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Are Neocons Really Conservatives?

Are Neocons really conservatives?

  • Yes

    Votes: 14 50.0%

  • No

    Votes: 14 50.0%
  • Total voters
    28
It strikes me that you would have to divorce the term "conservative" from its' post-war meaning in order to declare that Neocons do not fall under it. A forward-leaning defense posture that recognizes that ultimately our values and our interests are intertwined has been a pretty solid conservative position.
 
MildSteel said:
Here's an interesting piece from the American Conservative:

What’s a Neoconservative? | The American Conservative

According to this author, the neoconservative view of America policing the world to rid it of evil is not really traditional conservative value, but rather a liberal one:
So, to quote a message board MC, what say ye? Are the neocons really conservatives?
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Your are attempting to establish the credentials of conservatism on the basis of interventionism.
There is no real Conservative dogma on interventionism, but history shows us that is was accepted when deemed appropriate. However, people -- even fellow conservatives -- are bound to disagree on when it is appropriate.
It is such a loose definition, that the quote is of little to no value for the purpose of this thread. You might as well ask if someone is a real conservative if their favorite color is pink.
Conservatism doesn't proscribe a favorite color, nor a statist stance on interventionism.

If you want to determine whether neo-conservatives are real conservatives, you have to compare original conservative philosophy with neo-conservatism, before being able to do so.
What is neo-conservative thinking on the basis of rights? How is this reflected in economical matters? Education? The evolution of society? The practice of law? Business? War?

Also, there is no such thing as "very" conservative or "ultra" conservative. You either think the founding fathers of Conservatism had the right idea, or you don't.
 
HK.227 said:
Your are attempting to establish the credentials of conservatism on the basis of interventionism.
Click to expand...

The problem is that the neocon notion of pre-emption involves too much radical change in the world for it to fall under traditional conservatism which seeks to minimize radical change.
 
MildSteel said:
Here's an interesting piece from the American Conservative:

What’s a Neoconservative? | The American Conservative

According to this author, the neoconservative view of America policing the world to rid it of evil is not really traditional conservative value, but rather a liberal one:



So, to quote a message board MC, what say ye? Are the neocons really conservatives?
Click to expand...

We are the natural development of Jeffersons (among so many others) conception of an Empire of Liberty. Death to tyrants, power to the people.
 
TeleKat said:
The right has the tendency to attribute everything bad in their wing of thinking to the left and pretend like it's all pretty rainbows and unicorns on their end. Neoconservatism, whether the new Tea Party/Ron Paul types want to it admit it or not, is a conservative philosophy. In fact, it's actually hyper-conservative. Neocon policies are conservatism taken to the extreme.

Claiming that neoconservatism is a "liberal" philosophy is the epitome of stupid. It's completely ignorant of liberalism, both classical and modern. But, of course, anything that does not fit in the tiny little purist box of the new far-right is "RINO", "Liberal", and "Leftist." :shrug:
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I perceive Neo-Cons as Fascists with delusions of grandeur and dreams of world domination. They're evil, dangerous, and represent the antithesis of the values of basic Americans.
 
MildSteel said:
Here's an interesting piece from the American Conservative:

What’s a Neoconservative? | The American Conservative

According to this author, the neoconservative view of America policing the world to rid it of evil is not really traditional conservative value, but rather a liberal one:



So, to quote a message board MC, what say ye? Are the neocons really conservatives?
Click to expand...

It use to be that way. The idea of the League of Nations and the United Nations along with being the policeman of the world and to right the wrongs were definitely liberal ideas. Wilson, FDR, Truman etc. The basic tenets of a traditional conservative are:
1. Avoiding foreign entanglements or one could say isolationism.
2. Fiscal Responsibility, balancing the budget every year with no deficits.
3. Keeping government out of a citizens personal business and lives, in other words small government.

The neoconservatives in my view have thrown the original tenets of traditional conservatism out the window. My political views fall in line more with traditional conservatism than the neoconservatism.
 
Perotista said:
It use to be that way. The idea of the League of Nations and the United Nations along with being the policeman of the world and to right the wrongs were definitely liberal ideas. Wilson, FDR, Truman etc. The basic tenets of a traditional conservative are:
1. Avoiding foreign entanglements or one could say isolationism.
2. Fiscal Responsibility, balancing the budget every year with no deficits.
3. Keeping government out of a citizens personal business and lives, in other words small government.

