[Kaylee]

Off and on over the last couple years, I've seen the term "neo-conservative" or more often "neo-con" used -- almost exclusively by the left and far left as far as I can tell -- to describe everyone from libertarian types to more traditional conservatives. Particularly in reference to "the Neo-Con Cabal controlling Bush behing the scenes" :tinfoilhatsmilie:


Who coined this term, and when did it enter "common" usage?

Does it have a particular meaning, or is it just bandied about like "assault weapon" or "racist" to mean something like "anything or anyone I think is too Neandrathallically Primitive to listen to seriously, and yet also possessed of Great Cunning and Ruthlessness?"

I guess it just seems an oxymoronic term to me .. "the new-old" or somesuch...

Thanks...

-K

[Tamara]

From what I can gather, "neo-cons" are folks who came to a relatively conservative viewpoint after a sojourn in the progressive/liberal ranks (Liz Dole would be a textbook example). They seem to differ from "paleo-cons" and/or libertarians in that they don't think government is inherently evil...

(From what I can gather, the main difference between paleo-cons and libertarians is that the paleo-cons think government is like fire; you only bring it in the cave if you can keep it in a clay pot or stone circle, while libertarians think that government is like nerve gas; you only bring it in the cave if you keep it in a sealed steel cannister, or better yet, why don't you just leave that crap outside the cave in the first place? ;) )

[4v50 Gary]

As a child I was very liberal, like my parents. Then I saw some extreme liberals attack my father for his "reactionary" views. That & the $15 bucks in taxes taken out of my wages made this kid grow up conservative.

Point of the story: Extremist always denounce less extremist and in so doing, either cajole/badger/intimidate them into silence or push them out of the way. Happens all the time in politics - including the pro-gun movement.

[Seawolf]

There's a good article on this in the latest "American Conservative."

www.amconmag.com

The issue up there is the before the one I'm speaking of, but it'll be up soon. I don't know if Borders or Barnes & Noble carries it.

[mercedesrules]

http://www.neoconservatism.com/

A site dedicated to advancing the political perspective known as neoconservatism, which is committed
to cultural traditionalism, democratic capitalism, and a foreign policy promoting freedom and American interests around the world

Also, see this website and list:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

Elliott Abrams
Gary Bauer
William J. Bennett
Jeb Bush
Dick Cheney
Eliot A. Cohen
Midge Decter
Paula Dobriansky
Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg
Francis Fukuyama
Frank Gaffney
Fred C. Ikle
Donald Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad
I. Lewis Libby
Norman Podhoretz
Dan Quayle
Peter W. Rodman
Stephen P. Rosen
Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld
Vin Weber
George Weigel
Paul Wolfowitz

MR

[Mr Kablammo]

A neo-con is often a person who was fooled by the utopian ideals of the left for a while, like me. I became one of the dreaded 'neo-cons' on realizing that most leftists are tyrant-wannabees with the minds of children in the bodies of adults.

The term is also putt into context by the term 'paleo-con'. That would be an old-style conservative.

To me, the difference is that neo-cons have come to understand there IS a culture war being waged on America (es. David Horowitz) and are fighting back. Paleo-cons are tired, impotent, oleo-ed bent over old men who have ceded the initiative to the socialists. Hence they allow the left to screw us out of our rights, heritage, and future bit by bit.

[DonP]

It started getting used about the same time they realized that the word "Liberal" was a bad word with the average American, so they all became "Progressives" overnight, to camoflage what thjey really are. They tend to choose words and phrases that sound innocuous, like "common sense gun control"?

They use "NeoCon" (is that the new Liberal "N" word?) to mean a selfish, generally younger, white person focused on the accumulation of personal wealth and with no civic sense of concscience.

In other words, it is; "a Yuppie that is making more money than me and my hippie wife do selling our home made bongs and hemp shirts at the flea markets. Therefore, we need to take more of his/her money from them in taxes to fund my wife and I and the projects I'd fund if I ever had a real job. Oh and try to treat them with disgust and loathing while taking their money."

