Posted on 05/06/2008 8:59:30 AM PDT by Dick Bachert
Do you know the difference between a conservative and a neoconservative, or neocon?
This is not just a question of semantics. It’s far more important than that. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that the future of our country depends on understanding the crucial differences between the two philosophies – and rejecting the latter.
All of this was brought home to me most forcefully when a longtime friend sent me a copy of the speech he delivered at the Constitution Party’s annual convention in Missouri last week. I’ll tell you more about John F. McManus and the organization he heads in a moment. But first, let me quote extensively from his very thought-provoking remarks. (For ease of reading, I’m going to skip beginning quotes or putting Jack’s remarks in italics. But they start now.)
I congratulate you good Americans for labeling your effort the “Constitution Party.” How sad it would have been had you named your endeavor the “Conservative Party.” The formerly praiseworthy term “conservative” has been stolen. The thieves are the neoconservatives. And it is one of my purposes here to discuss what being a neoconservative means – and who are the neoconservatives.
Let’s first define neoconservatism. For that, we turn to the man who has joyfully accepted the label, “godfather of neoconservatism,” Irving Kristol. In 1995, he wrote Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea. He claimed that the “small but talented group,” of which he was a part, drifted away from liberalism and proceeded toward “a more conservative point of view.” More conservative? Not really. He described the view he had the nerve to call conservative. He said it “accepted the New Deal in principle and had little affection for the kind of isolationism that then permeated American conservatism.”
Ladies and gentlemen, the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt – which Kristol approvingly identified himself with, and thereby identified all his followers with – is socialism, the very antithesis of the Americanism spelled out in the Constitution. And while we’re discussing godfathers, let me point out that socialism’s godfather was Karl Marx. In fact, communists and socialists argue over who is more pure when it comes to following the program attributed to Marx. Recall that it wasn’t the Union of Soviet Communist Republics that murdered millions, enslaved more millions, and destroyed the independence of dozens of countries for decades. It was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
In his definition of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol further stated that neoconservatives rejected “isolationism.” For the ill-informed American public, fastening that term on anyone is the equivalent of saddling him or her with the Black Plague. Whenever I get accused of isolationism, I respond, “I’m not an isolationist. I’m a non-interventionist with your son, your daughter, and your wallet.” That usually stops the name-calling. But when neocons attack “isolationism,” they are providing a good example of the way these people deceive with language. You are supposed to be a bad person, and even a bad American, if you disagree with their program that urges using America’s military might to police the world in undeclared wars.
Neocon Godfather Kristol is also on record advocating a “conservative welfare state.” How’s that for an oxymoron? I wonder if he likes dry water, or bright darkness. He included in his “conservative welfare state” Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, even a cash allowance for unwed mothers. There’s nothing conservative about any of that. Nor is there anything in the Constitution that would authorize it.
It is important to realize that the leading neoconservatives all came out of our nation’s Trotskyite movement. Hardcore leftists all, they claimed to have become disillusioned with the excesses of 1972’s Democratic Presidential candidate George McGovern. They actually labeled McGovern an isolationist – a real stretch if there ever was one. So these future neoconservatives gravitated to the Republican Party and brought their affinity for Trotskyite socialism and internationalism with them.
A neoconservative is someone who likes socialistic big government and meddling militarism. With that in mind, let me read to you the thoughts of a man who could correctly be described as a neoconservative before the term was even coined. Let us go back to 1952 and a magazine article authored by a man you’ve all heard of. I’ll tell you who wrote these words after reading them.
We have got to accept Big Government for the duration – for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged except through the instrumentality of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores. [We must] support large armies and air forces, atomic energy, central intelligence, war production boards, and the attendant centralization of power in Washington.
Did you catch all of that? He’s advocating a totalitarian bureaucracy, large standing armies, war production boards, and the centralization of power in Washington. Ladies and gentleman, that’s neoconservatism in spades.
Who wrote those words in 1952? None other than William F. Buckley, Jr. Was Bill Buckley a neoconservative? Irving Kristol believed he was. And so do I, even though he had me fooled for a while. Also fooled for a time was a man named Medford Evans. He would later state of Buckley, “If he had not done a considerable amount of good, he could never have done so much harm.”
Let me give you an example of the harm he did, and the help he supplied to neoconservatism. Back in 1991, Buckley’s National Review sponsored a three-day meeting for top Republican conservatives. Kristol reported with delight that the result of the gathering was that its attendees arrived as conservatives but left as Republican-first neoconservatives. The alliance between Buckley and a host of neoconservatives grew deeper and deeper.
