You know the drill. You’ve heard it all a million times. Paul Ryan can do this speech in his sleep. It’s a very principled belief system. Limited government. Low taxes. Free markets. Tried and true conservative ideas for fostering a healthy and vibrant economy. But something is missing here. Something I fear has been lost in a sea of election-cycle talking points and cable TV punditry. Let me pose a question to you:

What are we conserving?

Do you remember? I’m asking Ben Shapiro. I’m asking Erick Erickson, Charlie Sykes, David French, Jonah Goldberg, and Stephen Hays. I’m asking conserva-thots like Tiana Lowe, Kassy Dillon, and Allie Beth Stuckey. We hear plenty of talk about economic policy. Take a full bite out of the Free Market fruit, and let the sweet juices of freedom and success drip down your chin. Gorge on the glistening banquet of Low Taxes. And don’t forget to have a Limited Government, so as not to interrupt these heavenly proceedings. That all sounds wonderful. But here’s the problem: America is not an economy. America is a community. A community of families, values, and traditions. Too often the modern right-wing will apply “conservatism” as a descriptive term for their preferred governmental policies, rather than what it is they’re trying to conserve in the first place. If you are governing with a conservative philosophy, the philosophy isn’t defined by the technicalities of the government policy itself, but rather in that policy’s goal to further the conservation of our way of life. As long as the government has that aim, it is, by definition, conservative.

Here’s a not-so-hypothetical scenario to illustrate this point. We have a free market economy. Within that free market, giant corporations create monopolies and harm the citizenry. They make their own rules outside of the constitution. They decide what we see when we search for information, thus deciding what we think. They decide what is acceptable public discourse. They actively work to get their preferred political candidates elected. Now, what is the “conservative” position in this scenario? Many would say we can’t regulate that industry because conservatives believe in limited government and free markets. And any government action would not only be a violation of those principles, but it would also be an admission that sometimes the free market isn’t always the utopian wonderland we said it was. Therefore, the conservative will allow our free society to be strangled and die. And what did they conserve in the process? Nothing but their own ego and the ideological rigidity that invariably leads to destruction. Any true conservative position must always be looked at from the perspective of what is most effective at conserving America as we know it. That is the one and only goal. And yes, that will often mean using the power of the government to rein in these massive corporations when they threaten our basic freedoms.

If we, as conservatives, do not adopt a new stance for a new technological era, the consequences will be dire. Allow me to show you the nightmare to which our current trajectory leads: Politicians on both sides of the aisle (but really just one) actively lobbying tech companies to silence their political enemies, and lobbying banks to cut off your right to commerce. That is, if you ever dare to make it publicly known that you hold a dissenting viewpoint. After all, why go through the trouble of trying to pass a politically unpopular bill with the intent of circumventing the first amendment when you can just get Google or Chase Bank to do it for you? We’re already seeing the early stages of this phenomenon. On March 2nd, member of the UK Parliament Tom Watson wrote a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai asking him to shut down political activist Tommy Robinson’s Youtube account. In the letter he states,

“I am now writing to implore you as a matter of utmost urgency to follow the lead that has been, belatedly, set by Facebook, and remove forthwith all ‘Tommy Robinson’ and related pages from your YouTube platform.”

If he feels comfortable lobbying this hard in public, imagine what must be going on behind the scenes. Recently, Chase Bank shut down the accounts of political activists Laura Loomer, Enrique Tarrio, Martina Markota, and Joe Biggs. Luckily for Joe, he has a fairly large voice, and his removal caused a backlash, resulting in his bank account being reinstated. But what if he didn’t have a big platform to voice his grievance? What if it was you or me? What recourse would there be? Is attending a Trump rally a potential transgression in the eyes of Chase Bank? What if you were to retweet a Breitbart article? Would you be at risk of losing your bank account? Imagine the chilling effect the very possibility would have on speech. Many would decide to err on the side of caution, and not make their voices heard while important public debates are being held. Debates that will, directly or indirectly, influence policy in our government.

As massive swaths of the country are forced out of public life and into isolation, perhaps the conservative would retreat to their ideological (and well-funded) cave and dismissively say “build your own bank” or “build your own Google”. I return to my original question: What are we conserving? If your version of conservatism can’t seem to actually conserve anything, then what good is it? Policies of limited government, low taxes, and free markets mean nothing on their own. They only become conservative when given a purpose. That purpose is protecting the American way of life as we know it. If a given policy fails to meet that aim for any specific problem or challenge that may arise, the policy can no longer be considered conservative in that instance.

The only barrier to this conclusion is the fear of admitting a perceived weakness in an ideology held so dear. Conservatism is your identity. It’s your life’s work. It’s even your religion in a sense. “Government intervention” is one of the seven deadly sins. How could it ever be the right answer? How could it ever be an even more conservative option than the free market? God forbid. It’s unthinkable. Perhaps Ben Shapiro would ask, do the ends justify the means? To that I say, if the “ends” are a recognizable America, can the “means” ever be too much? If your answer is yes, then please say hello to our new Big Tech overlords for me. I hope to get in their good graces. Perhaps my head can be one of the last on the chopping block.

The free market is not a god. It’s not a religion. Stop worshiping it like one. A free market-based economy is like any other big machine. It requires constant maintenance. The idea of a totally self-sustaining free market economy is as outlandish as the idea of a self-sustaining energy source. There is no such thing. The view that there is never a need for government intervention is as dangerously utopian as the writings of Karl Marx. That may sound like an extreme comparison, but if both paths lead to our destruction, does it matter how we got there?