It's also quickly becoming a favorite prhase on the DU, along with other gems like ...

Bushistas
Repug's
Repuke's
etc.

Not a terribly creatiive group over yonder. Frankly, I kind of like the Bushista one.

Don P.

[Pendragon]

I am cautiously becomming one.

I like libertarianism in the theoretical sense, but I just cannot support it to its full logical conclusion - I can go like 90%, but I just do not see 100% as possible or workable - mostly because I think it would self destruct as the disaffected rebel and institute a system way worse than "only" a 70-90% libertarian system.

Maybe I am a contradiction - but I am a man, it is my nature.

I like the Neo-Cons so far - they like to DO things. The Paleos like to talk, but they lack the moxy - or perhaps the willingness to be disliked and go for the kill.

[Glock Glockler]

Would a tyrant by any other name smell as vile?

Kaylee,

While I've wondered about the term myself, I've resigned myself to the fact that it's just another coined term for a statist.

That's the funny thing about groups that change their name frequenty; they do so because folks'll eventually figure out they're full of it, so you have to change the wrapping to disguise the dung inside. It's kinda like racial fascists being supporters of "equal opportunity", then affirmatice action, and now diversity is the current name being used to describe the same Nazistic (I made up this term:))eugenics programs.

In my book, you're for individual rights or you're just another statist that wants his pet freedoms protected but doesnt mind giving others the shaft.

[Pendragon]

Must be nice to see the world that way.

If you think a purely libertarian system of government is possible, I think you do not understand human nature.

Most people do not want to be that free.

That much freedom will mean a lot of success and wealth, but also a LOT of failure and squalor. Perhaps you will be the one to tell the single mom how wonderful freedom is when she loses her job for not wanting to "service" her boss (hey, he is free to change the terms of employment at any minute right?).

When she cannot make her rent that week, she is immediately evicted and thrown out on the street.

I am sure she will go right down to LP headquarters and volunteer to pass out bumberstickers while she takes her kid to sleep in a church and eat soup.

If you think this kind of system would last one year, you have no concept of history. Maybe things would equalize and flatten out after a period of time, but I do not think the "peasants" would be willing to wait and see.

Perhaps then, the police would come out and herd them out of town - oh wait, they cant do that. They can mass and protest infront of your house all day - in a "free" country, we let people gather, protest and sleep whereever they want right?

How comforting to know that in your view, people who believe in virtually unrestricted access to weapons, reproductive rights, freedom of association and capitalism, etc are still "statists" because they believe that for society to not self destruct, we need laws that prohibit gross exploitation of other people.

Call me and the vast majority of your fellow citizens "statists" if it makes you feel better. It is your right to abuse the language as you see fit.

[Don Gwinn]

"Neo-Conservative" was originally a term coined by people who considered themselves Neo-Cons and considered it a compliment. They were setting themselves apart from the Old Guard (people who liked Nixon, thought it was pretty keen how all those hippies got beaten up in Chicago, and were just SURE Nixon was framed.) They referred to the Old Guard as "Paleo-Conservatives to denote that they were the old ones, relics of the cold war, as the Neo Cons were the dynamic, bold, daring heroes of the movement.

This was done because, as we all know, it's always a good idea to split your movement up into as many small, warring factions as possible.

[Glock Glockler]

Pendragon,

Before you accuse me of abusing language, perhaps you should consider what pure libertarianism actually is, and when I stated that it was actually possible?

As far as the woman servicing her boss, this is handled within contract law. If the contract I make with my boss does not include "Services", then he has no legal right to terminate me for failure to do so, as he would be violating his end of the contract. In this situation, a court would hold him accountable for not honoring the agreement.

If a woman was evicted from her apartment, why is it that only govt can pick up the slack? I don't understand why people always look to govt as a means of solving various problems, if you and others feel strongly about this issue, you do something about it, but don't coerce me via govt to do what you think I should do.

