>Of course people make mistakes. IMHO it is a mistake to declare that conservative thinking is opposed to all change. I think you'll find (for example) that President Bush changed quite a few things, ironically with liberal folk opposing those changes. By this logic, liberals are conservatives who oppose change and are guilty of all the criticism you heaped on people who behave that way.

My arguments are not meant to carry a political colour: Republicans versus liberals or democrats: Just 'conservative' versus 'progressive'. All political parties do have both elements in them, though in uneven quantities.

>Seems to me that this logic is only sustainable if you presuppose that some changes are good and some bad. People who want good changes are progressive and are allowed to make mistakes, because that's natural. They're also allowed to oppose changes they don't like because they have defined themselves as progressives with lots of positive characteristics. Everybody else is the bad guys, opposing good changes and trying to force bad changes. This distills down to little more than "if you agree with me you're right, otherwise you're wrong" which isn't a particularly intellectual argument, even if it is festooned with slogans. ;-)

Maybe it would have been better to start my argument with 'religious conservatives' versus 'pragmatic progressive' though the first does not necessarily has to be religious. It boils down to having the courage, energy and intellect to identify problems and search and implement pragmatic solutions rather than being afraid to make mistakes or face opposition from (minority) groups that are happy with the status quo because it fits in their way of living and want to force that on others.

But I realize that both have their place. The role of conservatives is to be the break on the progressive train. But the train cannot be stopped. If you look at history the progressive side has had great victories over breaking the conservatives and that is because it is in our genes, else we would be still living in a cave and raped and plundered like madman. Its like evolution.

I guess my point is that it is very easy to be conservative (again not implying a political colour), because all you have to do is determine a set of values and believes and stick to it for the rest of your life and attack every problem from that angle. You'll be praised because you sticked to your principles.

If you are on the progressive side, you will put all your energy and intellect into finding the best solution under the given circumstances and the information available to you in a pragmatic way. That most certainly will come with mistakes and might force you to change your position on certain problems. The latter of course will be used to accuse you of incompetence by your opposition.
It needs a lot of courage, personality and leadership not to become a pray of your opposition.

But its not all black and white. People tend to much more progressive when they are young, because they have the energy and courage and really have not so much to lose. When they grow older they get more conservative because they have build (material or immaterial) themselves already and now they tend to defend on what they've got. They generally have lost the flexibility and energy to change.