Likewise, the pure libertarian (as opposed to those of us who have some libertarian leanings) sets up liberty as the highest good. Liberty is the end goal of all policy. The conservative looks to the libertarian and asks, “why does that idea become valued over all other ideas?” Liberty is obviously a great good. But as the absolute highest end goal, it can also lead to devastating consequences.

Human experience tells us that liberty is a good that enables humanity to thrive. But rather than first using a thought experiment to force onto society, the conservative argues that the greatest instructor on what laws should exist in a civil society is human experience. So, it would seem libertarianism hits its own walls when it ventures out of its world of make believe theories and steps into the world of reality.

Alternatively, traditional conservatives believe the rise and success of Western society was not merely a lucky accident or the result of a couple Enlightenment period thunderbolts, but rather the product of diligent work, trial and error, and human experience — and in may ways the result of Christian civilization.

As such, they argue that preserving a strong moral order — an order that took shape over millennia — is vitally important to a functioning society (including a functioning economic system).