They can mass and protest infront of your house all day - in a "free" country, we let people gather, protest and sleep whereever they want right?

Are they, by their actions, preventing me from the enjoyment of my property? If so, they are voilating my rights, and the police would thus but completely legitimate in removing them.

we need laws that prohibit gross exploitation of other people

I agree. I am no anarchist, mind you, but I don't believe the govt has any legitimate function violating my rights so it can protect people who can't handle freedom. If they cannot, too bad, that's why God invented Darwin.

I have a very good grasp of history, OTOH, I think it is you who need to work on your grip on the concept and application of libertarianism.

[Kaylee]

um, guys... no offense, but could we please not veer into the "libertarianism is impractical/no its not/yes it is" argument again?

(Ya see that "new thread" button?) ;)

:)

-K


and thanks for the answers!
so... is neo-conservatism a movement in itself, or a term for folks new to the fold from the left? I'm hearing both answers here....

[Pendragon]

Are they, by their actions, preventing me from the enjoyment of my property?

Here we go.

"right to enjoy" is a lot like "right to feel safe".

I will leave it at that.

Maybe I am off my rocker.

And my coment about the evection was just that in a pure L society, I see things like evictions and such as moving very quickly - maybe the woman could get a job in a week and start paying again, but as soon as the landlord smells unemployed, he cuts her loose.

Maybe you are right - a lot of the protections in law would be best handled by contracts - but then, the laws of supply and demand would preclude their use in many cases. Too many secretaries looking for work means no contracts barring sexual exploitation - sure one of them will take the job anyway.

Anyway, I see the NeoCons as being for minimalist social policy and government control.

Tiny little statists we...

LP thread forthcoming.

[Pendragon]

Kaylee,

I think that its more of a movement. I think it is going to be a pretty powerful movement that will move the country a good bit to the right - in a way, I think it has roots in Ronal Reagan - the unappologetic appeal to nationalism, the appeal to individual responsibility and more responsible economic policy.

I think this movement is still building - it will be aided greatly by the internet and the vast army of bloggers who are writing and writing from this point of view.

I think the movement will work because it is not as extreme as libertarianism and it soundly denounces te failures of the left which will only become more apparent as we move forward.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have no issue and no focus and no "guy". They are going to suffer greatly in the wake of the clinton legacy as his failures and treason becomes more apparent.

There are a lot of people who vote Democrat because they percieve them as more "for the little guy" - whatever your opinion of "Compassionate conservatism", it will bring people over to the republican party as the radical communist/socialist wing rises up and starts to worry middle America.

I think that within the Neocons, there is a pretty broad spectrum of views - but one thing that they agree on is that America is good and America is great and we are not sorry. That is a message that people want to hear.

[Waitone]

Those who control the language control the society.

Remember how anti-2's hijacked the term "assault weapon."

What what is happening to .50 cal rifles.

Remember we are in a war of definitions, particularly with respect to the second amendment. To another extent definitions are used by leftists // socialists // greens // fascists // etc in the same manner.

While neo-conservatives is a term just springing to popular use in the US, it has a pretty thorough definition in Europe.

In Europe neo-conservatives are deemed to be related to nazis and the like. In other words part of the way to discredit a movement is to attach it to an unpopular time in the past.

Watch carefully how the term is modified over time here in the US. I am highly suspicious anytime a term suddenly leaps into popular usage in the media over a short time. Look for the connections to be made.

[rock jock]

From what I can gather, the main difference between paleo-cons and libertarians is that the paleo-cons think government is like fire; you only bring it in the cave if you can keep it in a clay pot or stone circle, while libertarians think that government is like nerve gas; you only bring it in the cave if you keep it in a sealed steel cannister, or better yet, why don't you just leave that crap outside the cave in the first place?
I would say that's a pretty fair description. The question is, which were the founding fathers - paleo-cons or libertarians?

