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An Introduction to Neoconservatism by Gary North

Destro, in my review of the thread I noticed that I'd missed this article you linked, sorry about that. Thanks for the link :)

Interestingly, these "neocon" people who appear in the "neocon" story as written by Gary North seem altogether different (apart from a few names in common - Irving Kristol etc) from the "neocons" who are recurring characters in TradicalRC's "neocon" stories.

Gary North's "neocon" Origins Story goes like this:

Initially, neoconservatives focused more on economic policy than foreign policy. The movement's first major publication, The Public Interest, began in 1965. It featured readable, footnoted essays by scholars who had grown skeptical of the Federal government's programs to eliminate poverty, crime, racial discrimination, and similar domestic evils. To some extent, Commentary, the publication of the American Jewish Committee, also began to feature articles critical of existing government policy. The same authors wrote for both publications. ...

The "neocons" in this story seem to be, let's say, educated honest good-government types who took a skeptical eye towards utopianist government programs, exposed them, etc. Of particular interest is the fact that these people (North's original "neocons") "focused more on economic policy than foreign policy".

Meanwhile, TradicalRC's "neocon" Origins tale goes like this:

the original neocons got conservative over foreign policy and nothing else

The Origins Story of TradicalRC's "neocons" also seems to significantly involve Jews - Jews taking a jaundiced eye towards communism based on Jews' historical mistreatment in Russia/USSR. But unlike North's "neocons", their focus in doing so was still on foreign policy, in fact at times, TradicalRC makes these "neocons" seem as if opposing the USSR was the only thing they had in common with conservatives:

That ol' conservative Reagan took a strong stand against the evil empire and these liberals were going to back him because of that. The empire collapsed and yet the same guys who supported him Largely on that issue, no longer had that issue, but still had the label neocon. With their one conservative plank gone, all thats left is their liberalism.

There's more (unlike North's "neocons" who were goo-goos writing papers about the failures of government policy i.e. Moynihan, TradicalRC's "neocons" have a "lack of concern over social issues"

Now if one thing is clear it's that North's original "neocons" and TradicalRC's original "neocons" are two different (if overlapping - they both somehow include Kristol) groups of people. The latter "became conservative over foreign policy and nothing else", while the former was not really concerned with foreign policy at all.

I don't know who's "right" and "wrong". Nor does it make much difference to me. (After all I don't believe in this tripe to begin with, so one person's comic book folk tale is as good as another's....) The important thing to note is simply that they use the word in such different ways that it would make more sense to coin two different words; for lack of better terminology we might speak of "North-neocons" and "TradicalRC-neocons", and (extending this pattern) "Buchanan-neocons", "Alterman-neocons", "Dr.Frank-neocons" and so forth.

Widespread adoption of this convention would make it more clear that no two peoples' definition of this word "neocons" is at all the same, and thus would aid communication (in the true sense of the word). On the other hand, it suffers from the drawback that if it were made clear to everyone that no two peoples' definition of "neocon" is the same and that what's really going on is that everyone's drawing up little lists o'neocons willy-nilly, then nobody would be interested in or fooled by people using the word in conspiratorial tones anymore. And that, in the end, seems to be the point of the exercise, at least as long as it's believed that there's political mileage to be gained by this conspiracy-talk.

So I guess I shouldn't hold my breath.