Neo-conservative

[5stringJeff]

Can someone please explain to me what exactly a neo-conservative (AKA neocon) is? I keep hearing the word thrown around on other forums, but I have yet to figure out what is meant by it. I know that it is meant as an insult when a liberal calls you one, though.

Thanks.

 

[eric]

Jeff, it is short for neo-conservative, here is the definition:

Supporter of return to conservative values: somebody who, during the mid-1980s, began to support conservatism in society, and in politics in particular, as a reaction to the social freedoms sought throughout the 1960s and early 1970s.

 

[MtnBiker]

Interesting Eric, I would like to hear a liberal's definition.

 

[eric]

Yes, Mtn I would too. That definition is from the dictionary, I think it is safe to say the liberal definition is slightly more sinister.

 

[SLClemens]

I think the liberal definition is generally a conservative who believes in bigger, more powerful government and expansionist aims overseas, using military means to achieve economic goals. This is not entirely new to conservatives, but runs counter to previous trends in this country's conservative right that wished for smaller government and protectionist military policies.

 

[eric]

believes in bigger, more powerful government and expansionist aims overseas

Taboo, taboo, taboo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[killintimer]

Think of neo-conservatism as any other "neo" concept, i.e. a newer version of an old wrinkle. A neo-Fascist is someone who tries to up-date and put a new twist on an old idea (I know I will get flamed because of this example. I do not intend to equate the two, it's just that this is the most common current usage of "neo" that I can think of for an example. My apologies to the legitimate neo-cons who are offended).

In the case of conservatism, traditionally the difference between "liberal" and "conservative" positions more often than not involved economic issues. The only real non-monatary issue was states rights.

Those issues seem to have gone by the wayside. The conservatives lost the states rights issues (though still keep up a valiant battle as the opportunity presents itself) and there is, simply put, enough money to go around in society so the liberals and conservatives don't have to squabble over the distribution of wealth because there seems enough for both.

So we have a whole new bag of issues that are wholly value oriented as opposed to monatary in nature. These are issues that have never been in the public arena before, issues like abortion, gay rights, seperation of chuch and state and the like. These are the current issues between today's liberals and conservatives. The latter group has come to be known as neo-conservatives to differentiate these value-based issues from the older economic issues.

Todays liberals concerned with these issues could easily be called "neo-libs" but that term just hasn't come into common usage.

Clear as mud???

 

[jimnyc]

Welcome to the board, Killintimer

 

[mwbuccs]

Originally posted by eric
Yes, Mtn I would too. That definition is from the dictionary, I think it is safe to say the liberal definition is slightly more sinister.

lol! you got that right!


liberals believe anything they are told.
hahaha!

 

[nbdysfu]

Eric's definition may be wrong as it is pulled out of a dictionary, and refers to the 80s, rather than the context of contemporary US politics. Instead, the current definition proposes that neocon is movement to the center by the left and right. In fact traditional conservative values are being abandoned in favor of conservation of the society afforded by the entire evolution of the US in the 20th c:

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/000tzmlw.asp


The Neoconservative Persuasion
From the August 25, 2003 issue: What it was, and what it is.
by Irving Kristol
08/25/2003, Volume 008, Issue 47


"[President Bush is] an engaging person, but I think for some reason he's been captured by the neoconservatives around him."

--Howard Dean, U.S. News & World Report, August 11, 2003



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WHAT EXACTLY IS NEOCONSERVATISM? Journalists, and now even presidential candidates, speak with an enviable confidence on who or what is "neoconservative," and seem to assume the meaning is fully revealed in the name. Those of us who are designated as "neocons" are amused, flattered, or dismissive, depending on the context. It is reasonable to wonder: Is there any "there" there?

Even I, frequently referred to as the "godfather" of all those neocons, have had my moments of wonderment. A few years ago I said (and, alas, wrote) that neoconservatism had had its own distinctive qualities in its early years, but by now had been absorbed into the mainstream of American conservatism. I was wrong, and the reason I was wrong is that, ever since its origin among disillusioned liberal intellectuals in the 1970s, what we call neoconservatism has been one of those intellectual undercurrents that surface only intermittently. It is not a "movement," as the conspiratorial critics would have it. Neoconservatism is what the late historian of Jacksonian America, Marvin Meyers, called a "persuasion," one that manifests itself over time, but erratically, and one whose meaning we clearly glimpse only in retrospect.