Neoconservative Charles Krauthammer once urged the formation of a “new universalism [which] would require the conscious depreciation not only of American sovereignty but of the notion of sovereignty in general.” Get rid of national sovereignty? That’s what he said. He even insisted that his willingness to cancel sovereignty wasn’t “as outrageous as it sounds.” Yes, it was.
Another favorite term the neoconservatives use to deceive the unwary is globalism, or getting along in a globalist world. This is really the opposite of independence, and independence is inherently a part of our constitutional system.
To a man, neocons applauded the elder Bush’s call for a New World Order. He always said that new world order included deference to the United Nations. Neocons not only love the idea of “democracy,” they want to “export” it and will do so by force if allowed to.
Kristol would later credit neoconservatism for helping to “modernize” the Republican Party. He heaped praise on Ronald Reagan as the “first Republican President to pay tribute to Franklin D. Roosevelt.” Later Newt Gingrich would shower FDR with similar praise, and he received the thanks of the neoconservatives for doing so.
Over recent years, besides godfather Irving Kristol, prominent neoconservatives have included Norman Podhoretz and his wife Midge Decter, Ben Wattenberg, the late Robert Bartley of the Wall Street Journal, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams and Kristol’s son William. Today’s neocons include the leaders of the Bush administration, who slavishly follow neocon thinking both domestically and in their foreign-policy adventurism.
Let me sum up. Neoconservatism means socialistic big government and internationalism. It dislikes national independence and favors world government under the United Nations. It urges the use of the U.S. armed forces in UN peacekeeping missions, policing the world, and getting bogged down in undeclared wars. It champions NAFTA, CAFTA, the World Trade Organization and the new drive toward a North American Union. It likes socialism at home and internationalism abroad. And it has control of the George W. Bush administration lock, stock and barrel.
If you love America for its history of limited government and strict independence, you have to realize that neoconservatives are your enemy. And you have to realize that the current administration is replete with un-American neoconservatism.
Is there any hope that we can stop the drive toward socialism and world government? Of course there’s hope. The American people don’t want this and there are still tens of millions who can be reached and energized. Add to this the fact that the Constitution still stands. Requiring those who swear a solemn oath to it to obey that oath can be achieved in many areas of this country.
We can begin the taking back of our country through the House of Representatives, the body of government that holds the power of the purse. Article I, Section 7 states, “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House….” If 218 members of the House refuse to vote to fund foreign aid, the UN, undeclared wars, education, housing, and so much more, that’s it. There’s nothing the Senate, the President, the Supreme Court, or The New York Times can do about it. The House is where the effort of concerned Americans ought to be directed.
Can it be done? Of course! But keep in mind that success in politics follows successful educational work. Thomas Jefferson knew the value of creating an educated electorate. Hear what he had to say:
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of the abuses of constitutional power.
Jefferson was correct. We must inform “the people themselves” by education. And from good education will come good politics, good citizens, and good government.
Let’s take our country back!
John F. McManus is the president of one the staunchest (and thus one of the most maligned) educational/activist organizations in the country, the John Birch Society. He is also the publisher of their excellent fortnightly news magazine, The New American. You can get more information about the group’s objectives and activities by going to their website, www.jbs.org.
Thanks, Jack, for giving me permission to reprint part of your speech today.
Any strategy that requires changing the views of a majority of Americans towards real conservatism will fail. You grandkids are going to live in a very different world, a very different USA than you did.
A former great freeper once said it all:
“Conservatism isn’t dead. It’s pissed off right now -— and that might be a good thing. “
Again, when no actual facts are presented, there can be no errors.
The entire piece consists of McManus' opinions on what he believes to be the private motivations of people he dislikes.
The speed with which you responded would almost certainly indicate that you DID NOT READ THE SPEECH!
If I was unable to read that article in 8 minutes, I would be embarrassed of myself.
Clever boy, you imported it into Word and searched for “Birch,” didn’t you. And that’s ALL you had to see.
Is it a "fact" that I imported it into Word? Or is it just an unsupported supposition about someone else that you can't prove?
(1) His bio at the end of the article clearly states that he's a Bircher.
(2) If you really wanted to search the article, you could just search it in IE - you wouldn't need to import it into Word to search it.
Look, where we failed was to “nationalize” the whole world when we had the opportunity, strength, and the b@!!$ to do it, just like Patton wanted to.
There is no doubt that open market, free societies are the most productive, primarily the most peaceful and most happy societies, yet, with those freedoms come great responsibilities. We are attacked daily by envious people that have to cheat, steal, and murder to match our military and economic might (and the reasons we let them will probably be the end of the country).
