Posted on 08/14/2003 9:38:27 PM PDT by quidnunc
"[President Bush is] an engaging person, but I think for some reason he's been captured by the neoconservatives around him." – Howard Dean, U.S. News & World Report, August 11, 2003
What exactly is neoconservatism? Journalists, and now even presidential candidates, speak with an enviable confidence on who or what is "neoconservative," and seem to assume the meaning is fully revealed in the name. Those of us who are designated as "neocons" are amused, flattered, or dismissive, depending on the context. It is reasonable to wonder: Is there any "there" there?
Even I, frequently referred to as the "godfather" of all those neocons, have had my moments of wonderment. A few years ago I said (and, alas, wrote) that neoconservatism had had its own distinctive qualities in its early years, but by now had been absorbed into the mainstream of American conservatism. I was wrong, and the reason I was wrong is that, ever since its origin among disillusioned liberal intellectuals in the 1970s, what we call neoconservatism has been one of those intellectual undercurrents that surface only intermittently. It is not a "movement," as the conspiratorial critics would have it. Neoconservatism is what the late historian of Jacksonian America, Marvin Meyers, called a "persuasion," one that manifests itself over time, but erratically, and one whose meaning we clearly glimpse only in retrospect.
Viewed in this way, one can say that the historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism would seem to be this: to convert the Republican party, and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy. That this new conservative politics is distinctly American is beyond doubt. There is nothing like neoconservatism in Europe, and most European conservatives are highly skeptical of its legitimacy. The fact that conservatism in the United States is so much healthier than in Europe, so much more politically effective, surely has something to do with the existence of neoconservatism. But Europeans, who think it absurd to look to the United States for lessons in political innovation, resolutely refuse to consider this possibility.
Neoconservatism is the first variant of American conservatism in the past century that is in the "American grain." It is hopeful, not lugubrious; forward-looking, not nostalgic; and its general tone is cheerful, not grim or dyspeptic. Its 20th-century heroes tend to be TR, FDR, and Ronald Reagan. Such Republican and conservative worthies as Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, and Barry Goldwater are politely overlooked. Of course, those worthies are in no way overlooked by a large, probably the largest, segment of the Republican party, with the result that most Republican politicians know nothing and could not care less about neoconservatism. Nevertheless, they cannot be blind to the fact that neoconservative policies, reaching out beyond the traditional political and financial base, have helped make the very idea of political conservatism more acceptable to a majority of American voters. Nor has it passed official notice that it is the neoconservative public policies, not the traditional Republican ones, that result in popular Republican presidencies.
One of these policies, most visible and controversial, is cutting tax rates in order to stimulate steady economic growth. This policy was not invented by neocons, and it was not the particularities of tax cuts that interested them, but rather the steady focus on economic growth. Neocons are familiar with intellectual history and aware that it is only in the last two centuries that democracy has become a respectable option among political thinkers. In earlier times, democracy meant an inherently turbulent political regime, with the "have-nots" and the "haves" engaged in a perpetual and utterly destructive class struggle. It was only the prospect of economic growth in which everyone prospered, if not equally or simultaneously, that gave modern democracies their legitimacy and durability.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Jackson didn't care about anything, including re-election?
My God, you would have been his dream sucker.
Andrew Jackson made almost every decision he made with an eye towards increasing his own power and maximizing his own popularity. He was the first truly political President.
No wonder you see things in today's world the way you do. You see black where there is white. You see up when there is down. You think you are in when you are out.
Capital suggestion. Especially the part where Kristol shares his view of America - seeing it as the Soviet Union, a force for world revolution. This remark, coming from an old communist supporter of The Soviet Union and world revolution should scare the hell out of conservatives. Amazingly many conservatives on this site agree with this revolutionary who suffers from hubris and delusions of grandeur.
And not even close to the intent of the Founders, well except maybe Hamilton's wishes but I doubt even he would have wanted it to go this far. A nation controlled by the national government with little or no power at the state level comparatively. A nation's government that builds everything for them from railroads to dams to power grids. And everyone built over original cost and shoddily at that.
A nation's courts that regularly subvert the Constitution to get the most popular, PC decision they can out of every instance instead of just reading the d#mn document word for word. A nation's legislature that regularly ignores the Constitution to pass spending bill after spending bill, that is no longer elected as intended but instead by mob vote.
The 'country' may still exist physically, but the nation, the dream envisioned by the Founding Fathers doesn't. It hasn't for many years...