Viewed in this way, one can say that the historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism would seem to be this: to convert the Republican party, and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy. That this new conservative politics is distinctly American is beyond doubt. There is nothing like neoconservatism in Europe, and most European conservatives are highly skeptical of its legitimacy. The fact that conservatism in the United States is so much healthier than in Europe, so much more politically effective, surely has something to do with the existence of neoconservatism. But Europeans, who think it absurd to look to the United States for lessons in political innovation, resolutely refuse to consider this possibility.

Neoconservatism is the first variant of American conservatism in the past century that is in the "American grain." It is hopeful, not lugubrious; forward-looking, not nostalgic; and its general tone is cheerful, not grim or dyspeptic. Its 20th-century heroes tend to be TR, FDR, and Ronald Reagan. Such Republican and conservative worthies as Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, and Barry Goldwater are politely overlooked. Of course, those worthies are in no way overlooked by a large, probably the largest, segment of the Republican party, with the result that most Republican politicians know nothing and could not care less about neoconservatism. Nevertheless, they cannot be blind to the fact that neoconservative policies, reaching out beyond the traditional political and financial base, have helped make the very idea of political conservatism more acceptable to a majority of American voters. Nor has it passed official notice that it is the neoconservative public policies, not the traditional Republican ones, that result in popular Republican presidencies.

One of these policies, most visible and controversial, is cutting tax rates in order to stimulate steady economic growth. This policy was not invented by neocons, and it was not the particularities of tax cuts that interested them, but rather the steady focus on economic growth. Neocons are familiar with intellectual history and aware that it is only in the last two centuries that democracy has become a respectable option among political thinkers. In earlier times, democracy meant an inherently turbulent political regime, with the "have-nots" and the "haves" engaged in a perpetual and utterly destructive class struggle. It was only the prospect of economic growth in which everyone prospered, if not equally or simultaneously, that gave modern democracies their legitimacy and durability.

The cost of this emphasis on economic growth has been an attitude toward public finance that is far less risk averse than is the case among more traditional conservatives. Neocons would prefer not to have large budget deficits, but it is in the nature of democracy--because it seems to be in the nature of human nature--that political demagogy will frequently result in economic recklessness, so that one sometimes must shoulder budgetary deficits as the cost (temporary, one hopes) of pursuing economic growth. It is a basic assumption of neoconservatism that, as a consequence of the spread of affluence among all classes, a property-owning and tax-paying population will, in time, become less vulnerable to egalitarian illusions and demagogic appeals and more sensible about the fundamentals of economic reckoning.

This leads to the issue of the role of the state. Neocons do not like the concentration of services in the welfare state and are happy to study alternative ways of delivering these services. But they are impatient with the Hayekian notion that we are on "the road to serfdom." Neocons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable. Because they tend to be more interested in history than economics or sociology, they know that the 19th-century idea, so neatly propounded by Herbert Spencer in his "The Man Versus the State," was a historical eccentricity. People have always preferred strong government to weak government, although they certainly have no liking for anything that smacks of overly intrusive government. Neocons feel at home in today's America to a degree that more traditional conservatives do not. Though they find much to be critical about, they tend to seek intellectual guidance in the democratic wisdom of Tocqueville, rather than in the Tory nostalgia of, say, Russell Kirk.

But it is only to a degree that neocons are comfortable in modern America. The steady decline in our democratic culture, sinking to new levels of vulgarity, does unite neocons with traditional conservatives--though not with those libertarian conservatives who are conservative in economics but unmindful of the culture. The upshot is a quite unexpected alliance between neocons, who include a fair proportion of secular intellectuals, and religious traditionalists. They are united on issues concerning the quality of education, the relations of church and state, the regulation of pornography, and the like, all of which they regard as proper candidates for the government's attention. And since the Republican party now has a substantial base among the religious, this gives neocons a certain influence and even power. Because religious conservatism is so feeble in Europe, the neoconservative potential there is correspondingly weak.


