Posted on 08/12/2002 5:48:59 AM PDT by sauropod
Several years ago, I noticed the term "neo-conservative" come into frequent use. I have grown to hate this word because it gives people who bear the term false credentials as true conservatives.
To me, true conservatives fit the description of what used to be called the "Old Right." These "new conservatives" present nothing that reflects the ideas of the "Old Right," or traditional conservatism. Neo-conservatives see nothing wrong with big, centralized government, as long as they, the neo-conservatives, are in charge instead of liberal Democrats. That's like saying, "It would be okay if America was ruled by a dictator, as long as I was the dictator, because I would surely be a benevolent dictator." But you can't count on the next guy to be benevolent. It's asinine.
There is a saying: "Conservatives never conserved anything." In most ways the saying is true. Leading neo-conservatives of today have very moderate stances when it comes to traditional values concerning marriage, sexual mores, immigration, taxation, property rights, limited government, and religion. These people claim to be leaders in the conservative faction of politics. Quite frankly, if you were to put their views and ideas on paper and lay them beside the views and ideas of a liberal Democrat, you would have a hard time telling which ideas were the liberal Democrat's and which came from the neo-conservatives.
Neo-conservatives are in reality neo-socialists, for they cloak their big government socialism in the ideas of big business and they believe that big, centralized government is okay as long as "conservatives" run it. They are the front men for large corporations. They tout capitalism, but in reality they are advocates of mercantilism. This is a close cousin to the state-controlled economies of communist countries. Yes, those economies: the ones that all failed miserably.
What we have in neo-conservatives is a bunch of liberals who are "pretenders to the throne" of conservatism. Real conservatism is actually traditionalism. In that sense, I am not a conservative, but a traditionalist. A "Southern Traditionalist" to be exact. I cling to the ideals and values of our colonial forefathers, and the people of the South who dared stand against Lincoln and the forces of centralization and mercantilism. These new false conservatives can mouth their platitudes and claim to be for tradition all they want. But when their kind continues to expand federal power, to limit our freedoms and liberties, and to accept as normal the perversions that go on in our society, they had best keep in mind that traditionalists like myself see through this façade, and we have had enough. Our numbers are growing, and we no longer believe we have to vote for false conservatives as the "lesser of two evils."
The loud booming voices of neo-conservatism are false prophets. It is like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. Pull back the curtain of neo-conservatism and you will see not a conservative, but a socialist. Is it any wonder that many of today's noted neo-conservatives are "former" leftists of the 1960's, or had parents who were members of the Communist Party, USA? Don't two of the Republican's big "conservatives," Orin Hatch of Utah and John McCain of Arizona, spend much of their time "in bed" with Ted Kennedy? When Mississippi's "conservative" Trent Lott was majority leader in the U.S. Senate, did he push a conservative agenda? (The answer, of course, is a very loud "NO.") What has the "arch-conservative" John Ashcroft done since becoming Attorney General? With his help, we are headed toward a police state.
Off hand, the only real conservative, or traditionalist, I see on the national scene is Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. People like him deserve our support. The socialists in neo-conservative clothing need to be spurned. I would rather "throw my vote away" on an independent or third-party candidate and sleep well at night because I didn't contribute to the continuing downfall of our lost republic by voting for a neo-conservative/socialist, than choose "the lesser of two evils" and know that I voted into office someone who was going to go for my wallet and stab me in the back as if he were a common street mugger.
Neo-conservatives are really neo-socialists. True conservatives/traditionalists should denounce these frauds. Just as the original definition of the word "liberal" no longer applies in our society, "conservative" doesn't mean what it used to, not when it comes out of the mouths of the political phonies that man the barricades of the Republican Party. I'm not a neo-conservative, or even a conservative. They've ruined that word. I am a Traditionalist. I hope all who love their freedom, fear God, and know what we have lost, will step up and put on the Traditionalist mantle to help separate themselves from the pretenders who think we will vote for them this election year because they believe we have nowhere else to turn.
