Apr 01 2008
Neocons are not Conservatives
The Neocon movement in the United States has taken the Conservative out of the GOP and replaced it with a mutant of the Republican agenda. They have destroyed what was a respectable party and turned it into a creature that old time Republicans don’t even recognize. It all started when they got in bed with the evangelical Christians and lost their focus on the principles the GOP has always been based on.
Conservatives believe in fiscal responsibility, limited government and personal accountability. Neocons, on the other hand, demonstrate an almost maniacal need to spend money they don’t have. They borrow and spend, putting future generations in jeopardy. They have turned government into big business and grown the bureaucracy to record levels. They have sold out democracy for nepotism and lobbyists quick cash. Their concept of personal accountability is deny everything. Call war peace, call failure success. They have destroyed the GOP.
The Neocons have taken over the GOP like some malignant growth. Destroying it from the inside. What they should have done is formed their own party instead of corrupting an existing one. When I was living in Germany I was impressed by the diversity of political parties that learned to compromise and exist. There were seven or eight major parties instead of two. Some of them had similiar ideas, but different approaches to accomplishing their goals. They had Democrats and Christian Democrats. The Neocons should have formed an Evangelical Republican party instead of demolishing the GOP from the inside.
I think Libertarian Mike Gravel gives us a good idea of why this is so dangerous. He speaks about the oppressive nature of religion and its effect on society.
It is the religious right that would take us back to the stone age with their supplanting scientific theory with ancient mythology. It is one reason why our students are failing in the scientific community. The church has too much influence on government and in turn is harming us as a society. While the rest of the world is making great advances in the sciences we are stepping back into a medieval mindset. It is like requiring that geography teachers teach it two ways, the earth is a ball of dirt flying through the universe and the earth if flat and the center of the universe.
The Neoconservative movement in the United States is doing us irreparable harm. They strive to ruin our education system and are more concerned with what we are doing in our bedrooms than what is going on in the board rooms.
Real Conservatives have always struck me as respectable, intelligent, and very caring people. I have a few different opinions than Conservatives, but I can’t even respect Neocons. You put the difference well.
America’s current “division” would be helped so much by multiple parties… it’s too bad neither of thee major parites is going to make that easy. They couldn’t get so much money from bribes, etc!
Drew O’Neill calls himself a “recovering neocon” and compares the movement itself to a cult. For awhile, he says, he was gung-ho, supporting George Bush and his war, listening daily to Limbaugh, Hannity and Fox News and scorning liberals and dissenters. When George Bush challenged the American public to be either for or against his neocon agenda, he felt proud to be “for.” For awhile he had found a political home.
“What pulled me into this neocon cult,” he said, “was a combination of American nationalism and group mentality.” It’s the group mentality that some have warned has made possible a fascist-like mentality in Washington. To dissent is to be called a traitor as many loyal Americans have discovered.
This group mentality has enabled the administration to control the media, to create fake news propaganda and to hold the public captive to lies and deception spun out of Washington. In his article, “I Used To Be a Neocon,” O’Neill says that “in the end it doesn’t matter if we are liberals or conservatives because all that matters is that we are on the side of the U.S. Constitution and of international law, both of which have been thrown into the toilet by this (Bush) administration.”
And that is the tragic results of nearly eight years of neoconservative ideology. These people are neither conservative nor are they genuinely religious. They have used both religion and the conservative party to further their own ambitions. They are political frauds.
According to conservative Pat Buchanan the neconservative movement has peaked. “If Americans decide they were lied to, that the Iraqi war was not fought for American’s interests, that its propagandists habored a hidden agenda–they will know exactly who to blame and whom to hold accountable.”
I strongly agree the neocons are not the genuine article when it comes to conservatism. I won’t get into my distaste for them, however, except to mention my belief they are dangerous to the best interests of this nation in a way neither genuine conservatives nor genuine liberals are.