, the core values of conservatives have always changed.  The definition of family used to dictate that women and children were property of men, that they were servants without choices.  Women were not allowed to vote, and sometimes they weren't even allowed to speak.  Very few conservatives today want to preserve a way of life in which women are property, basically slaves.  What conservatives conserve is power.  They conserve those systems where control remains in the hands of the few.  Power has spread to an ever larger group throughout history, from a handful of tribal leaders and kings to large numbers of businessmen and inheritors of wealth.  This diffusion of power and wealth to a larger group was only ever made possible by changes brought about by liberals.  Conservatives have always benefited from the change wrought by liberals.

"In contrast, most liberals tend to vote away their own power and wealth, distributing it to ever larger subsets of formerly disenfranchised groups, not limited to people.  The heart of the environmental movement seeks to give power to the environment itself, ecosystems, animals, and plants.  The conservationist wants to conserve our most basic asset, the environment, whether or not this preservation is at the expense of traditional and opulent lifestyles.  Perversely, conservatives remain in power partially because liberals tend to surrender their wealth and power, reducing their own influence."

Conrad said, "I don't know what liberals you are talking about, but the ones I've had to deal with wanted to take power and wealth away from the wealthy.  Liberals don't give away their own money; they give away other people's money."

Constance:  "The foundation of your argument is flawed for several reasons.  First, all wealth comes from resources, namely, natural resources.  Even in the field of scientific discovery, that wealth of knowledge comes from studying nature and learning her secrets.  Every way you can think of to make money today is based on the taking of resources from nature.  One mainstay of wealth is extractive industry, where raw materials are valued at nothing until someone who finds those resources claims them.  This is just a Finders Keepers sort of claim, and it often disregards indigenous people who live on that land.  People from powerful nations make agreements with each other to respect each other's claims of ownership of property and resources that once belonged to no one.  Everything that is now owned, that is a source of wealth today, was just wilderness 50,000 years ago.  As people spread about the globe, they claimed property and resources as their own, not because they had some deed of ownership, but simply because they had the power to claim that property.  Prior to 50,000 years ago, the Earth did not belong to anyone.  Now, ownership is the foundation of wealth, and all ownership began as theft.  The wealth that you claim liberals want to take away is, in every instance, wealth that was stolen in the first place.

"The second flaw in your claim that liberals want to steal wealth from the wealthy is that the wealthy have progressively gotten wealthier in the last sixty years.  More wealth is concentrated in fewer hands.  If anything, liberals want to stop the flow of wealth into the coffers of the wealthy.  When it comes to the environment, the wealth of some people relies on the claim that not only are raw materials free for the taking, but the dumping of waste into the environment is also a traditional, given right.  Conservatives often claim that environmental regulations are an unfair tax on business, and it is a way for liberals to steal wealth and freedoms from conservatives.  50,000 years ago, humans contributed almost no pollution to the environment.  It is the consumer lifestyle that fuels our economy that increases the flow of waste and toxins into the shared environment.  Meanwhile, the wealthy and the conservatives have the resources to shield themselves from the effects of pollution while the poor must experience exposure to pollutants disproportionately.  All conservative models of government are built on economic growth, which translates into increased exploitation of natural resources and increased loads of toxins in the environment.  Conservatives have twisted logic around to say that the obstruction of paths to wealth constitutes "Redistribution of Wealth" which is a code for liberals stealing money from conservatives.  In reality, the basis of capitalism has always been the redistribution of wealth, namely getting coins out of the consumer's pocket and into the coffers of business.  If a conservationist wants to slow the accumulation of more wealth into fewer hands for the sake of preserving nature and natural resources, that is decried as communism."

Conrad sighed, and said, "Look, you grew up in a wealthy society.  You benefited from those industrial pioneers you are now trying to throttle.  Capitalism gave you an education, and you never could have gone to the college that gave you those environmentalist ideals if not for the hard work of businessmen, entrepreneurs, and capitalists.  If conservationists had had their way 50,000 years ago, we would still be swinging from trees, wearing loincloths, and eating monkey brains."

"Ouch," said Constance.  "The irony of your last statement was like a skillet to the head.  You're saying that conservatives are the engines of change, that piracy is necessary to conserve a way of life that hadn't even been invented yet.  Well, if an environmentalist could turn the clock back 50,000 years, she would likely want to restart the clock and guide civilization along a different path.  Instead of breeding seven billion people in the name of the right to an unlimited number of children, an environmentalist might have pursued policies limiting the total human population to less than a billion.  Also, with the benefit of knowing how things turned out, an environmentalist would have cautioned that, for every wasteful industrial process discovered, a more efficient, cleaner process is on the way; therefore, it is not necessary to throw every scrap of a particular natural resource into the hopper of one newfangled industrial process.  If we had conserved one tenth of the old growth forest present in 1492 in the land that would eventually become the US, the value of those materials would be astronomical in terms of economic opportunity, let alone environmental benefits.  At every step of the way, industrialists and capitalists have systematically screwed over the industrialists and capitalists coming along behind them.  Knowing that technologies such as tool-making, agriculture, publishing, industrial manufacturing, electronics, biotech, medicine, and transportation would always be able to accomplish more work with less effort and waste, an environmentalist would have slowed the pointless destruction of resources in processes that would soon be obsolete.

"Right now," continued Constance, "we are 50,000 years in the past of some future society.  What I want to conserve will benefit all future humans, indeed all future species on Earth, human or not.  If conservatives had their way, wealth and power would flow as rapidly as possible to an ever-smaller number of people in the present, and the environment would be sacrificed wherever necessary.  This accumulation of wealth in dollars would be passed down to a few inheritors, and probably be squandered on trifles, while our collective wealth in the environment would be diminished for all future people, conservatives or liberals.  The conservative mantra is Freedom.  Freedom might be equated with Equality, as in equal opportunity.  Instead, Freedom in the conservative sense is the right to pursue inequalities in wealth and opportunity.  In conservative terms,  all people should have an equal right to get as much money from their neighbors as possible.  If you can create an advantage over a competitor, you should.  In fact, you have a duty to be your best and to crush your competition.  That is the American Way.  The people at the greatest disadvantage, the easiest to exploit, are the ones that haven't been born yet.  It is easiest to take resources from, and leave burdens to, future generations.  If conservatives got their way, the way of life they want to conserve would be attainable by ever smaller numbers of people.  Only if conservationists succeed will conservatives even have an arena in which to operate."

Conrad said, "Although nothing you've said is remotely true, everything you want in life comes at a cost to me.  You want higher taxes, more regulation, fewer freedoms, and fewer rights."

"I want a lower tax on our environment, which is a resource that belongs to the present and the future, if it belongs to anyone.  I want regulations that protect everyone's future assets.  I want future generations to have the freedom to play in a clean, healthy environment.  I want all species to have the right to a healthy life."

Conrad said, "It sounds like you want conservatives to do all the changing while liberals stay the same."

"We don't seem to be getting any closer to an agreement on who should change," said Constance.