[cuchulainn]

It's not a new term. I remember it being used back in the Reagan years (and I suspect that it might stem from Goldwater days). And it got a lot of use in the 1994 GOP take over.

I have no idea who coined it, though. Buckley wouldn't surprise me, but that's a wild guess.

However, Waitone is right about controlling language. He who controls the spice controls the universe.

I nominate "neo-socialists" for everyone's lexicon to describe the Dems. ;)

[Tamara]

I would say that's a pretty fair description. The question is, which were the founding fathers - paleo-cons or libertarians?

Who cares? They got things off to a good start, but I don't believe in infallible human beings. ;)

[ahadams]

well I don't know about you folks, but I *like* the idea of "Bushista"...maybe a button with just that word over crossed rifles and the phrase "sandino had nothing on us!" (that way it would also set off the leftist "true socialism has never been tried" yo-yos at the same time.)

[PATH]

Me? I am just a plain ol' dyed in the wool Conservative! In New York State you can register as one! I plan on fighting the neo-socialist hordes until the day I die!

I have managed to convince all but one member of my extended family to leave the parties of the neo-socialists. Democrats, Liberals,Greens and Independence Parties here in New York!
I forgot the "Working Families Party"! Yeah, right! :barf:

[Leatherneck]

I see two problems developing in this discussion (in addition to the attempted hijacking, that is:D ):
1. To associate the Neo-Cons with youth is in error. Look at the list Mercedes published from the New American Century: most of those folks are pretty long in tooth...
2. While the Neo-Cons are pretty conservative, their actions to date convince me that they are absolutely statist by inclination. That's the part that disappoints the most...:mad:

TC
TFL Survivor

[GinSlinger]

The first time I was given a definition for this term it was by my Legislative process professor. Basically he defined neo-cons as Wilsonian-Republicans. In other words, Republicans very much in favor of expanding the US' overseas comitment to peace and soforth.

However, dictionary.com gives a different history


ne·o·con·ser·va·tism also ne·o-con·ser·va·tism n.
An intellectual and political movement in favor of political, economic, and social conservatism that arose in opposition to the perceived liberalism of the 1960s: “The neo-conservatism of the 1980s is a replay of the New Conservatism of the 1950s, which was itself a replay of the New Era philosophy of the 1920s” (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.).

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


GinSlinger

[Seminole]

I think the following, from a column found at http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/wilson-james1.html (http://http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/wilson-james1.html) helps to define neoconservatism (the "new right") by contrast with paleoconservatism (the "old right).

Note especially the following:

It is in the weakness of our government that our freedom was preserved and prosperity attained. This is what the Old Right knew

By contrast, then, neoconservatism seeks the expansion of government--even if only in selected ways that neoconservatives believe "beneficial."

The "Old Right" is the name given by Murray N. Rothbard to the critics of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s policies of the 1930’s, who were subsequently silenced or ignored during World War II and the emergence of the Cold War. Most of the names are now forgotten; H.L. Mencken is still popular, but he was the least systematic political thinker of the lot. And Rose Wilder Lane is probably more remembered as Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter and editor than as the author of The Discovery of Freedom.

Many of the rest, like Garet Garett, Albert Jay Nock, Frank Chodorov, and Isabel Paterson, have been entirely forgotten in the culture’s mainstream, and it is because of efforts by people in the libertarian movement that their lives and thoughts can be discovered on the Internet today.

I’m only getting my feet wet with the literature of the Old Right, but I could recommend their writings for just one reason: American English prose was never better than in the period between the World Wars. This was the age when the principles of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style were not some unattainable ideal, but the standard expectation for publishable work. These people knew how to write, and lovers of American English will find no greater standard-bearers.

