[Sam Gamgee]

This is one of those what's the definition of “is is” situations. If the meaning is big government conservative, like GW Bush was, then NO, I do not like being called a “neoconservative”. But many DID abandon their New Left ways to embrace conservatism, like David Horowitz. Now do some of these national defense conservatives still hold onto liberal positions when it comes to say social issues? Perhaps they do. Say like Dennis Miller. They maybe are even too liberal for my taste on fiscal conservatism.

The thing is the Paulites throw the term around against any one, and I mean anyone that does not embrace the pacifistic nihilism of Ron Paul. Many of them even call William Buckley a neocon. Hell, by their rules of measurement, Winston Churchill was a warmongering neocon.

I love that Ron Paul hearkens back to a Jeffersonian America. I love Jefferson and think he was proved right against the Alexander Hamilton types of his day that big government is the ultimate danger. With that said, Jefferson was an American Exceptionalist. He was NOT a knee jerk blame American firster like Ron Paul is. The whole reason he objected to foreign entanglements was he believed such arrangements would do damage to American republicanism. He really didn't give a flying rat's you know what about what it did to other nations.

Jefferson did NOT just engage pirates (terrorists) in transit but took those rogue states who supported them to task. This is why he sent the marines to North Africa.

Now as for policing the world, the idea that there is some consensus among any conservative faction is ridiculous. There are some who do believe we should spread democracy and that we can do so. Frankly I am not one of them. I have more of an Ayn Rand bent which is if they mess with us, let all hell rain down, but then leave them to sort their own affairs. Perhaps there is a small segment that does have this belief, but they would comprise only a small percentage of conservative belief, I would reckon.

[Reily]

In fact if you read about Jefferson's actions against Tripoli through William Eaton it was an early example of a covert action. There was only a half dozen to 10 marines, a small naval landing party and a gaggle of several 100 mercenaries made up of Muslim North African tribesmen & renegade Greeks to put a very incompetent guy back on the Tripolian throne. Remind anyone of anything going on now? Afghanistan, Northern Alliance, Karzai?

Paulites have always had a very selective reading of US history. The read it like a Chinese menu pick out the parts they like to buttress whatever crackpot claims they wish to make. People need to remember for most of the US’s early history Great Britain's Imperial policy and US foreign policy were mostly compatible, so we got the benefit of the Royal Navy. Freedom of the seas (the right to trade our goods anywhere we could sail a ship!)and minimal foreign intervention in the New World were UK Imperial policies which we benefited from. If we had had the naval forces early I guarantee we would have flexed our muscles more. Look at Perry's expedition, we had finally reached a point where we could project power to promote and protect American trade & lives, so we told Late Shogunate Japan open your ports and trade, don't kill shipwrecked sailors or we shell your ports. Also did that to Korea in the late 1860s.