WHAT DO NEOCONS BELIEVE?
The article by Joe Sobran that I link to above describes the neocons as essentially "pragmatists" who are, at best, "muddled centrists" with "conservative leanings," and as basically lacking any coherent ideology beyond support for the New Deal's statification of American capitalism and a general feeling that they'd "had enough of liberalism." Sobran is right about their statist inclinations, but he's wrong on the essential point. The neocons may be all over the map on domestic policy, exhibiting none of the gut-level distrust of government power that defines the traditional American Right, but on the vital question of foreign policy they have been the most consistently belligerent faction in American politics. THE TRIUMPH OF SIDNEY HOOK
Indeed, warmongering is the very essence of neoconservatism: the first neocons (James Burnham, and Max Shachtman, two dissident Trotskyists who turned right staring in 1940) split with the Left over the question of World War II: Burnham went on to set the tone at National Review, and Shachtman had an influence on the slower-moving ex-lefists who became Reaganites in the 1970s and 80s. During the Vietnam era, the leading lights of the neocon movement left the Democratic party when the antiwar McGovernites took over. During the cold war, as Sobran correctly notes, the neocons were the most militant faction, and they came into policy positions during the Reagan administration, boring their way into the National Endowment for Democracy, and under the aegis of such ex-Democrats as Jeanne Kirkpatrick. This marriage of Right and ex-Left was consummated, symbolically, when President Ronald Reagan awarded the Medal of Freedom to Sidney Hook, a lifelong socialist and fervent anti-Communist.
To such forerunners of neoconservatism as Professor Hook, the heroes of the Old Right -- Senator Robert A. Taft, Joe McCarthy, and even Barry Goldwater -- were disreputable (to liberals, that is) and therefore beyond the pale. They didn't want to dismantle the Welfare-Warfare State that had grown up in the wake of the New Deal: indeed, they didn't care much about domestic policy, as most of the neocons' attention was directed abroad, at the battlefields of the cold war in Europe and Asia. With the end of the cold war, however, the necons were temporarily in a funk. What to do?
OUR HIJACKED FOREIGN POLICY
NEOCONSERVATIVES TAKE DC -- BAGHDAD IS NEXT
By: Justin Raimondo
http://www.etherzone.com/2002/raim040102.shtml
At 04:12 PM 8/20/2013, plainolamerican wrote:
fund your own charities and fight your own wars for oil and israel.--
your'e either a peaceful person or on the other side.
Neoconservative foreign policy is a descendant of so-called Wilsonian idealism. Neoconservatives endorse democracy promotion by the U.S. and other democracies, based on the claim that they think that human rights belong to everyone. On domestic policy, they endorse a welfare state, like European and Canadian conservatives and unlike American conservatives.
Democracy promotion is allegedly derived from a belief that freedom is a universal human right and by opinion polls showing majority support for democracy in countries with authoritarian regimes. Democracy promotion is said to have another benefit, in that democracy and responsive government are expected to reduce the appeal ofIslamism. Neoconservatives have cited political scientists [ citation needed] who have argued that democratic regimes are less likely to start wars. Further, they argue that the lack of freedoms, lack of economic opportunities, and the lack of secular general education in authoritarian regimes promotes radicalism and extremism. Consequently, neoconservatives advocate democracy promotion to regions of the world where it currently does not prevail, notably the Arab nations, Iran, communist China and North Korea.
During July 2008 Joe Klein wrote in TIME magazine that today's neoconservatives are more interested in confronting enemies than in cultivating friends. He questioned the sincerity of neoconservative interest in exporting democracy and freedom, saying, "Neoconservatism in foreign policy is best described as unilateral bellicosity cloaked in the utopian rhetoric of freedom and democracy." [72]
During February 2009 Andrew Sullivan wrote he no longer took neoconservatism seriously because its basic tenet was defense of Israel: [73]
- The closer you examine it, the clearer it is that neoconservatism, in large part, is simply about enabling the most irredentist elements in Israel and sustaining a permanent war against anyone or any country who disagrees with the Israeli right. That's the conclusion I've been forced to these last few years. And to insist that America adopt exactly the same constant-war-as-survival that Israelis have been slowly forced into... But America is not Israel. And once that distinction is made, much of the neoconservative ideology collapses.
On Tuesday, August 20, 2013 10:53:29 AM UTC-5, KeithInTampa wrote:
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- You can't be a compassionate human if you turn a blind eye to the atrocities going on around the world.
- On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 9:16 AM, plainolamerican <[email protected]> wrote:
- I too am a big fan of Ron and Rand Paul.
- ---
- you can't be a Ron or Rand Paul fan and support US intervention in the middle east.
- On Sunday, August 18, 2013 1:15:59 PM UTC-5, KeithInTampa wrote:
- I too am a big fan of Ron and Rand Paul. Unlike Assange, I am an American citizen, and do not believe in treasonous actions against my homeland. Unlike Rand and Ron Paul, Assange is a treacherous bastard, and both Rand and Ron Paul, even though branding both Snowden and Assange the "Messenger" or a "civil disobediant" I would surmise also believes that in the case of Snowden, he's a traitor.
- On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Bruce Majors <[email protected]> wrote:
- ----------
- http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/08/julian-assange-backs-ron-and-rand-paul/
- Sent from my iPad
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