But there is a second reason. Rothbard gave the "Old Right" its name in juxtaposition with the "New Right" which the CIA, um, I mean William F. Buckley, founded in 1955 with National Review magazine. The Old Right was individualist; the New Right was pragmatic and imperialist. But the Old Right was a fitting term nevertheless; when FDR began to lead our country into its own style of fascism, his most eloquent critics were, well, old.

Not very old, but definitely middle-aged. The Old Right writers were born in the 1870’s and 80’s, and were definitely not the children of privileged, government-protected robber barons. Whether growing up on the wild frontier or on the streets of New York or Baltimore, they all came of age well before the Sixteenth Amendment imposed the income tax in 1913. By FDR’s inauguration in 1933, they were either in their fifties or soon to be. By the time Buckley made himself judge, jury, and executioner of all things conservative two decades later, the "Old Right" was definitely very old, and for the most part dead or retired.

This may have more significance than first glance suggests. While the post-Civil War governments up until 1913 were for the most part evil – granting land to railroad companies at the expense of homesteaders, breaking treaties with native Indians, and impoverishing farmers by protecting domestic industrialists with high tariffs – it was otherwise, fortunately, weak. The federal government had no small-c constitutional (i.e., bodily, practical) ability to increase its power, because it had no big -c Constitutional (i.e., legal) authority to raise the revenue for it. When tariffs and excise taxes are a government’s only means of revenue, the ambitions of politicians are necessarily curtailed.

It is in the weakness of our government that our freedom was preserved and prosperity attained. This is what the Old Right knew. Note that I didn’t say "believed," but "knew," because they experienced it. They were of the last generation to experience it. To be raised by adults who were neither directly taxed nor dependent on government subsidy. And to live life as an adult under the same conditions. To realize that in the struggle for survival, one must struggle, and not sit idly by waiting for someone else to struggle successfully enough to provide for two or more. Who understood that capitalism did not create the injustices, it was government favoritism of one industry, or one industrialist, over some other that was the cause. And that the solution was in the further weakening of government, and not in the expansion of its powers.

[D.W. Drang]

I first saw the term in an article in (I think) Esquire back in the 70s. I got the impression it wasn't new then.
The article was a profile on some guiding light of the neo-con movement, name forgotten, but I remember that one of the pictures of him was taken in occupied Germany in June 1945 and all he was wearing on his uniform blouse was a CIB.

[Pendragon]

I am not married to the "Neo con" agenda.

I just happen to think it is going to be the thing that really kicks the whole shift back over to the right.

They will run their course and perhaps another movement can gring us further along.

[BigG]

I think it's a load of horse **** as you are either conservative (want less govt (could include libertarian)) or not. No such thing in my book. A stupid dumocrat or other who has finally seen the light and hasn't the guts to admit he was wrong, DEAD WRONG.

[F=ma]

"The difference between Democrats and Republicans is: Democrats have accepted some ideas of Socialism cheerfully, while Republicans have accepted them reluctantly."
-- Norman Thomas

While I was initially hopefull, I think that Neo-Cons are "semi-conservatives" who cede that some socialistic policies are desirable (e.g. national healthcare, federal education).

I guess you could look at it either as a pragmatic attempt to win over new people/gain support, or an ideal that sacrifices some principle (appeasement?) at the edge of a slippery slope.

[hops]

The neo-cons seem like Facists to me.

[BigG]

I hate it when somebody finally sees the light and thinks he is teaching everybody who saw it all along.

[Pendragon]

I think it's a load of horse **** as you are either conservative (want less govt (could include libertarian)) or not.

Well, in this day and age, the label "conservative" is pretty broad.

Rush Limbaugh likes to consider himself pretty conservative, but there are lots of people who think he is barely right of moderate.

Lots of people disagree on what the core values of a conservative are. Some say "smaller government" while some are individual rights absolutists.

Still some think it is about setting a moral tone - supressing homosexuality and abortion, allowing prayer in schools, etc.

