For Brownback, the attraction to Wilberforce and abolitionism was only natural: The senator grew up near Osawatomie, Kan., the town from which John Brown launched murderous attacks on pro-slavery men a century and a half ago, earning the pre–Harper’s Ferry nickname “Osawatomie Brown.” When Brownback learned that forms of slavery were still being practiced in Sudan and elsewhere, it outraged him. “I couldn’t believe this was going on,” he says. “It was just wrong, and we needed to do something about it.” ~John Miller

There many things that are wrong in the world.  There is a word to describe someone who thinks that all those problems are our problems that “we need” to “do something” about and that our government exists to right the wrongs of the world.  That word is not conservative.