The neoconservatives in my view have thrown the original tenets of traditional conservatism out the window. My political views fall in line more with traditional conservatism than the neoconservatism.
Click to expand...

Exactly. The neo-cons are acting as liberals do, not as conservatives do. They're just highly religious liberals, they act the same way but for different reasons.

I would say, just to clarify #1, that it isn't isolationism, it's avoiding UNNECESSARY foreign entanglements. Basically, it's minding your own business unless directly asked to intervene, or in which our national interests are directly challenged. That's kind of gone out the window of late.
 
Cephus said:
Exactly. The neo-cons are acting as liberals do, not as conservatives do. They're just highly religious liberals, they act the same way but for different reasons.

I would say, just to clarify #1, that it isn't isolationism, it's avoiding UNNECESSARY foreign entanglements. Basically, it's minding your own business unless directly asked to intervene, or in which our national interests are directly challenged. That's kind of gone out the window of late.
Click to expand...

I agree. I thought a bit when I typed isolationism. But you are correct. It is avoiding unnecessary foreign entanglements, but also wars. In a way the neoconservative is a statist. They want government to enforce their religious views and values whereas a liberal wants government to enforce their social views and values upon the people. So both are statist I want and a tradition conservative would want government to stay out of both.
 
MildSteel said:
The problem is that the neocon notion of pre-emption involves too much radical change in the world for it to fall under traditional conservatism which seeks to minimize radical change.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. What if intervention is the only way to prevent something worse?

Apologies in advance for nitpicking.
Strictly speaking, Conservatism doesn't seek to prevent radical change. While Conservatism can be considered the original counterrevolutionary movement, radical changes are in fact quite acceptable in Conservatism, but should be based on common law (i.e. respected custom) in order to provide a stable foundation for said change. U.S. style revolutions makes for healthier societies than what the world got with Napoleon/Nazi Germany/the Soviet Bloc/various Third World countries. However, to a Conservative, it is evident that the more radical changes are, the more difficult they become to guide in the proper direction, wherefore change should be undertaken with due consideration if at all possible. But only if possible.
 
MildSteel said:
Here's an interesting piece from the American Conservative:

What’s a Neoconservative? | The American Conservative

According to this author, the neoconservative view of America policing the world to rid it of evil is not really traditional conservative value, but rather a liberal one:



So, to quote a message board MC, what say ye?
Are the neocons really conservatives?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...



What real conservatives would ever advocate that the USA attack Iraq which was no threat to the USA?
 
Perotista said:
1. Avoiding foreign entanglements or one could say isolationism.
2. Fiscal Responsibility, balancing the budget every year with no deficits.
3. Keeping government out of a citizens personal business and lives, in other words small government.
Click to expand...

Problem is that this has never really existed in the whole history of the US. One or more have been broken at a given time.
 
It is strange how words get morphed around and change meanings.
In 1970 a history professor wrote on the board something like 600,000 to 0. Every Democrat President of the 20th century (up to that point obviously) got the US involved in war that cost 600,000 lives while none of the Republicans got us into war. Conservatives tend to like to conserve things, not destroy things in war.

Neo-con originally referred to liberals who wanted more military impact in world affairs. Anyone who supported the Iraq war because they believed that there was WMD is a neo-con, wanting to militarily intervene into another country's affairs. Of course, there was a number of reason for the Iraq war, 23 reasons were listed in the Congressional Authorization. Many of those were valid reasons for intervention-Saddam was killing his own people with chemical weapons, destroying the environment, invading other countries, etc.

But it was the liberals who seem to hold that neo-con value-i.e. that it is OK to invade another country pre-emptively if they are a threat. When the threat turned out to be false and there was no WMD, they turned against the war. But clearly by so doing they, the liberals, signaled their belief in a neo-con principle.
 
No doubt about it they are. There are several types of people on the right who embarrass each other since they tend to believe their is only one true rightist ideology and it is theirs so they bicker and fight among themselves like a family.
 
PeteEU said:
Problem is that this has never really existed in the whole history of the US. One or more have been broken at a given time.
Click to expand...

It is said the last true traditional conservative president was Calvin Coolidge. That is probably true.
 
Perotista said:
It is said the last true traditional conservative president was Calvin Coolidge. That is probably true.
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LOL! A president during prohibition? Seriously? He was part of the administration that put that in place..
 
ecofarm said:
How about a definition in a sentence or two.

If I were to set the definition, it would be: A hawk libertarian. (See edits to my post you quoted)
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I can see that as a fairly functional definition, but many neocons have no problem with governing by religion (see any of Neocon's nutjob posts about wanting porn banned). That's a pretty distant strain of Libertarianism.
 
