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To: Dr. Frank
My, you sure are long-winded.

Anyway, the objective definition you asked for is as follows. It refers first of all to a conservative - some who walks and talks like a conservative, and seems reasonably comfortable (politically speaking) in the company of other conservatives, and who doesn't make a habit of continually advocating socialist policies, and even has at least the occasional tendency to speak out against such policies.

And secondly, it refers to someone who generally advocates a policy of intervention in the affairs of other countries. There may, even by his own stated understanding, be little if any suggestion that the countries in question are in any serious position to attack us imminently. Nonetheless, they advocate it for any number of reasons, either because they consider it the right thing to do in and of itself (occasional code phrase: "brother's keeper"), or because they feel it's a good insurance policy for long-term security (occasional code phrase: "great and general interests of peace"), or perhaps for some other reason.

This is in contrast to paleoconservative philosophy, which holds that military force should only be used to repel an actual attack, or one that's clearly imminent, or at minimum, a very clear and palpable threat to national security. An example of the last would be a country that has access to weapons of mass destruction, and has shown a clear inclination to either use them on us, or to blackmail us in some way.

294 posted on 05/07/2003 6:58:12 PM PDT by inquest
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To: inquest
And secondly, it refers to someone who generally advocates a policy of intervention in the affairs of other countries. There may, even by his own stated understanding, be little if any suggestion that the countries in question are in any serious position to attack us imminently.

This may depend on what exactly "imminently" means, but it seems to me that by this definition, many if not most (conservative) advocates of war against Iraq are "neocons". Including myself.

Thanks for the clarification.

295 posted on 05/07/2003 10:30:08 PM PDT by Dr. Frank fan
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