Q: What does a conservative believe? I believe that freedom of the individual - as opposed to good works or "social justice" - is by far the highest goal any society can strive for. I became a conservative precisely to deal with my fate as a black American born into a segregated society. Racism had deprived me of individual freedom as I grew up in segregated America. But then as segregation faded there followed a flood of good works intended to make up for the past: school busing; welfare that asked nothing of its beneficiaries; racial preferences at universities that did not discriminate; and amorphous, do-good concepts like "diversity" that are merely a license to shallow social engineering - to arranging an optics of race and gender harmony. The problem with all these liberal good works is that they associate blackness with permanent inferiority. They don't really believe in the fundamental human equality of the people they claim to help. They want to be valued for their good intentions, never for their effectiveness in uplift. I grew to hate these programs and policies because they not only believed in my inferiority more than my capacity for excellence, but they also encouraged me to use black weakness - the inferiority imposed by four centuries of brutal oppression - as leverage and entitlement in the larger society. Modern liberalism seduces blacks with an idea of justice into an investment in our own historically imposed inferiority, as though it was a kind of talent. Only conservatism gave me a shot at true human equality. Possibly the greatest irony in American political culture is that conservatism - even today - is stigmatized as oppressive to minorities when, in fact, it is literally our only road ahead. We already have equality under the law. Only contemporary conservatism - which simply wants fairness by individuals rather than by groups - offers us the chance for true dignity, for freedom from both bigotry and paternalism. And let there be no confusion, history has escalated the terms of equality from civil rights to merit. Today an equality of merit is expected to match the equality of rights. You are competitive by merit with others or you are not. Today the great weapon of equality is the pursuit of excellence. I became conservative when I realized that the era of protest was over. We blacks won everything we could win through protest - but it was an idea of what others must do for us, of how others must be moral and tolerant. Conservatism is the road ahead because it is an idea of what we can do for ourselves. Steele is a Robert J. and Marion E. Oster Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. MORE: The Conservative Identity Crisis Conservatism is a mansion with many rooms, and individual conservatives tend to congregate in some of them rather than others. But as a general matter, conservatives respect the Constitution for the limitations it imposes on the power of the state and believe the Declaration of Independence is the "sheet anchor" of our liberties. They believe in equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome. And conservatives believe in the virtues, including the moral virtues, of democratic capitalism. Conservatives hold to the view that a society should protect life, including innocent, unborn life, and that it has obligations to defend the most vulnerable members of the human community. They also believe in the dispersal rather than the concentration of power and that taxes should fund the necessary work of government rather than redistribute wealth. The state should not be in the business of leveling out differences by punishing excellence. Conservatives believe that our laws should be colorblind; they believe in the importance of assimilation and the principle of subsidiarity. The role civic institutions play in our social life is a core conservative principle. So is the belief that our social order rests on a moral foundation and that religion is the source of morality for many people. Conservatives believe, too, that no person is a citizen alone and that families therefore need support from our culture. The role of education is understood to be both intellectual and moral, with the goal of both mastering the basics and nurturing the character of the young. Conservatives also believe that America, while an imperfect nation, has been a tremendous force for good in the world. While conservatives acknowledge limits on American power and influence, they believe (unlike many libertarians) we should oppose tyranny in other lands. And conservatives believe in the primacy of a strong national defense. There is also something like a conservative disposition, which is characterized by an appreciation for the complexity of human society, the limitations of politics and the dangers of mistaking politics for metaphysics. The danger facing statesmen, the great conservative Edmund Burke warned, is when they view self-government "as if it were an abstract question concerning metaphysical liberty and necessity and not a matter of moral prudence and natural feeling." American conservatism tends to be more hopeful and less dour than, say, British conservatism. It looks to the future rather than remaining fixated on the past. And it is eager to embrace change and reform as social circumstances shift. But true conservatism is wary of revolutionary rhetoric, utopian promises and efforts to remake the world. Wehner is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.