And, not surprisingly, the primary sources for illustrating those reasons are conservatives themselves; in this case, Charles Krauthammer and Pat Buchanan, weighing in on the same controversy: the use of a racial epithet as a nickname by the Washington, D.C. franchise of the National Football League.
Let's start with Chuck, as his column has the saving grace of coming down on the right side of the controversy. He claims to do so, however, not because of any amount of so-called hectoring from various members of the liberal elite, but rather on the grounds of "simple decency," conceding that the meaning of words change over time.
Why is it, precisely, that those words change in meaning? Why are some "meanings" considered to be simply decent in one era, and positively indecent in another? If you relied on Krauthammer's column alone, you would think that progress is achieved by some magical process that didn't involve human beings arguing over what it means, in the first instance, to be decent.
There's a reason that the word "progress" is a necessary part of the word "progressive." It is that every "decent" idea, including the idea of democracy itself, came from those who looked at the status quo of their era and concluded that the human race could be doing better than whatever it was doing at that given moment. This is not to say that all progressive ideas are good ideas, nor is it to say that the status quo is completely reprehensible. But it is to acknowledge a simple fact: progress invariably comes from progressive thinking.
And, like most if not all conservatives, Krauthammer is unable to acknowledge that fact in the context of the football nickname. Even worse, he pretends that it is the meaning of the word that has somehow changed, and not the acceptability of using it. Long before it began to be attached to sports teams, the term "redskin" was used as and considered to be a racial slur, one that was meant implicitly to exult the conquerors over the conquered. It has never been considered a "decent" term, and especially not by the people to whom it referred.
What has changed is the willingness of European-descended Americans to recognize the reality and magnitude of the harm that has been done over centuries to Native Americans, and to understand that at least some of that harm is embodied in certain words, "redskin" being among them. And again, Chuck, who is responsible for that change? The "decency" fairy? Nope, it came from the same source that progress always comes from--progressives. Krauthammer's inability to confront that reality, shared by the majority of his right-wing colleagues, is one reason for conservatism's many failures.
As rancid as Krauthammer's reasoning is, it pales (pun intended) compared to the blatant racism of Buchanan, and his "reasoning" for it. Like the skilled bigot that he is, Buchanan knows how to insinuate racial hatred by wrapping it up in nostalgia--in this case, spending the first ten paragraphs pining for a capital city that is "rooted" (hint, hint) and not "cosmopolitan" (nudge, nudge), then segueing into the lyrics of a fight song while remembering to forget the portion that exposes the song's true ethnic intent: "Scalp 'em, swamp 'um/We will take 'um big score/Read 'um, weep 'um, touchdown/We want heap more!" Right on, Patrick. Even that was too obvious for you to use.
All of this, at any rate, to build up to a truly ludicrous argument: we can't erase the past, so we might as well live in it. It's a good thing for Pat that no one has ever successfully made this argument; otherwise, his ancestors would never have left Europe, and would have to look for another ethnic group to feed their undeserved sense of superiority. In fact, the truth about the past is much different: we can't live in it, so we might as we learn from it. And, in order to truly learn, one has to confront the mistakes of the past for what they truly are: mistakes. Ironically, this is what classic conservatism teaches us to do, and what its contemporary counterpart is completely unable to do; witness the recent shutdown fiasco and the fallout in public opinion.
An inability to understand either the true nature of progress, or the value of history as a guide and not a refuge, is what undermines today's conservative moment, and ensures the emergence, at least in the short run, of an era of progressive achievement. Who knows? Maybe, just maybe, we will live to see the Washington NFL franchise come up with a better nickname.
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