I've been getting really, really confused over this "neo-con" term as of late. You are one of the very few FReepers to describe yourself as such. It seems as if most FReepers claim that there is no such thing as a neo-con.
How would you define the term, especially with regards to domestic policy? I read an article by (I believe) Irving Kristol last week which was a bit unsettling. He claimed that neo-cons accept the growth of government as inevitable.
Kudos for your service in the Corps.
"Neo-con" generally refers to those who believe that America should have a robust foreign and military policy, and are generally not greatly exercised about domestic issues. On FR, when used as a slam, it's usually intended to refer to those who don't favor letting the Arabs exterminate the Jews.
How would you define the term, especially with regards to domestic policy? I read an article by (I believe) Irving Kristol last week which was a bit unsettling. He claimed that neo-cons accept the growth of government as inevitable.
First: there is no canonical "neo-con" position on domestic policy.
Second: I think Kristol is a horse's a$$.
My own take on domestic policy: government is not a good or bad thing in and of itself. The questions revolve around (a) what are they attempting to do, (b) whether said thing SHOULD be done, and (c) whether government action is the best way to go about accomplishing things that should be done.
I think that taxes should be low, and so should domestic spending. I think we should be eliminating most government regulation of private enterprise, and what legimitate regulation there is should be accomplished via the lowest impact means available.
As an example: Factory A takes water from River B. The present regulatory environment mandates, in excruciating detail, exactly what systems Factory A will use to mitigate their impact on River B, how those systems will be operated, and how those operations will be documented.
My solution: the regulation would read "if you are taking water from a river for your production operations, then your inlet shall be downstream of your discharge."
At that point, Factory A has two choices:
Similar examples can be found for most regulatory problems.
Adherence to the "reasonably prudent man" standard in legal cases (which was defined in a COMSEVENTHFLT admiralty court my father sat on in the 1950s as "A reasonably prudent man checks for toilet paper BEFORE sitting down") would eliminate 90% of the regulatory requirements and stupid stuff (such as the steam hair curler marked "Do not use internally").
But that's me. Other "neo-cons" may have very different ideas.