Conservatism is a complex creed, some of it less than appealing and some of it noble. The less-attractive kind involves an ideology whose main purpose is to defend existing distributions of power and wealth, and to resist reforms that might redress the grievances of those facing discrimination and marginalization.

The enticing brand of conservatism is rooted in an affection for a particular place and its way of life. This conservatism is not always opposed to reform because reforms are often required to preserve the arrangements its exponents revere. Conservatism’s positive function is to warn against measures designed to fix things that are wrong, but whose main effects are to undermine institutions that are widely valued. Sometimes, seemingly sensible changes can unintentionally cause new problems.

Obviously, these two forms of conservatism cannot be easily separated. What I have called the attractive kind often serves the needs of dominant groups.

But — again, at its best — conservatism is supposed to be resistant to extremism precisely because it is, in principle, the antithesis of a revolutionary creed. Conservatism is more about tweeds and a good scotch. Neither brings to mind incitement and divisive anger.

Yet for two decades, the tweedy sort of conservatism has been giving ground to the extremists who want not simply to defeat their adversaries but to crush them; who traffic in conspiracy theories rather than in respect for facts and history; and who are willing to destroy the very institutions they claim to be trying to save. This has happened before (as when the white South’s displaced leadership backed the Ku Klux Klan to end Reconstruction after the Civil War), and we are seeing it anew in the age of President Trump.

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in recent days was a clear demonstration of the far right’s success in displacing anything that deserves tobe called conservative.

Before President Trump, it would have been shocking to see Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, a leader of the French neo-fascist National Front, appear at the same event with traditional conservatives such as Vice President Pence and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), and also with the president of the United States. But thanks to Trump, European-style ethno-nationalism has become so much a part of the movement that Maréchal-Le Pen’s visit seemed almost natural.

Encouraging responsibility in the sale and use of firearms would seem to be a thoroughly conservative cause, an effort to maintain order and protect the innocent from violence. But the National Rifle Association is one of the most powerful forces within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. It uses paranoid rhetoric and incendiary attacks on its foes to justify riotously permissive firearms policies that no other democratic republic would dream of adopting.

Shamefully, Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s top gun who is increasingly becoming America’s extremist in chief, showed few signs of being moved by the slaughter of high school students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. On the contrary, he had the impudence to saythat those who think it’s time for some modest reforms in our weapons statutes were “saboteurs” and “socialists” using the deaths of young people to forward a dangerous agenda.

“If they seize power, if these so-called European socialists take over the House and the Senate — and God forbid, they get the White House again — our American freedoms could be lost and our country could be changed forever.”

What should worry us is that the radicalism of the NRA is not exceptional on the American right. It is what the right is all about.

This was brought home when the conservative writer Mona Charen had the courage to ask the crowd on Saturday why CPAC had invited Maréchal-Le Pen (“the Le Pen name is a disgrace,” she said) and called out “people on our side for being hypocrites about sexual harassers and abusers of women.” How unwelcome was Charen’s dissent from the extremist line? She needed to be accompanied by security guards when she left.

And The Post’s Dave Weigel reported on an otherwise little-noticed CPAC speech by White House Counsel Donald McGahn linking Trump’s judicial appointments to his dismantling of regulation.

“There is a coherent plan here where the judicial selection and the deregulation effort are really the flip side of the same coin,” McGahn said. Remember when conservatives criticized the politicization of the judiciary? McGahn is describing a judicial branch that is little more than an instrument of right-wing executive power. This should scare us, too.

The movement toward extremism has been gradual, so it has not been sufficiently acknowledged. But if those who still believe in moderation don’t face up to it now, they will be complicit in the far right’s ascendancy.

• By DR. JAY-SHEREE ALLEN

Sexting among teens is on the rise, according to new research published today.

Almost 27 percent of teens are receiving sexts and almost 15 percent are sending them, according to findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics.

Sexting is defined by the study's researchers as "the sharing of sexually explicit images, videos, or messages through electronic means."

CK PHOTO/Getty Images

“We knew teens were sexting, but we didn’t know how many," Madigan said. "Getting an accurate sense of how often sexting is happening is helpful for parents, health care professionals, educators, etc., who are having to talk to kids about this behavior.”

To get a handle on how many teenagers sext, Madigan and her team looked at results from 110,380 young people in 39 different studies about sexting. These studies were conducted all over the world, including the United States, the Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa and Czech Republic among others.

The numbers tell the story: Sexting has been increasing over the last eight years, is more common in older teens, and both boys and girls are engaging in the practice.

Most teens are sexting on their personal devices, researchers found.

“We weren’t surprise by the findings because the exploration of sexuality is a normal part of adolescence," Madigan said. "Smartphone ownership among teens is near universal. So the fact that those two worlds are colliding did not surprise us."

As shocking as it may be to adults that so teens are sexting, it’s not the part of the study that may cause the most concern.

Twelve percent of teens have forwarded a sext without consent – sending sexually explicit material on without asking permission of those involved, and 8.4 percent had one of their own sexts forwarded without their consent.