I don't disagree with some of the instances the author speaks of, but I find extremely hard to not pursue the filth that is jihad to the ends of the earth to eradicate such a disgusting political project (which the same argument can be made that it is neoconservative for its exportation of “death”). Has the US overstepped some of its bounds at times, oh, no doubt about it. Has it done such for the name of “national security.” Absolutely. Empire of Democracy and Debt is our current state, but we missed the boat as it set sail 50 years ago. Should have made the whole globe the Sovereign USA, and things might be a lot less complicated. So do I believe in globalism, sure, from the stand point of “Every person is endowed with certain inalieanable rights, something the speach and author fail to point out and something our country fails to understand in terms of history and conquests and empires. Once you're the biggest fish in the pond, you end up with parasites and other infections that not only bleed you from the inside, but the outside. Pleanty of solutions that have to take into account that we're not the only fish in the pond and each and every person in the world is in deed, linked together in some geopolitical economic way. That's realism, not isolationism.”
Dick, your gift for originality is unbounded.
Now, we've nominated McCain as our standard bearer! McCain who supports open borders and ongoing war in Iraq. McCain wants to cut "fraud, waste and abuse" but doesn't have a plan for Social Security, and certainly not a Conservative plan, such as abolishment.
So, I'm not giving up but I'm lowering my expectations. I don't think America can be turned from Socialism. America is being continuously invaded by immigrants who are CLUELESS about what the USA was founded to be.
My belief is a few states are the most we can hope to reclaim, and that's where my thinking is right now. At some point, maybe that's not even possible.
For guns to have any political meaning they need to be weilded by large bodies of like-minded men. We are not a nation of such, and we are certainly not growing a generation of them. The only stern minded patriots I know are 40+, mostly vets.
Yeah, Eisenhower was a Russian spy!
So was Roosevelt, Lincoln, and that Jefferson guy!
Lighten up, skippy, I did not call anyone a name until just now.
It’s bogus.
...exceeded only by YOURS.
I will say it here and herby throw down the gauntlet to any potential flamers: the best Americans are critically-thinking Americans who carefully, objectively and deliberately assess ALL of the factors relevant to any issue.
I know nothing of John F. McManus. I will neither agree nor disagree with his personal ideals for that reason. But I have always firmly believed that the diligent and conscientious American is morally and ethically constrained to consider all shades of opinion and all sources of data in order to form the most informed conclusion.
That requires effort. The average American hates that word these days. See what we conservatives are up against?
Finally, Dick's preparation for the inevitable haranguing by people who vehemently disagree with his opinion underscores a very sad point: As a general rule, people who abandon reasoned debate and resort to slander and name-calling have usually failed to think critically about an issue and in the end practice the same tactics that the liberals do: name-calling and insults. Such a practice is unbecoming of a true conservative- whose vales speak for themselves.
Except NONE of the people accused of being neocons ‘follow’ it’s founders’ path. Each mentioned in the article and each mentioned in previous neocon rants is a hodgepodge of conservative (and some liberal) strains.
As if the birchers never bring up the jews and their connection to “neoconservatism”.
On the one hand I’m amused by the frail links this author uses to paint todays republicans as followers of the Irving Kristol, yet has no problem having both feet firmly planted under the tutelage of Robert Welch. ROFL
That’s REALLY the best you can offer???
Gunner, you — and one or two others — have partly restored my faith in those who frequent FR.
Thanks. This asbestos suit is HEAVY and hot.
Great stuff, Dick.
Here are the sad facts of life:
(1) The Great War Against Communism - which lasted from 1917-1991 - is over.
The John Birch Society did nothing of any value during that war, despite its professed purpose of fighting Communism.
(2) The current enemy trying to bring down the West is militant Islam.
The John Birch Society is doing nothing of any value to fight it, and is actually trying to undermine the war against militant Islam.
It seems the only purpose of the John Birch Society is to defame the character and distort the thinking of the people who want to win.
(3) The John Birch Society and the Constitution Party are nothing but ideological talkshops for tiny groups of people who never accomplish any corporate actions.
What's most amusing about the JBS is that they accuse others of Trotskyism when they are a perfect mirror image of the Trotskyites: a small cabal of whiners bypassed by historical events that spend most of their time arguing over who has the most absolutely pure form of their ideology.
I stumbled onto this thread thinking it might be of interest. Oh well. If this is what you truly believe, your whole group can hold your collective breaths and become smurfs waiting on my answer, because there is no intelligent answer when the question stems from a paranoid delusion.
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