[MegaSilver]

This article was really good up until the last paragraph. That completely lost me.

Of course, his assumption (that America is supposed to be a democracy) is flawed in the first place.

[GeronL]

conservatism is anti-democratic????

And socialism is not??

[goldstategop]

Its a good summation of what has become mainstream conservatism in America. I used to be a "neo" but I dropped the label. I don't view government as a problem as long as it does a few things well. Welfare has harmful side effects but Social Security is certainly legitimate... if society wants to take care of the aged, its thanking people who have worked all their lives on its behalf and who have good values. From the perspective of this conservative, the greatest threat facing America today are radical Islamists who want to destroy the American Way Of Life and our Republic.

[Robert DeLong]

Bump for a later reread.

[Mamzelle]

I invite anyone who is thinking or rethinking neo-conservatism to invest two or three hours of googling and reading--It can be quite an eye-opener. You don't know, yet, of the involvement of neo drum-beaters in the Balkans, how they pushed the US to basically turn over a nation to radical Albanian Islamists. Easy to blame Clinton, but would he really have taken part in the Balkan conflict if he hadn't been pushed? I can't picture Clinton going eagerly to any fight.

Neos never saw a war they didn't like--even if it was completely outside of the interests of the US.

Try variations on keywords... "neoconservative kosovo bombing" "Neoconservative Biden McCain Clinton" "serbia churches burning" "Kristol hegemony balkans"

It'll give you quite a chill up your spine. As for me, never call me a neo. I'm looking for a post-neo world.

[gitmo]

I really struggle with these articles, describing the differences in paleoconservatives, neoconservatives and libertarians. They seem to always beat around the bush and never come out and state what those differences are. Every time I think I've figured out what they are talking about, I read something that seems to contradict it.

Don't conservatives and libertarians alike go back to the Constitutional guarantees of individual liberties? Don't both groups believe that the Constitution has enumerated (and therefore limited) powers for the government? Don't both groups believe that the Constitution lists some of the rights and liberties of individuals, and that individuals are not limited to those specified rights? That those rights can not be infringed upon by the federal, state or local governments?

And we both believe that the judiciary in limited to interpreting laws as written?

[Snuffington]

Not a bad article. It at least assessed the definitions traditionalism and libertarianism fairly, if (as the author admits) somewhat briefly. I share his feeling than a great deal of the paleo-con movement is not identical to traditionalism, but has tended toward being reactionary.

The problem I have with the piece is that it tends toward neo-conservative boosterism, and here is where the analysis hits some snags. However, in explaining it, I think it illustrates some of the weaknesses in neo-Conservatism itself. Some examples:

1. "Most modern democracies have lived with more extensive welfare states and highly socialized economies than the United States, without somehow reaching a “tipping point” whereupon they tumble into totalitarianism. There is in fact no road to serfdom through the welfare state."

A very shallow view of history. The welfare state has hardly withstood the challenges Hayek presented. The fact that we're not all hailing a fuhrer yet oversimplifies and misses Hayek's point. This impatience with socio-political issues reaching beyond a few election cycles is characteristic of neo-Conservatism.

2. "[Neo-Conservatives] also recognize the fundamental justice of democratic equality. Neoconservatives seek to secure a genuine human freedom and dignity in the age in which we live now, the democratic age, rather than in some futurist utopia."

While it is true that neo-Conservatives avoid some utopian visions, they deeply buy into the notion that Democracy is the very highest form of government possible. They hold Democracy in such quasi-religious regard that they virtually ignore the historical weknesses inherent in it (weaknesses that lead our founders to reject it in favor of limited sufferage and Republican contraint). For neo-cons, Democracy is not a well-reasoned conclusion based on careful consideration of alternatives and historical lessons. It is an article of faith.

3. "Now, neoconservatives are hardly a moralistic lot. On some of these contentious cultural issues, they are as likely to be on the “pro” as on the “anti” side. Moreover, their analysis tends toward the urbane - perhaps too urbane given what is morally at stake."

Neo-conservatives are, in practice if not in theory, secularists who act as if matters of private morality should have no bearing on public policy. A pro-abortion, lesbian, wiccan priestess should, in the perfect neo-con world, feel perfectly comfortable under the policies of a neo-con government. This is not because all neo-cons agree with this "lifestyle." Far from it. It' because in the neo-con world, none of these issues ought to get in the way of more important policy issues. Their importance is somewhat less than whether the top marginal tax-rate is 37 or 36 percent. As such, they have no helpful place in political debate. (As an aside, to me this is the reason neo-conservatives are so unwilling to aggressively take up the anti side in the gay-marriage debate - despite the fact that most of them believe gay marriage is wrong, and despite the fact that "anti" is by far the more popular position.).

[Sofa King]

This says it all

[hosepipe]

Neoconservative = ex-liberals shocked, bitch-slapped, or cajoled into reading some good conservative commentary exposeing utopian leftist liberal dogma supported by a huge amount of factual failure data on leftist ideology. And honest enough to CARE.

[ChadGore]

Enough of all this blah, blah, yatta, wubba, wubba, blah . .

It's called THE Conservative Movement.

[shield]

bmp

[Leonine]

"There is in fact no road to serfdom through the welfare state."

Ever read the magazine, "This England?"

[MegaSilver]

The very term paleoconservative is misleading. Unlike the traditionalists, the paleocons contend that we have become irrevocably cut off from a living, sustainable tradition. In their view, the acids of modernity have left us entirely disinherited from old customs and ways, and conservatism’s project of conservation is but a glittering illusion. They have thus gone in search of new gods. Thomas Fleming, editor of the paleoconservative journal Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, has looked to sociobiology, evolutionary theory, and anthropology - hardly traditional conservative guides - for a new beginning.

There's one more flaw in this article. Paleoconservatives' use of science, history, and anthropology in shaping their philosophy in no way cuts them off from the traditional conservative guides. On the contrary, Paleoconservatives are very vocal about the need to save or rejuvinate Christianity, which actually explains their use of science, history, and anthropology. They're attempting to reach back and connect the old order to the new.

That's what a reactionary is, after all; a person who seeks to reform society along the lines of a previous era. Paleoconservatives see us as "post-Christian," but it would be wrong to suggest that they are ready to move on.