Irving Kristol, godfather of neoconservatism 1920-2009
It's not just that the philosophy of neoconservatism has led us into many a foreign adventure. This is either good or bad depending on your viewpoint, for Pat Buchanan it's bad but I really have no problem if the guiding moral principle involved is to liberate an oppressed people but here read this from a 2003 column in The Weekly Standard by Irving Kristol (bold-type mine)
and as Glenn Beck would say READ CAREFULLY (ooooooh):
"Neocons do not like the concentration of services in the welfare state and are happy to study alternative ways of delivering these services. But they are impatient with the Hayekian notion that we are on 'the road to serfdom.' Neocons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable.
People have always preferred strong government to weak government, although they certainly have no liking for anything that smacks of overly intrusive government. Neocons feel at home in today's America to a degree that more traditional conservatives do not.
Note the not so subtle digs at paleoconservatism or the purer form of conservatism. Z makes the case that you cannot have a large state that is also not intrusive, that's a neocon fantasy, and from my vantage point you only need something new or neo if there is something wrong with the old product. OR to put it another way who's more popular right now, Rush Limbaugh or David Frum?
I'm glad to see that you are becoming a Glenn Beck fan! Someone has to connect the dots!
ReplyDeleteSwayze was married to Lisa Niemi from June 12, 1975 until his death."
ReplyDeleteThank you for the above--I like knowing that an actor that I like-had a long term marriage...
I am a first time visitor ---like your takes...
C-CS
That one really stood out for me especially since a long-term marriage in Hollywood is now considered about one year.
ReplyDeleteConservatism stands alone. It needs no modifier. And all of the modifiers that have been placed before it have all had extremely deletarious effects to the very principles of conservatism itself.
ReplyDeleteI knew you'd agree here soapie, you're one of the original conservative purists. It is what it is so what was wrong with the old conservatism?
ReplyDeleteIt appears there is conservatism..and 'conservatism'.
ReplyDeleteThe 'modifiers' seem self-inflicted, to judge from the last presidential primary: Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Sam Brownback,
Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, Rudy
Guilliani...each with a loyal following who found it difficult, if not impossible to switch allegiance when their candidate
fell by the wayside. Forgive my liberal bias, but all those guys
struck me as conservative. But they were not the same 'type'?
Paleocon, neocon, socialcon, fiscalcon. Gotta agree with Soap:
ReplyDeletethey are all plain cons...:)
Maybe we are not Kool Aid drinkers, BB.
ReplyDeleteFred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Sam Brownback,
ReplyDeleteTom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, Rudy
Guilliani
Fred Thompson: Not a real huge record to go by. Supported Campaign Finance Reform which didn't sit well with me and also supported NCLB which also didn't sit well with me. That said, he had the most comprehensive initiative of any of the other candidates (save maybe Ron Paul except that Ron Paul never had the "White Papers" that Thompson put forth. He certainly had more star power and I suppose electibility. He also voluntarily left office after a very short period of time which shows me that he was never purely in it for a career choice. That's someone to me who can be trusted with a position of authority. I supported him for a good while during the primaries.
Mike Huckabee: This guy is of the sort as Bush 43 but probably even worse. His fiscal record in Arkansas was a dissaster. He supports a nationwide smoking ban and given his new found interest in his own health has some healthcare ideas that aren't emblematic of a free society when it comes to prevention and record keeping. He's a bible banger (which isn't in and of itself a bad thing provided you're not in a position to implement public policy). He invokes the bible when speaking of our biblical obligation to the enviornment. During the primaries when there was a speech in Florida of all places and the question came up about a NASA mission to Mars, despite our fiscal ills, this guy was all for it while Tancredo said it was a fiscal nightmare. Why you suppose Huckabee would pander to a Florida crowd on NASA?? Hmmmm...... Also supports the "Dream Act" which gives taxpayer dollars to the children of illegals so that they may attend colleges (that whole biblical duty thing again...) and at in State Tuition Rates no less. Much of what I've said about him is eloquently put forth on the insidecatholic.com website:
"Huckabee represents compassionate conservatism on steroids. A devout social conservative on issues such as abortion, school prayer, homosexuality and evolution, Huckabee is a populist on economics, a fad-follower on the environment and an all-around do-gooder who believes that the biblical obligation to do "good works" extends to using government -- and your tax dollars -- to bring us closer to the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth...."
