This has confused me for some time and this article helped a little.Can someone list 5 or 6 well known neocons. Perhaps some examples will help.
Posted on 05/03/2003 8:44:59 AM PDT by quidnunc
Politics is all about polarities. Republican vs. Democrat, conservative vs. liberal, right vs. left, hard thinking vs. soft thinking. The labels are pervasive, but the ground frequently shifts, requiring a new prefix to freshen up the label.
The word neocon, for example (short for neoconservative), was born of such a shifting of the ground. Coined in the 1970s, the label stuck to Democrats who had watched the Scoop Jackson anti-Communist wing of the Democratic party evaporate before their very eyes. They saw the War on Poverty become a losing battle. On the domestic front, they observed the death of morality as it had been defined for thousands of years in the Judeo-Christian tradition. These Democrats finally concluded that liberalism, as they had known it, was dead.
Irving Kristol, father of the neocons, defined his band of brothers and sisters as "liberals mugged by reality." That reality was the "evil empire" as defined by Ronald Reagan, the leader they championed. The reality extended to a concern for crime and education and what came to be called "family values." A subdivision of the neocons, the "cultural conservatives," were wryly defined as liberals with daughters in junior high.
Jews were prominently identified with the neocons, largely because Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine, made the magazine a sounding board for neocon criticism. But Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a Baptist, and William Bennett, a Roman Catholic, were prominent neocon voices from the beginning. So were other Christians. "What are we," they might ask, "chopped liver?"
The Jewish neocons understood what the majority of Jews who vote Democratic didn't — that Jews and Evangelical Christians held many things in common, among them an admiration and affection for Israel.
Such definitions and ideological attitudes are amply documented in the political history of the second half of the 20th century, but the neocon label resurfaces today as many journalists and pundits identify the neocons as a new generation driving the foreign policy of George W. Bush.
It's a label that doesn't quite fit, since those credited with influence are hardly "neo" anything. For the most part, the label is attributed to second-generation conservatives. Some are sons of the Scoop Jackson Democrats whose fathers have the last name of Podhoretz and Kristol, but the label as accurately understood has a much more inclusive intellectual base, including, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney; his wife, Lynne; Condoleezza Rice; Don Rumsfeld; and Paul Wolfowitz, the hugely influential deputy defense secretary.
The term, however, is disingenuously bandied about at dinner tables and policy meetings in London and Paris and elsewhere, where it is colorfully coded to suggest a Jewish conspiracy working on the White House.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at tallahassee.com ...
To the contrary, paleos are more akin to crypto-fascists than they are to mainstream conservatives or neo-conservatives.
And you're using someone who doesn't even call himself a conservative as "evidence" in support of that ridiculous conclusion?
By the way, it wasn't paleos who teamed up with Democrats to enact the proto-fascistic HMO Act in 1973, as well as various other forms of corporate welfare down through the years.
This has confused me for some time and this article helped a little.Can someone list 5 or 6 well known neocons. Perhaps some examples will help.
I agree, so do they. So why are you calling them paleo-cons? They -- most of them -- call themselves libertarians. That was the point I raised, this "paleo-con" terminology is confusing. We have two distinctly different definitions of paleo-cons, one a member in good standing of the conservative family, the other painted as evil. We'll never get anywhere with this discussion unless everyone agrees to the same system of labels.
Some who are often referred to as neo-conservatives are William Kristol, David Frum, Norman Podhoretz, Bill Bennett, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Jeanne Kirkpatrick.
Personally I think the differences between mainstream conservatives and 'neo-cons' are overr-hyped.
Although the term was originally applied to a group of liberals who began to adopt some conservative notions, it's come to be understood as applying to the school of thought generated by these individuals, and those who continue to follow it (regardless of whether they started out liberal).
The school of thought (warning: about to receive a description by someone critical of their thought) is, by all indications, characterized by the same evangelical zeal that drives liberals to believe that government is the savior - except neocons apply it globally. They believe countries throughout the world must be made to reform their ways, at gunpoint if necessary. Unfortunately, this results (as I see it anyway) in a less-than-complete willingness to reform our own country in its slide towards socialism. That kinda seems to get put on the back burner.
Well, we have to call them something.
Seriously, they started calling themselves paleo-conservatives and that seems as good a title as anything because when one refers to paleo-conservatives or paleo-cons there's not much doubt as to who is being discussed.
Who?? That's my problem. Name some who do. The ones Frum named do not.
Ummmmm, the reason they're despised is not because of their heritage. God bless them if they're Jewish. They're God's Chosen People. The reason many neocons are not conservative is the fact that instead of calling for a smaller government as conservatives used to do, they call for a government to push their agenda, and while some aspects are conservative in nature it is not a true conservative position to want the national government involved in every aspect of a person's daily life
Or did I misread the latest agenda for nationailized healthcare, 15 billion for AIDS in Africa, more Patriot Act nonsense, and 2 billion for hydrogen cars all from a Republican administration. Spending the taxpayers' money on unconstituional actions and boondoggle research doesn't sound very conservative to me
True. Interestingly, as far as I know not all of these people actually ARE "neo-conservatives" (=new conservatives who used to be socialist..)
Unless I'm wrong, which I don't think I am.
How about them? Not a "neo-conservative" among them, unless perhaps Jacoby and/or Krauthammer were socialists in their youth (I'm fairly sure the others weren't)
Although the term was originally applied to a group of liberals who began to adopt some conservative notions, it's come to be understood as applying to the school of thought generated by these individuals, and those who continue to follow it (regardless of whether they started out liberal).
It sure has, it has "come to be understood" as something which it doesn't actually mean, that's for sure.
That's what this article is about.
Seriously, what sense does it make to take the term "neo-conservative" and slap it onto George Will? when wasn't he a conservative?
Words mean things. If you think you have identified a school of thought here, try finding a term which actually describes that school of thought. To take the term "neo-conservative" and paste it over this school of thought is ridiculous,
words mean things! Ann Coulter is not a "neo" conservative!
The school of thought (warning: about to receive a description by someone critical of their thought) is, by all indications, characterized by the same evangelical zeal that drives liberals to believe that government is the savior - except neocons apply it globally. They believe countries throughout the world must be made to reform their ways, at gunpoint if necessary. Unfortunately, this results (as I see it anyway) in a less-than-complete willingness to reform our own country in its slide towards socialism.
This sounds like it might actually be an interesting school of thought to pay attention to and understand, if it actually exists as a coherent political force. However, just what the heck you think it has to do with the term "neo-conservative" a la Irving Kristol is beyond me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.