© 2002 SierraTimes.com (unless otherwise noted)
Why should conservatives be in favor of this....? Heavily regulated and third-payer insurance with mandated fees reimbursed by government to me is not much different than Gvt provided healthcare. I fail to see the difference.
Mr. 3 is being purposely obtuse. 'Pod
That's playing the Left's game of redefining words. I don't subscribe to that. The proper (original) definition of the term has been posted. All of this interpretation is amusing.
Neoconservatism means neoconservatism, which includes me since I came from the Left to the Right, as did many other prominent figures on the Right.
I won't play the game of switcheroo with the meanings of words. That's the Left's game. Now why are those on the Right engaged in the same practice?
It's hypocritical.
And you are purposefully being a fool. You started it. I'm finishing it.
If we all operated under our own definitions of various terms, throw away the dictionary.
I'm consistent, whereas you define terms as it suits you. That's the Left's game, and your are being hypocritical to conservatism by engaging in their dishonest tactics.
And I ain't ya friend. Nor do I want to be.
Stand on principle.
"When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime."
Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason,(1793).
This is the proper definition of the word.
Around here, the operating definition of “neo-conservative”seems to be - anyone who had the audacity to not vote for Pat Buchanan.
Surely you know that the way a word is used in the language defines its meaning?
Consider the word "gay." It does not mean what it used to mean in common everyday usage. The same with neo-con.
I submit that it is dishonest of you to insist that I am playing by the leftists well-known penchant for word redefinition. You full well know the point I was trying to make. I resent the implication you have been making. Go choke on your own hypocracy.
I was trying to be nice about this. But no more. Go perform an anatomical impossibility on yourself. 'Pod
Why, then, please tell me: Do you own any land? I don't mean rent, but actually own it? If not, then I must say you're not at all a gentleman, since the *original* meaning of the word "gentleman" was someone who owned land -- nothing more.
My, but if you open a dictionary today, you will see several more definitions attached to it. How astionishing!
As some people know, word definitions frequently change, sometimes to the point that the word is rendered useless. These changes are tracked by Usage Boards, which is also how new words get into dictionaries: if a word gains sufficient usage or importance, it usually will eventually wind up in the dictionary. The same for new definitions of existing words or obsolecence of words and meanings.
The 'proper' definition of a word is the meaning(s) currently in widespread use. You can cling to an archaic definition of 'neo-conservative' if you like, but if your worldviews and mine part ways in a fundamental manner, then I certainly can't label you with the same political belief system that I have. The question becomes what is the standard and whose beliefs have moved furthest from it.
It may therefore well be that you are a conservative, and it is I who have become something else. If individual rights and a strong adherence to the US Constitution are fundamental aspects of Conservatism here in the US, then I guess I'm a conservative, and if you care more about global corporations than individual rights and the US Constitution, then I would say that you are *not* a Conservative, but something else. That something else *I* call neo-conservatism, but there may well be other, better labels for it.
In the end, it will all come down to how the majority of people define the terms, just as it does with words in a dictionary.
Tuor
I am "anti-perversion." Does this mean i want gubmint in my or your bedroom? Hell no.
Does it mean that we as a society shouldnt oppose groups such as NAMBLA? Hell no.
I do not demand that "government find a way to control the sexual behavior, family structure, moral sense of individual citizens." Society (not government) has the right and duty to ostracize the truly perverse. Would you really want NAMBLA people in elementary school classrooms teaching their point of view? I suspect not.
But i suspect that you would modify your definition if i started questioning you about such "practices" as bestiality and necrophilia as being legal and for the State to butt its nose out of.
I am a "social conservative." I am a "fiscal conservative." and I am a paleo-conservative. I do not view myself as a hypocrite for taking this position. 'Pod
Who are the "many" people he is talking about here? The only conservitive I know of whose parents were in the CPUSA is David Horowitz. The only two he mentions, Orin Hatch and John McCain, are not conservatives, neo or otherwise. Niether were they sixties leftists. Neo-con is a straw man set up by conservatives who want to dictate what is "conservatively correct" and use the label to libel any who disagree with them.
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