And then, there are the Libertarians who think that the sole job of the government is to protect "individual rights" which are broadly defined - usually as "whatever you want as long as you dont hurt anyone".


This is totally on the fly, but I think conservatives can probably be grouped into 3 camps:

This is probably in order on the political spectrum:

The Moralists/Traditionalists - think some liberties should not be allowed simply because they are "wrong" or against traditional values. You might think these people are mostly the so called "religious right" but I work with a guy who is an athiest - but very much a traditionalist.

The Pragmatists - think that some liberties are too extreme and can cause long term problems like instability, etc. The most recent one that has me bent is that I am in favor of some basic anti-sexual harassment laws. Some argue that this violates the property rights of business owners. I think there are pragmatic reasons for such laws (too long here) but I would not place me in the previous camp because I am ok with sex for money as long as it is not coercive (although some argue that it always is coercive).

The Libertarians Individual rights trump all. The government should enforce contracts and uphold individual rights - and not much else. National defense probably, public roads and schools?

I am probably 80% to 90% Libertarian, but the rest of me is pragmatist.

My dad is at least 60% Moralist - as a devout Christian, he has difficulty advocating liberties which are very sinful - abortion, homosexuality, drugs, etc. He is probably another 30% Pragmatist.

Still others on this board seem to be closer to 100% libertarian.

The one thing I think that can be said about all of them is that they think that the people who disagree with them are immoral/statists/idiots/idealists/childish etc - take your pick.


I think that if Bush is a "conservative", he falls squarely into the Moralist/Traditionalist camp. He is clearly a devout Christian and while I think he has the best intentions, I also think he tends to project his world view of what is "right" into his views on policy.

On the gun issue, he may see that the percieved "danger" of Assault Weapons could possibly trump the Individual Right in question. I think it is an issue that he struggles with. I think he feels that he may be "judged" in some way for allowing AWs back "on the street". I think he may actually feel that he has some responsibility if he loosens things up and there is a shooting that the law might have prevented. I think this is the main pitfall that Moralists fall into - that by allowing certain things, they can then become a moral agent or an "enabler" of certain events and they do not want blood on their hands like that.

I seriously doubt he has a problem with "regular" people keeping "regular" guns - I think he could be considered generally pro- self defense. I think in his mind, he sees a waitress repelling a mugger with her .38 and he thinks that is what its all about.

Like a lot of people, he really does not understand why "regular" people want to own AKs and ARs.

Anyway - thats my analysis of what I think of Bush and the AWB - it comes down to him not wanting to be an enabler of a tragedy.

[Seminole]

This column (Neo-Conservatism explained (http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/neo-con-explained.html)) I read today brought to mind this THR thread. I know it is a fairly long column, but I think it is worth a read.

Neo-Conservatism Explained

by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.


Commentators across the spectrum have finally clued in to neo-conservatism as the intellectual framework of the Bush administration. We are suddenly faced with long think pieces on the role of political philosopher Leo Strauss in influencing the architects of the Iraq war and Bush's governance in general. We are also learning about the ideological path taken by former college Trotskyites into the Republican Party of the 1970s. It?s an instructive example of tenacity and dedication in translating ideas into practice.

Along with the political victory of the neocons (by victory I mean the reality that they now control many levers of power) has come shock and alarm of those who disagree with their policies. Their critics left and right regard their use of domestic police powers as contrary to constitutional guarantees, and their foreign policy of preemptive strikes as nothing but untrammeled aggression that violates human rights and makes us ever more vulnerable.

Despite its political victory, the future of neo-conservatism rests with the war on Iraq and its aftermath. They brought about this war over the objections of most of the world, and relied heavily on the crudest form of chauvinistic sloganeering to sell it to the American people. Iraq has been destroyed, with most people living amidst appalling wreckage that neocons apparently failed to anticipate. Their raw military power unleashed utter chaos, barbarism, and fanaticism in what was once the most secular and liberal Arab state.

