"SOCIAL CONSERVATION"?

This is a new one. I listened to a radio interview this morning with a Republican politician from Nebraska. You know ... corn stalks, flat, depressed, overweight, religious, guns, dented pickup trucks. 

This gentleman used a new term, perhaps coined by a mind that is either too slow to consult a dictionary or aspiring to a job writing TV commercials. The term is "social conservation". Now, he was talking about something that sounded just like social conservatism. Social conservatism is a euphemism for redneck resistance to universal human rights, usually reinforced with a gun barrel, a burned cross, and/or a white hooded outfit. 

The gentleman on the radio pitched Nebraska as a home of "social conservation". He fleshed this out with a description of the all-American nuclear (or nuke-you-lar in Bush speak) family. You know, gingham dresses (only on the females), coveralls and straw hats. Church on Sunday. Lots of red meat on the grill. Sex with farm animals and first cousins, optional.

So, please do not confuse "social conservation" with plain old "conservation", a concept associated with President Theodore Roosevelt and other grizzly bears.