PeteEU said:
LOL! A president during prohibition? Seriously? He was part of the administration that put that in place..
Click to expand...

Coolidge was the Governor of Massachusetts when the 18th Amendment was ratified and put into effect. Perhaps you are mistaking him with that noted conservative, Woodrow Wilson.
 
Reading through this thread makes me realize how totally useless these labels are. It seems that we all have different views of what all these labels mean. To me we have two different political leanings. One wants to limit liberty to their beliefs through the force of the state, "statists," and others want maximum liberty through minimal government.

Clearly there are many more of us who want to limit liberty than there are who want to maximize it.
 
Jesse Booth said:
I can see that as a fairly functional definition, but many neocons have no problem with governing by religion (see any of Neocon's nutjob posts about wanting porn banned). That's a pretty distant strain of Libertarianism.
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Neocons were originally socially liberal. As far as I know, neocon did not include social conservatism until people started using it as a pejorative against Bush.
 
ecofarm said:
As far as I know, neocon did not include social conservatism until people started using it as a pejorative against Bush.
Click to expand...

Not true.

In fact, Irving Kristol, perhaps a minority of these individuals, published an essay in 1971 arguing for the censorship of pornography.

Neoconservatives were perhaps socially liberal until the rise of the counterculture and a number of the social movements in the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, they had reacted negatively to what they deemed excesses in those movements. After that point, they had begun to promote traditional values, values that many had believed they themselves always stood for, but had come under attack. As Daniel Bell always described himself: Socialist in economics, liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture.
 
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Perotista said:
It use to be that way. The idea of the League of Nations and the United Nations along with being the policeman of the world and to right the wrongs were definitely liberal ideas. Wilson, FDR, Truman etc. The basic tenets of a traditional conservative are:
1. Avoiding foreign entanglements or one could say isolationism.
2. Fiscal Responsibility, balancing the budget every year with no deficits.
3. Keeping government out of a citizens personal business and lives, in other words small government.

The neoconservatives in my view have thrown the original tenets of traditional conservatism out the window. My political views fall in line more with traditional conservatism than the neoconservatism.
Click to expand...

Isolationism is used as a dirty word. Even though, no strict constitutionalist or libertarian type, or classical liberal for that matter, have any interest in isolationism. There are a host of ways the US can and should engage in world affairs. It's the intrigue and covert (which by definition have little or no oversight) that cause so many heartburn. Since when would avoiding 'entanglements' be a negative. And then of course avoiding pre-emptive, and otherwise, wars of choice must be a positive position, and wars like our exploitive banana wars in Latin America are the type of thing that those labeled as isolationists wish to avoid. Any resource wars, for that matter. Like the one Chuck Hagel was speaking of here,

People say we're not fighting for oil. Of course we are. They talk about America's national interest. What the hell do you think they're talking about? We're not there for figs.

Chuck Hagel 2007
 
Fiddytree said:
Not true. Neoconservatives were perhaps socially liberal until the rise of the counterculture and a number of the social movements in the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, they had reacted negatively to what they deemed excesses in those movements. After that point, they had begun to promote traditional values, values that many had believed they themselves always stood for, but had come under attack. As Daniel Bell always described himself: Socialist in economics, liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture.

In fact, Irving Kristol, perhaps a minority of these individuals, published an essay in 1971 arguing for the censorship of pornography.
Click to expand...

Who would you include in the neocon camp today?
 
ecofarm said:
Who would you include in the neocon camp today?
Click to expand...

That's a difficult thing to have me put out quickly and the list would be long. I'm only going to throw out a dozen or so names. But many of the original or 2nd generation neoconservatives are still alive and well. These names include persons that are either domestic policy, intellectual/academic neoconservatives, or foreign policy neoconservatives. No single group has to traverse into the other. Here's some.

Nathan Glazer
Michael Novak
Norman Podhoretz
John Podhoretz
Gertrude Himmelfarb
Midge Decter
Ben Wattenberg
Harry Jaffa
Harvey Mansfield
Irwin Stelzer
Paul Wolfowitz
William Kristol
Richard Perle
Francis Fukuyama (although he later disavowed them, I read closely, and I didn't get the feeling he rejected it so much as asked for a better neoconservatism)
Robert Kagan
Richard Pipes
Daniel Pipes

[...]

Would not include: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Nitze...
 
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