The neocons had a limitless faith in two tools: bombs for destruction and dollars for reconstruction. With their appalling ignorance of the complexity of society, they believed that these two tools were enough to reconstruct the region, and maybe the whole world. It was only a matter of political will, so they believed. The bombs caused the regime to flee, but the dollars have not been able to put it back together again. As only a slight symbol of the Pyrrhic victory, the Saddam dinar is now at its highest value relative to the dollar since 1996. No WMDs were ever found, and terrorism in the region is getting worse.

Seeing this disaster, and sensing that they are losing the propaganda war, neocons are scrambling to control the spin. This has taken several forms: 1) defending neocon policies, 2) denying that such a thing as neo-conservatism exists, 3) admitting that neocons do exist but claiming that they represent nothing really new and thus pose no threat, and 4) accusing critics of neo-conservatism of bigotry.

That these claims cannot be reconciled is hardly surprising: the goal is to relieve the new pressure, not to sort out confusions. For years, they've labored in journals and journalism, and their sudden defensiveness is precisely what one would expect now that they have seized and exercised power with such awful results. Naturally, the critics go to great lengths to examine the ins and outs of the neocon philosophical orientation to discern what disaster we can expect next.

However, very little commentary on neo-conservatism deals with the crucial question to ask of any non-libertarian ideology: to what extent does it seek to use the welfare-warfare state to achieve its end? The answer with regard to neo-conservatism is clear in the actions of the Bush administration:

* it has increased overall government spending by more than any administration since LBJ;
* it has unleashed government spies like never before;
* it has unleashed a series of wars against foreign countries that posed no threat whatever to the US, laying waste to their economies and cultures.

Now, this is remarkable given that the essence of conservatism in America is skepticism about political power, though it is true that all conservatives (a word that only became common parlance in American politics after the Second World War) have been excessively friendly to the state.

Yet conservatism did mean a desire to jettison utopian schemes and to defer to the tacit wisdom associated with what is. Conservatism was an unstable ideology, and, in fact, not an ideology at all. It was a predilection to preserve rather than innovate in matters of public policy. Generally speaking, conservatism offered valuable critiques of the left, but had no positive program apart from its endorsement of Truman's Cold War. In order to assure support for the Cold War, conservatives came to terms with Leviathan and systematically resisted the libertarian implications of their domestic program in foreign and military affairs.

It is often forgotten that it was not only American conservatives who backed anti-communism. Another group of anti-communists of the period was variously called Scoop Jackson Democrats, Cold War Liberals, Democratic Socialists or Social Democrats, or simply the anti-Stalinist Left. They favored big government at home and abroad, and had a particular distaste for the Reds in Russia because they saw them as having discredited the great dream of socialist planning (and killed Trotsky). They were passionately for the Cold War but saw it as less an ideological struggle than a political one. They favored New Deal-style planning but rejected the excesses of Soviet-style totalism.

Of them, Mises wrote:

"What these people who call themselves 'anticommunist liberals'?are aiming at is communism without those inherent and necessary features of communism which are still unpalatable to Americans. They make an illusory distinction between communism and socialism?. They think that they have proved their case by employing such aliases for socialism as planning or the welfare state?. What these self-styled 'anticommunist liberals' are fighting against is not communism as such, but a communist system in which they themselves are not at the helm. What they are aiming at is a socialist?system in which they themselves or their most intimate friends hold the reigns of government. It would perhaps be too much to say that they are burning with a desire to liquidate other people. They simply do not wish to be liquidated. In a socialist commonwealth, only the supreme autocrat and his abettors have this assurance."

He continues:

"An 'anti-something' movement displays a purely negative attitude. It has no chance whatever to succeed. Its passionate diatribes virtually advertise the program that they attack. People must fight for something that they want to achieve, not simply reject an evil, however bad it may be. They must, without any reservations, endorse the program of the market economy."