Never liked him.
Mitt Romney: HELLO Mr. Politician!!! This guy gets a lifetime exemption from the school of career politician. He's clean, polished, and looks the part. Unfortunately he's got that whole "conversion" thing hanging over his head. Hardly to the right of Kennedy, he ran as a liberal in Mass. He was named #8 RINO by Human Events (rightfully so) largely because of his mandated health coverage debacle as Gov.
Never supported his political asperations and it had nothing to do with Mormonism. In fact when the so called "conservative" Republicans were playing the Muslim card on Obama I do recall inquiring on a number of occasions "What of it? There's no provision in the Constitution which prohibits it. In fact the Constitution speaks more directly to the contrary."
Ron Paul: Here's a guy who's never taken a political junket. Has raised more money from U.S. troops during his presidential run than all other candidates combined. Has been right on the Bush/Paulsen bailout and the bailouts thereafter. Has been right about the housing bulbing and its burst. Has been dead on on gold values and the decline of the dollar. Has been dead on about our foreign policy and our war efforts. I could go on for days but I won't. I've had the opportunity to meet him twice and he truly is a model statesman.
ReplyDeleteI support his efforts. Fortunately for him and his hard work, people know who he is. This is NOT an easy feat for a member of congress who is representing merely a small section of their respective state.
Sam Brownback: He and Mike Huckabee are of the same cloth.
Tom Tancredo: A guy I supported as well on fiscal matters and on . Unfortunately he too was running from a congressional district. That he ended up supporting Romney was a dissapointment.
Duncan Hunter: War Hawk. I didn't agree with his foreign policy positions. He really wasn't in it long enough to get to crux of other substantive issues. He did raise some good issues about our level of debt held by the Chinese.
Rudy Guilliani: His fiscal record wasn't exemplory in the least. His record on gun rights certainly isn't either. Touted the 9/11 thing to death to where it became his only political card.
Mitt Romney: HELLO Mr. Politician!!! This guy gets a lifetime exemption from the school of career politician.
ReplyDeleteActually that didn't come out right. I mean to say they should annoint him as their leader.
I can also come up with an alternative for liberals. There are the old-fashioned types who would defend to the death your right to say whatever even if they disagree with it and there are now what I call the neoliberals who are willing to dilute or circumscribe free speech in the larger interest of their liberal progressive cause. This is why they don't like the tea partiers and the townhallers and anyone who criticizes late-term abortionists like Bill O'Reilly. At this juncture they'll tell you they only want you to police your own speech for the civic good but I don't trust them, in this blogger's humble opinion they'd like to see laws curbing free speech down the road. As Dennis Miller used to say of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
ReplyDeleteI like it, a taste of their own medicine!
ReplyDeletee.g. Nat Hentoff, old-school lib.
ReplyDeleteWith this new digital tv thing I caught a Meet the Press episode a week ago and followed what passed for a discussion on health-care reform by following mostly the closed-captioning. Still got this tinnitus-like thing, arg arg whatdya say? never touched the stuff. Anyway there was our good liberal host David Gregory who kept harping on something violent may happen with passions getting so high and Lindsay Graham and the rest kept trying to steer the roundtable back to why we oppose the reform effort, strike that, their reform effort in the first place. Then I just channel-surf instead of aggravating myself.
Man I am sorry to hear that the tinnitus is still bothering you, but coupling that with liberal blather would indeed create much aggravation!
ReplyDeleteI've talked to other people who have this and what really gets us is we'd like to understand it like if some scientist said with rock-proof evidence it's this or that. Someone might tell you authoritatively it's stress or anxiety but that's only theory and a common one at that.
ReplyDeleteStranded, where you can get delightfully off-topic at times.