AND THEN, of course, there is foreign policy, the area of American politics where neoconservatism has recently been the focus of media attention. This is surprising since there is no set of neoconservative beliefs concerning foreign policy, only a set of attitudes derived from historical experience. (The favorite neoconservative text on foreign affairs, thanks to professors Leo Strauss of Chicago and Donald Kagan of Yale, is Thucydides on the Peloponnesian War.) These attitudes can be summarized in the following "theses" (as a Marxist would say): First, patriotism is a natural and healthy sentiment and should be encouraged by both private and public institutions. Precisely because we are a nation of immigrants, this is a powerful American sentiment. Second, world government is a terrible idea since it can lead to world tyranny. International institutions that point to an ultimate world government should be regarded with the deepest suspicion. Third, statesmen should, above all, have the ability to distinguish friends from enemies. This is not as easy as it sounds, as the history of the Cold War revealed. The number of intelligent men who could not count the Soviet Union as an enemy, even though this was its own self-definition, was absolutely astonishing.

Finally, for a great power, the "national interest" is not a geographical term, except for fairly prosaic matters like trade and environmental regulation. A smaller nation might appropriately feel that its national interest begins and ends at its borders, so that its foreign policy is almost always in a defensive mode. A larger nation has more extensive interests. And large nations, whose identity is ideological, like the Soviet Union of yesteryear and the United States of today, inevitably have ideological interests in addition to more material concerns. Barring extraordinary events, the United States will always feel obliged to defend, if possible, a democratic nation under attack from nondemocratic forces, external or internal. That is why it was in our national interest to come to the defense of France and Britain in World War II. That is why we feel it necessary to defend Israel today, when its survival is threatened. No complicated geopolitical calculations of national interest are necessary.

Behind all this is a fact: the incredible military superiority of the United States vis-à-vis the nations of the rest of the world, in any imaginable combination. This superiority was planned by no one, and even today there are many Americans who are in denial. To a large extent, it all happened as a result of our bad luck. During the 50 years after World War II, while Europe was at peace and the Soviet Union largely relied on surrogates to do its fighting, the United States was involved in a whole series of wars: the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo conflict, the Afghan War, and the Iraq War. The result was that our military spending expanded more or less in line with our economic growth, while Europe's democracies cut back their military spending in favor of social welfare programs. The Soviet Union spent profusely but wastefully, so that its military collapsed along with its economy.

Suddenly, after two decades during which "imperial decline" and "imperial overstretch" were the academic and journalistic watchwords, the United States emerged as uniquely powerful. The "magic" of compound interest over half a century had its effect on our military budget, as did the cumulative scientific and technological research of our armed forces. With power come responsibilities, whether sought or not, whether welcome or not. And it is a fact that if you have the kind of power we now have, either you will find opportunities to use it, or the world will discover them for you.

The older, traditional elements in the Republican party have difficulty coming to terms with this new reality in foreign affairs, just as they cannot reconcile economic conservatism with social and cultural conservatism. But by one of those accidents historians ponder, our current president and his administration turn out to be quite at home in this new political environment, although it is clear they did not anticipate this role any more than their party as a whole did. As a result, neoconservatism began enjoying a second life, at a time when its obituaries were still being published.


Irving Kristol is author of "Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea."

 

[nbdysfu]

Here's another view of neocon:

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Neo-conservative

 

[Annie]

nbdysfu


So what am I?

I teach middle school social studies in parochial school, income less than 26k.

I have 2 children in college, state schools.

I have 1 child in public high school.

I have 1 parent living with me for health reasons.

I own my home, estimated value greater than $130k, less than $170k.

I am on the dark side of 40.

I'm in grad school.

I am for gays being able to have civil rights/unions, yet think they should shut up regarding teaching, policing, and military. Actually, anything, since I don't think one's sex life should be discussed.

I'm against abortion, unless for the life of the mother, which I believe 100% of the time can be determined before 6th month.

I believe all children should be educated to the best of their ability, and the schools should be held accountable for failing to report family problems that interfere.

 

[Moi]

Perhaps it's just because in common practice too many people have used the terms democrats and republicans as the synonyms for conservative or liberal but clearly there's a lot of confusion out there regarding labels. I guess that's one reason to avoid them.