After Vietnam, the Democratic Party became home to an ever-more influential group of Cold War skeptics, so many leftist Cold Warriors gravitated to the Republican Party, where they sought to cement the GOP's attachment to welfare and especially warfare. As Max Boot admits: "it is not really domestic policy that defines neo-conservatism. This was a movement founded on foreign policy, and it is still here that neo-conservatism carries the greatest meaning, even if its original raison d'être -- opposition to communism -- has disappeared."

Now, it would be wrong to say that the neoconservatives had not undergone any kind of intellectual change. They became less enamored of formal socialism and more at home with mixed-economy capitalism. They grew to hate much of the egalitarian-left cultural agenda of Democratic Party special-interest groups. Many of them wrote treatises decrying the excesses of their ex-brethren.

But the transformation was never complete, and the core of their ideology never changed: these people had then and have now a remarkable faith in the uses of state power, at home and abroad. Their intellectual formation in Straussianism convinced them of the centrality of the elite management of society by philosophers, and their background in Troskyite organizing kept a ruthless political strategy as the operating mode.

As David Gordon sums up Rothbard's early analysis: "As Strauss sees matters, classical and Christian natural law did not impose strict and absolute limits on state power; instead, all is left to the prudential judgment of the wise statesman." The younger generation absorbed this tendency as much as the old.

Thus with neoconservatism, we have the statist aspects of the old conservatism minus the libertarian aspects that led the old conservatives to favor decentralist political institutions and free enterprise. Add to that the natural tendency of anyone in power to use the tools they have at their disposal. What we end up with is a danger to liberty as fierce as any ever posed by the left.

But by the standard of loving leviathan, today's neo-conservatism is worse than every brand of conservatism that preceded it. It is worse than Reaganism, which included some libertarian impulses, and worse than National-Review-style conservatism from the 1960s and 1950s. One expects pro-state affections from socialists, but the puzzle of neo-conservatism is how it could exist within a group of self-professed non-socialists who even claim to despise what the collectivist left has done to the world.

Thus the great fallacy of neo-conservatism is the one that afflicts all non-libertarian ideologies: they believe that society can be managed by the state in both its political and economic life. They believe this to a lesser extent than some left socialists, but to a far greater extent than most thinkers on the right.

What they miss or do not want to face is precisely what the socialists never wanted to accept: that society is made up of acting, choosing human beings with their own values and ideas and plans, and it is they and not the state who do the hard work of creating civilization, a creation that is easy to destroy through statist means but impossible to rebuild through such means; that many social forces like culture and economics are beyond the final control of state power; and in the long run, it is people, and not philosopher kings whispering in the ears of gullible statesmen, who will determine the course of history.

May 20, 2003

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail] is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, and editor of LewRockwell.com

[tyme]

The situation in Iraq has nothing to do with neocon policies and everything to do with short-sighted idiots in charge who only considered the military aspect of the operation.

Well before our troops crossed the border, people were writing about the swamp we were rushing toward.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-02-12-mackey_x.htm

And be serious, both Afghanistan and Iraq did represent a real threat to the U.S. How imminant the threat was is questionable, but the threat is not.

[DonQatU]

Seminole, that's a VERY interesting article! The last paragraph sums up WHY the neo-cons are WRONG:

" What they miss or do not want to face is precisely what the socialists never wanted to accept: that society is made up of acting, choosing human beings with their own values and ideas and plans, and it is they and not the state who do the hard work of creating civilization, a creation that is easy to destroy through statist means but impossible to rebuild through such means; that many social forces like culture and economics are beyond the final control of state power; and in the long run, it is people, and not philosopher kings whispering in the ears of gullible statesmen, who will determine the course of history."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/neo-con-explained.html

Don

[DonQatU]

That more conservatives have decided to fight has the neocons in a panic.

Don

[DonQatU]

This article is MUCH too long to post here. But a VERY GOOD read, if you want to understand the neocons and their plans!

www.nybooks.com/articles/16378

Don