"I thank you, Dear Sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question. it is a perfect justification to them. I had for a long time ceased to read the newspapers or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. but this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. it is hushed indeed for the moment. but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. a geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once concieved and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say with conscious truth that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would, to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. the cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would not cost me in a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected: and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. but, as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one state to another would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually happier and proportionally facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burthen on a greater number of co-adjutors. an abstinence too from this act of power would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress, to regulate the condition of the different descriptions of men composing a state. this certainly is the exclusive right of every state, which nothing in the constitution has taken from them and given to the general government. could congress, for example say that the Non-freemen of Connecticut, shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other state?Jefferson understood.I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves, by the generation of '76. to acquire self government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it. if they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves and of treason against the hopes of the world.
to yourself as the faithful advocate of union I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect."
You wonder why people think of you guys as America haters. Patriots look at our land with feelings of pride. We know things could be better. We know that things are not totally right. We worry over the things that have been done wrong and are doing wrong now.
Then we have others, who claim to be patriots but abhor what our country is, what it has done over the past generations, and lament that the union stayed together. You all seem to think of yourself as Jeffersonian, yet Jefferson rejected the very dreams you hold. "if they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves and of treason against the hopes of the world."
Yeah and don't forget the anti-semetic charge. The Left has, since the beginning had a viscous "debating style". Dishonesty, distortions, smears, character assassinations, ruining of careers, etc. are just necessities of the trade for a revolutionary. Surly they are justified by the greater goodness of their goals, ya know.
> a refreshing admission
What I find refreshing is that at least he didn't try to say there is no such thing as a neocon like some have tried of late. To his credit he is being open and honest here. It will be interesting to see other neocon reactions to this or should I say the neocon reactions to the conservative and libertarian reactions which I am sure will be coming.
Since he does it himself, I guess that means Kristol is a loser: And large nations, whose identity is ideological, like the Soviet Union of yesteryear and the United States of today, inevitably have ideological interests in addition to more material concerns.
- "In 1940, thousands of French conservatives chose to work with their occupiers. Some tried sincerely to promote conservative goals, and preserve French interests
- "As you probably know, the Vichy regime achieved none of its positive goals, and ended in disgrace. It did prove pretty good at one task: repressing the authentic French Resistance, whom they labeled “unpatriotic conservatives.” In the end, Marshal Petain even signed a death warrant for Charles de Gaulle.
- "Likewise, neoconservatives have proved far more effective at purging the American Right than at promoting any real conservative values. I would argue that since the end of the Cold War, neocons have accomplished almost nothing, except to liquidate key conservative principles, and marginalize valuable conservative thinkers, in return for a crack at administering Leftist policies a little more efficiently.
- "Here is the very heart of neoconservatism, which I’ve decided to rename “Vichy conservatism.” The Vichy-cons’ world view, apart from sheer jingoism, amounts to a statist, egalitarian reading of the Declaration of Independence. It’s a Leftist creed, designed to accommodate the victory of the Left in America’s courts and the culture wars.
- "All this takes place under the benign eye of a beloved elder statesman, the hero of the last war, William F. Buckley—our very own Marshal Petain. In his beloved, nimble publishing rival, William Kristol, the American Vichy has found its own Pierre Laval. Their governing principle, as Max Boot once put it, is to become the kind of “conservative whom liberals will feel comfortable inviting to cocktail parties.” To which I would add, “at the German Embassy.”
- "Vichy-cons, and the movement which they’ve captured, exist mainly to manage and channel voters’ initial outrage, while negotiating an unconditional surrender. Their greatest fear is falling out of step with “respectable” opinion, of being relegated to the “fever swamps” where the cocktails do not flow."
"It was Rove, according to UPI, who stiffed Rumsfeld in April in a Roosevelt Room meeting where Rumsfeld put the Kristol-Perle "attack Syria" proposal on the table. According to UPI, Oil-baroness Rice said, "No more wars until after the election." Rumsfeld, knowing power, immediately asked Rove, "Is that true?" Rove nodded, whereupon Rumsfeld pushed back his chair and left. The power-broker had spoken, no use arguing. "
cordially,
"The favorite neoconservative text on foreign affairs, thanks to professors Leo Strauss of Chicago and Donald Kagan of Yale, is Thucydides on the Peloponnesian War."
DiLorenzo's response to the Statist Manifesto: http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo50.html
Yeah I saw that this morning. Thanks for the tip case, one can never be sure what the other fellow has seen. I was tempted to post it but the last part of it is such loaded topic that I wasn't sure I should attempt it. Some messages are not well recieved.
Good one!
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