I am a conservative, sometimes accused of being republican, but the only republic I serve is the one in which I live- the US. I am conservative because I do not believe that the government has the obligation or jurisdiction over society. I don't think the government nor its people should be forced to support the things we are forced to support today BUT I also don't think the government has the right to regulate most of the things it regulates today either. The definition of republic, as expressed by the Federalist Papers is quite clear and distinct from democracy and, thus, democrats.

 

[dijetlo]

Originally posted by Moi
The definition of republic, as expressed by the Federalist Papers is quite clear and distinct from democracy and, thus, democrats.

The Federalist Papers!!!!, Moi, I hate to be the one who has to tell you this but, your a Whig! .

 

[Moi]

Originally posted by dijetlo
The Federalist Papers!!!!, Moi, I hate to be the one who has to tell you this but, your a Whig! .

Well, that ain't the worst thing that I've been called.

 

[dijetlo]

Originally posted by Moi
Well, that ain't the worst thing that I've been called.

 

[jones]

Heres a short definition..

U.S.neo-conservatives, with their commitment to high military spending and the global assertion of national values, tend to be more authoritarian than hard right. By contrast, neo-liberals, opposed to such moral leadership and, more especially, the ensuing demands on the tax payer, belong to a further right but less authoritarian region. Paradoxically, the "free market", in neo-con parlance, also allows for the large-scale subsidy of the military-industrial complex, a considerable degree of corporate welfare, and protectionism when deemed in the national interest. These are viewed by neo-libs as impediments to the unfettered market forces that they champion.

and some more on extreme right

"Once you accept that left and right are merely measures of economic position, the "extreme right" refers to extremely liberal economics that may be practised by social authoritarians or social libertarians.
Similarly, the "extreme left" identifies a strong degree of state economic control, which may also be accompanied by liberal or authoritarian social policies.
It's muddled thinking to simply describe the likes of the British National Party as "extreme right". The truth is that on issues like health, transport, housing, protectionism and globalisation, their economics are left of Labour, let alone the Conservatives. It's in areas like police power, military power, school discipline, law and order, race and nationalism that the BNP's real extremism - as authoritarians - is clear.
This mirrors France's National Front. In running some local governments, they reinstated certain welfare measures which their Socialist predecessors had abandoned. Like similar authoritarian parties that have sprung up around Europe, they have come to be seen in some quarters as champions of the underdog, as long as the underdog isn't Black, Arab, gay or Jewish ! With mainstream Social Democratic parties adopting - reluctantly or enthusiastically - the new economic libertarian orthodoxy (neo-liberalism), much of their old economic baggage has been pinched by National Socialism. It's becoming the only sort of socialism on offer. Election debates between mainstream parties are increasingly about managerial competence rather than any clash of vision and economic direction.
In the United States, the voices of dissent over unfettered market forces (ie extreme right economics) are heard from social authoritarians like Pat Buchanan as well as social liberals like Ralph Nader.
As an example, take a look at the ground that the main parties in England's 2003 local elections (May 1) occupied in reality. The difference between the BNP and the Greens in economics isn't great, but there's a huge gap on the social scale. Neither scale, however, reveals enormous distances between the Conservatives and New Labour"

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

 

[HackinJack]

Originally posted by dijetlo
The Federalist Papers!!!!, Moi, I hate to be the one who has to tell you this but, your a Whig! .

Well, that ain't the worst thing that I've been called.

whut a whig?

 

[boilermaker55]

5stringJeff:
Here is an example of today's neo-con. It is almost as if they enjoy insulting anyone that does not believe in their philosophy of government. Nothing of great substance but the insulting becomes their voice.

Originally posted by eric
Yes, Mtn I would too. That definition is from the dictionary, I think it is safe to say the liberal definition is slightly more sinister.

lol! you got that right!


liberals believe anything they are told.
hahaha!

 

[JWBooth]

Can someone please explain to me what exactly a neo-conservative (AKA neocon) is? I keep hearing the word thrown around on other forums, but I have yet to figure out what is meant by it. I know that it is meant as an insult when a liberal calls you one, though.

Thanks.

Google is your friend.