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The only thing off the top of my head that unites the aforementioned groups is utopianism.

Maybe, but to tie up all loose ends here you'd have to (1) define "neo-cons" (as you acknowledge), (2) identify one or more people you think are "neo-cons", (3) explain how their views are utopianist, and probably (4) demonstrate that their views being utopianist is connected with them being "neo-cons" and not just some coincidence.

Hard to do all that when no one can agree on the definition of "neo-con" in the first place. At the very least, you seem to have kick-started this process somewhere in the middle.

If the definition of "neo-con" is the standard one (former leftist turned conservative) then it's hard to see how, precisely, "neo-con" is supposed to be connected with utopianism. If we all agree that conservatives abhor utopianism, and that "neo-cons" are conservatives, then they pretty much can't (now) be utopianists. (If they were we wouldn't call them "neo-cons", but something else.) They could have been utopians in the past of course (since they are former leftists), just not now.

So the assertion "what they have in common is utopianism" doesn't quite add up, unless/until someone actually comes along and demonstrates this.

On the other hand, if the exercise being undertaken here is more like the following: (1) some conservatives are identifying some fellow conservatives they disagree with, and whose ideas they think "utopian" or find convenient to call "utopian", and (2) calling them "neo-cons" or attributing their ideas/existence to a movement called "neo-conservatism", and then (3) going back and filling in all the definitions where convenient to make this argument seem to hold together, then everything becomes much more understandable. (Just illegitimate.)

Neocons strike me as folks who like to be where the power is and are willing to adopt different labels depending on the zeitgeist. They also seem to be politicos who are pragmatically conservative but still believe that liberals have the monopoly on good intentions.

Which "neocons" are these? Is this your definition of "neo-conservatism" or a property you think you've observed of "neo-conservatism"?

If the former, are there any "neo-conservatives" at all? Who?

If the latter, who are the "neo-conservatives" you think you've identified who, you think, have these properties? (And then why are they "neo-conservatives" to begin with?)

Finally, to say that one is unaware of certain writings or thoughts so therefore one is NOT influenced is to disregard culture.

I was asking for something different. If there is "influence" (conscious or unconscious) of Trotskyism in "neo-conservatism" that is worth spending the time to talk about, then surely it ought to be possible to find some evidence for this in the form of characteristically "Trotskyist" ideas present and prominent in the writings/thoughts of "neo-conservatives". You're right that the "neo-cons" need not necessarily be aware that "Trotskyism" is their source, but the ideas should be there nevertheless.

Yet no one has been able to point to a single specific idea common and unique to both "Trotskyism" and "neo-conservatism" other than the really stupid observation that neither are pacifists. Other candidate "links" from this thread are:

-"neocons" are in practice Zionists and "Trotskyists" are too (but then why not just cut out the middle man and forget the "Trotskyism" stuff, and come out and say "neo-conservatism is linked to Zionism"?)

-"neocons" want to Spread Something On A Global Scale and "Trotskyists" did too (nevermind that "neocons", as far as I can tell from the vague definition, want to spread democracy and freedom, while "Trotskyists" want to spread communism... that's but a mere trifle I suppose...??)

I could try to discern more "links" but if any others have been listed on this thread, they're even stupider than the preceding two.

We can throw a little more gasoline on this smoldering fire. Neo means recent. Neocon means recent convert, all those democrat dupes who did nothing but pull the lever on the left, who were non-ideological, who have finally opened atheir eyes. When they had any sort of political epiphany, they became conservatives.

Irving Kristol might have once been a neo, by definition he is now a paleo.

Bruce Bartlett on Irving Kristol:

. . . The first batch of left-wingers to turn right in the 1950s were mostly ex-communists, horrified by Stalin and naked Soviet expansionism. The second wave, which included Kristol, came around in the late 1960s in reaction to the excesses of the New Left and the growing wave of anti-Americanism among conventional liberals. He was their leader, and he showed them a halfway house out of the left by creating "neoconservatism." Eventually, Kristol was joined by such heavyweight intellectuals as Norman Podhoretz, Pat Moynihan, and Daniel Bell.

In a small journal called The Public Interest, which he still edits, Kristol sought out university professors with conservative views on particular public-policy issues. They might not have been conservative on any other issue, but he got them to write articles about the one issue on which they were conservative. In this way, he created a solid intellectual foundation for things like supply-side economics, welfare and education reform, and many other conservative policies that have been enacted into law. . . . -- The National Review

yitbos

You ask a lot of very good questions. Unfortunately, I am not nearly qualified to answer them.

I think the most poignant question was the one directed to finding what specifically can be called Trotskyist in the neoconservative ideology. Wish I could be of help.

The most curious aspect of your posts seems to be that you do not think that there is such a thing as neoconservativism or neoconservatives. You seem to sneer at the three or four guys mentioned as though, perhaps that's it. A couple of those guys had their own magazines and I'm pretty sure that there were probably several hundred thousand subscribers to them. I would add the guys at Weekly Standard to the list. It shouldn't bother you that there is no hardcore definition of neoconservatism etched in stone because as far as I know, there is no definition of conservatism or Americanism or liberalism either.

I would add people like Newt Gingrich, David Frum, and Charles Krauthammer to the list. Also a lot of the newer guys at National Review would fall into the category.

Some aspects of neoconservatism that I have noticed are an interventionist foreign policy, fiscally conservative but socially liberal, and a general tendency to be where democrats were three or four decades ago. For them, government IS the solution, not the problem.

There is little of the last half century of liberalism that they have any problem with: they do not seek to abolish ANY liberal program, they merely talk about reform. And they'll spend even more of my money than the liberals did to do it.

Vote for us: we stand for everything they stand for, but we'll do it more slowly and more efficiently.

Really? No thank you.