[Torie]

I just go to these ideological test websites, and click on my responses, and Neocon pops up as numero uno for me everytime. Internationalist, interventionist up to a point, pro Israel (now at least), free trade, and moderate on domestic issues, and totally anti populist, but by no means naive liberals, not necessarily religious personally but believing that religion is good for the polity, and concerned about those parts of government that are dysfunctional, and well you have a neocon. Why is that so hard to understand?

[x]

I'll have to take one of those tests again. I guess it depends on what alternatives the test designers create. Not being populist is probably an important factor in ending up in the neo-con camp.

In the 70s and 80s I would probably have been more favorable to neo-conservatism because of its strong anti-communist bent, and more down on stick-in-the-mud Bob Dole-type Republicans or moderate Republicans. Since the end of the Cold War, I don't see much reason for prefering the neo-con camp. The differences seem to be more those of style than of real positions on the issues.

Maybe it also matters whether one regards neo-conservatism (or paleo-conservatism) as something bigger than the people who represent it to the public. I don't think the New Deal will be undone in our lifetime or that if it were it would be a wholly good thing, but I can't help associating "neo-conservatism" narrowly with Kristol and Bennett and their associates and not wanting to share a label with them.