Featured Neo-Con

They definitely expand government.

 

Believe it or not, I have fairly mixed feelings regarding neoconservatism. In certainly aspects it is a vast improvement from the "Old Right" as represented by the pre-Pearl Harbour Republicans and afterwards by men like Robert Taft as it recognizes that Washington's warning against "entangling alliances" which was addressed to a tiny, agarian republic of four million is no longer applicable to-day, thus rejecting the isolationism of the Old Right. Its internationalistic and interventionist philosophy are in most aspects similar to my own philosophy of liberal internationalism but with some key differences. Due to this, neoconservatism is fortunately much less xenophobic and anti-Semitic than the Old Right. Additionally, at least for a while the neocons seemed more open (partially as a result of its foreign policy views which recognized that the US government could play an active role in that arena rather than a purely reactive, defensive role and partially because many neocons were initially New Deal Democrats or even Trotskyites) to a positive role in government in regulating the economy and providing security domestically through social insurance.

Nonetheless, there are inevitably negative aspects of it. The first is its overemphasis of unilateral intervention as seen with the case of Iraq which alienated America's relations with many countries. Unilateralism, in my mind, should only be pursued when the nation is in imminent danger or arguably when extreme human rights violations such as genocide is occurring, neither of which was the case with Iraq. One wonders if a fraction of resources utilized in Iraq might not have been better employed to stop the massacres ongoing in Darfur at the time. Secondarily, despite a professed commitment to expanding democracy abroad, neocons have been quick to support and defend the support of dictatorships that serve American interests even when they overthrew a democratic government (witness Iran, Chile, the various rebel organizations in Central America). The final negative aspect of neoconservatism is that despite the aforementioned openness to accepting much of the legacy of the New Deal-Great Society reforms, increasingly neocons have been accepting the same ultra-laissez faire orthodoxy professed by the Republican Party these days. This inevitably raises the question in the mind of many citizens (justified or not) of why its ok that their tax money be spent in order to send their sons to die in distant lands for vaguely defined goals of "bringing democracy" but not to guarantee their access to health insurance when they become unemployed. This is partially why I believe liberals are the only consistent interventionists-we believe the United States government can play a positive role in maintaining a stable world order through defense of our allies and through humanitarian intervention when warranted and we also believe that we can do the same domestically by ensuing every American has access to a minimum standard of living. This was the philosophy of the Democratic Party during the era of FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, and Scoop Jackson; and in a more cautious way still is in the era of the Clintons and Obama (despite the New Left's undermining of this philosophy). It must be said in addition that the liberal internationalist variety of foreign policy has a much better track record than neoconservatism. The reconstruction of Germany and Japan were never used as an opportunity to hire out mercenaries or enrich private contractors as we did in Iraq nor did any of these administrations attempt to actively overthrow the government of a country and occupy it simply because of a potential threat.

As is natural with being out of the White House, neoconservatism appears to be decline in the Republican Party. Witness the opposition of many conservatives to any sort of intervention in Libya and Syria despite it being far less intrusive than what we did in Iraq; similarly during the Clinton administration many Republicans opposed our attempts to stop ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and believed that air strikes against Bin Laden were merely used to distract the public's attention from President Clinton's extramarital affairs. Of course this is largely found in the rank and file of the GOP (both in Congress and among the citizenry) rather than the small core of neocon intellectuals and the few consistent neocons in Congress such as John McCain. Indeed, isolationist tendencies appear to be reappearing in the GOP as exemplified by the popularity of both Ron and Rand Paul among many Tea Party activists.

 

What you call a 'vast improvement' I consider to be nothing short of treason.

We're 17 trillion in debt from both extreme 'philosophies', neoconservatism and socialism.

Lol! Ya think?

Who got us into the Iraq war?
A List of prominent Jewish Neocons and their role in getting the U.S. into Iraq and Homeland Security

 

I would say that it is always an insult. It originally meant a liberal Democrat who became a Republican on defense and spending issues, often a Jewish politician.

On the Baptist Board, it just means someone who won't get in bed with the Democrats and/or the Libertarians. :laugh::laugh::laugh:

 

That's more of what I thought. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, certainly on my list when I think of the word.