Firstly, let me say that unlike many of you I do believe there is a tradition of conservative ideology in this nation which is not inherently corrupt. It is, however, not in power, not very near power, and what we have instead called "conservativism" is a sham of dysfunctional and defensive taboos: Conservative Correctness. Some of the rules of conservative correctness:
(1) Never apologize, you're never wrong, if you were wrong, somehow you were still right because of things to the north, the south, a little to the west and also to the east a bit.
(2) Never admit what you really think about Jesus' bleeding heart liberal talking points
(3) DO NOT EVER suppose a problem cannot be solved by war, related to ...
(4) Never appear "weak"
(5) Moral strength is material weakness
(6) Never rely on human rights to make arguments
(7) We are fundamentally superior to (fill in the blank)
(8) We must all think the same thing, and since we don't, you shut up
(9) Never coddle, to exploit is fair play, but never coddle
(10) Never follow rules when defending a fellow group-member
(11) Demons require unethical treatment
(12) War is Strength
not exhaustive, feel free to add, correct, or ignore, it just occured to me while reading about the slavery at MLW.
The reason it occurs to me is that the refusal to apologize for slavery requires such taboos as "never apologize", because so many that want to refuse will not defend, and don't silently endorse, slavery. They just want to forget about it.
It's also akin to the type of family that just wants to forget about unpleasantness rather than face it and resolve it... letting it hang over them forever.