The researchers admit that more studies are needed in this area, but this information, they say, should lead to privacy legislation on sexting.

Madigan also noted that “non-consensual or coerced sexting (just like non-consensual or coerced sex) is linked to poor psychological health.”

With one in seven teens sending sexts and one in four teens receiving sexts, Madigan advises parents to “be proactive, not reactive, about sexting, and digital citizenship and health more broadly."

"Have open conversations early and often, not just when concerns surface," she said.

Jay-Sheree Allen, MD, is a resident in the ABC News Medical Unit.

(abcNEWS)

By Rachel Blevins

As calls for gun control increase among the parties that claim it would put an end to mass shootings, an investigation is revealing that state sheriff’s deputies are taking the firearms they have seized from individuals and re-selling them to generate revenue—only to find that some of the guns go on to be used in other crimes.

According to the results of an investigation reported by the Associated Press, in the state of Washington alone, “more than a dozen of the guns sold by law enforcement since 2010 ended up in new crimes.”

The firearms are also typically sold to arms dealers in large batches, with a recent lot of 331 guns being transferred from the Washington State Patrol to a gun dealer in Knoxville, Tennessee. Included in that batch were at least five assault rifles.

Not only are state police re-selling firearms, they are selling them at cheap prices, ensuring that they will continue to receive revenue in return for the items they obtained for free. As the investigation noted, while a new AR-15 costs between $650 and $950 online, the Thurston County Narcotics Task Force auctioned two of the firearms for $250 and $370 each.

The ArmaLite Rifle, or AR-15, has recently become the most demonized firearm of the moment after it was reportedly used in a school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and while the AP investigation includes the gun in its list of “assault rifles,” it should be noted that the AR-15 does not have select-fire capabilities and by definition, is not an assault rifle.

However, the idea that state police are seizing firearms—including AR-15s, AK47s and SKS rifles—should anger the crowd that supports stricter gun control measures, the crowd that supports the Second Amendment, and the crowd that supports increased police accountability.

Yakima Police Captain Jeff Schneider told the AP that he is concerned about the possibility of the firearms being used in future crimes after they are sold by police. “It’s possible a firearm sold by a police agency could be used in a mass shooting, but since they are rare, it’s more likely it could be used in a crime against police. That’s a real threat,” he said.

In contrast, 2017 was actually one of the safest years for police officers in more than 50 years. According to data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a total of 128 officers died on duty, 44 of whom were shot and killed. Nearly one-third fewer officers died of gunshot wounds in the last year, when compared to 2016.

While the number of police officers who died on the job in 2017 was historically low, the number of people killed by police officers continued to stay alarmingly high at nearly 1,200 deaths, according to theKilled By Police database.

Chief Schneider may have incorrectly stated that the practice of reselling confiscated firearms will lead to increase crimes against police, but he was not wrong about the fact that it would result in some sort of corruption.

Three objects tumbled from a plane leaving Ecuador for New York on Monday, falling nearly 1,000 feet just after takeoff and landing with a thud on the runway.

Airport personnel rushed to the site, fearing Latam Airlines flight XL1438 had lost vital parts before leaving the port city of Guayaquil.

They arrived to find one teenager dead from the fall and another badly injured but alive. The second teen would die minutes later, local media outlets reported. A suitcase was also found, with clothes and about $20 inside.

The teens appeared to have crawled into the plane’s landing gear, said Gen. Marcelo Tobar, Guayaquil’s police chief. He speculated they were either forced out by the mechanics of the gears or had second thoughts and jumped in the hope they would survive, according to Ecuador-based El Comercio.

Authorities have since identified the dead stowaways using their partial names: Marco Vinicio PG, 17, and Luis Manuel Ch. P., 16. The two teenagers are cousins from a province outside Guayaquil, authorities said.

The aircraft, carrying 233 passengers, was forced to land back at José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport following the incident, Latam Airlines Group spokesman David Harry told The Washington Post.

The teenagers were not passengers, Harry confirmed in a statement, adding that the airline has been cooperating with investigative authorities.

The incident also led to a 90-minute shutdown of Olmedo International, the country’s second-largest airport.

Stowaways in the wheel well face extreme dangers, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. After the gears fold up and the plane climbs, the temperature can fall below zero as the air pressure plunges to dangerously low levels, sometimes inducing a hibernation-like state.

The survival rate for stowaways in 10 incidents involving 11 people (one flight recorded two stowaways) was essentially a toss-up, according to an FAA incident summary: Two people froze to death and three fell to their deaths on flights between 1947 and 1993. The six others survived.

Stowaway miracles can happen. While other survivors may have encountered injuries, one teenagerarrived unharmed in a 2014 flight from San Francisco to Hawaii.

In the same year, U.S. Air Force personnel found a dead boy in a compartment near a cargo jet’s wheel well after stops in Africa.

The boy appeared to be from Mali, the Pentagon said at the time, potentially fleeing the violence of the civil war entering its second year in 2014.

This post has been updated.