Burke- Conservatism

Although Burke's piece, Reflections on the Revolution of France was confusing and tedious to read, I think that I managed to pick out the core beliefs that Burke was trying to explain. 

Burke emphasized the importance of family and family structure in this passage. He wrote, 

"But one of the first and most leading principles on which the commonwealth and the laws are consecrated, is lest the temporary possessors and life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received from their ancestors or of what is due to their posterity, should act as if they were the entire masters; that they should not think it amongst their to cut off the entail, or commit waste on the inheritance, by destroying as their the whole original fabric of society; hazarding to leave to those who come after them, a ruin instead of a habitation- and teaching these successors as little to respect their contrivances, as they had themselves respected the institutions of their forefathers." 

This quote builds on the belief of conservatives that the tradition family is the cornerstone and the fabric of a society. Everything that the government does should ultimately be in the best interest of protecting the traditional families in a particular society. 

This belief is consistent with a book I read in one of my politics classes last semester called It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good by Rick Santorum, a conservative Senator from Pennsylvania. In his book, Santorum describes his beliefs on how important family is to a society as well as his politics that attempt to "preserve" the traditional family.