Being conservative is no bad thing when preserving all that is good

I refer to Dr Kevin McCarthy’s letter (Irish Examiner, May 2). How tired I get of the intellectual smugness of self styled liberals who perpetuate the myth that conservatives (note the small ‘c’) are all unreconstructed misogynistic xenophobes.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, an unsavoury pedagogue who appeals to the very worst in human nature, is the very antithesis of a conservative. He does not wish to preserve but to destroy that which is best in our civilisation. I am a conservative. I wish to conserve those things of which our civilisation is a shining example. Democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of worship.

I do not believe in God but I believe in those who do. I admire self reliance, enterprise, ambition and courage in the face of adversity. I believe that the better off have a duty to aid the unfortunate. I support equality but tire of the professionally outraged.