Okay let's try it again:
Here's what I have come up with for a definition so far, and as nearly as I can tell, the others who identify themselves as conservatives on this thread have not had a problem with it:
THE DEFINITION TO DATE. ANY WHO DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS DEFINITION, PLEASE SPEAK UP NOW OR WE WILL ASSUME THAT YOU ACCEPT THE DEFINITION:
Modern American Conservatism (MAC)
is consistent with:
Classical liberalism (also known as traditional liberalism[1], laissez-faire liberalism[2], market liberalism[3] or, outside the United States and Britain, sometimes simply liberalism) is a doctrine stressing individual freedom and limited government. This includes the importance of human rationality, individual property rights, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, individual freedom from restraint, constitutional limitation of government, free markets, and a gold standard to place fiscal constraints on government[4] as exemplified in the writings of John Locke, Adam Smith, David Hume, David Ricardo, Voltaire, Montesquieu and others. As such, it is the fusion of economic liberalism with political liberalism of the late 18th and 19th centuries.[2] The "normative core" of classical liberalism is the idea that laissez-faire economics will bring about a spontaneous order or invisible hand that benefits the society,[5] though it does not necessarily oppose the state's provision of some basic public goods with what constitutes public goods being seen as very limited.[6] The qualification classical was applied retroactively to distinguish it from more recent, 20th-century conceptions of liberalism and its related movements, such as social liberalism[7] and other forms of Collectivism, which promote a more interventionist role for the state in personal matters of the individual. Classical liberals are suspicious of all but the most minimal government[8] and object to the welfare state[9].
Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman, are credited with influencing a revival of classical liberalism in the twentieth century after it fell out of favor beginning in the late nineteenth century and much of the twentieth century.[10][11] In relation to economic issues, this revival is sometimes referred to, mainly by its opponents, as "neoliberalism". The German "ordoliberalism" has a whole different meaning, since the likes of Alexander Rüstow and Wilhelm Röpke have advocated a more interventionist state, as opposed to laissez-faire liberals[12][13]. Classical liberalism has many aspects in common with modern libertarianism, with the terms being used almost interchangeably by those who support limited government.[14][15]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
Included within this broad definition we have also discussed though not necessarily all have yet agreed that MAC includes but is not necessarily limited to the following principles:
1. The Constitution, as understood and intended by those who wrote and ratified it, must be enforced as the best protector of the people’s unalienable, legal, civil, and human rights. No judge or court should be acceptable who would presume to interpret the Constitution differently than those who wrote and ratified it interpreted it.
2. In all matters that do not violate any unalienable, legal, civil, and human right or violate any law necessary for an efficient, free, prosperous, and orderly society, local communities should be able to order and conduct their lives as they please. That includes respect for and honoring traditional values that have served society well. (Ican recently enumerated some of the laws and values that would apply within this concept.)
3. The government should do only those things/functions that are Constitutionally mandated and that cannot be done more efficiently or effectively by the private sector.
4. The government can help coordinate and facilitate necessary relief efforts in major disasters but must be prohibited from using the people’s money to buy their votes.
5. A people who look to the government to provide their basic needs and/or provide prosperity cannot be a free people.
6. How to be compassionate to the poor is best described by Benjamin Franklin: “I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."“
7. Property precedes government, and a people cannot be free nor can any government be uncorrupted that presumes to take lawful property from Citizen A and give that property to Citizen B.
