Democrat debate

Well, I can help SK out a little. ‘Neoconservative’ is a strictly foreign policy term. It has nothing to do with traditional conservative values, such as laissev faire economies, family values, etc, although many people who hold those values tend to agree with the neoconservatives. In fact, the neoconservative movement was actually started by Democrat Jews in the 1970s who were disappointed in what they saw to be lacking U.S. support for Israel.

‘Neoconservatism’ is a way at looking at the international stage and how nations interact with one another. Basically, neoconservatives believe that a peaceful and prosperous world is one in which America is the undisputed hegemon. Or, another way of putting it would be that a peaceful and prosperous world is one in which America is so powerful that it can control the international system however it wants; America sets the guidelines of the system. It ties in with the belief that America has the best system of democracy and capitalism, and that if everyone else had the same system and were more like us and Western Europe and Israel, the world would be a better place. In case you were wondering, the early neoconservatives who supported Israel believed that we should use Israel, a democratic country with the same Western values as ourselves, to ‘civilize’ and control the Mideast… by force if necessary.

So, once again I want to stress neoconservative only has to do with foreign policy and nothing to do with domestic conservative issues. It’s possible to be an ultra-conservative yet not agree at all with the neoconservatives. Pat Buchanan fits into this mold. And the comparison between neoconservatism and fascism isn’t that far off; if you really look at the two you’ll see they both were trying to do basically the same thing, which is to unite the world in peace under the guidance and influence of one superpower because said superpower has superior values and a superior system. I’m sure SK can add more of of the specifics to my description.

I’ll try to be comprehensive.

Many neoconservatives started out on the anti-Stalinist left. Many of them followed the ideas of Trotsky, and even today they’re still informed by a sort of twisted derelict remnant of those ideas. But, by the time of the Vietnam War, they had moved to the far right because many liberals and leftists opposed that war. The former Trotskyite bent of neoconservatives had by then turned into a virulent hatred of all things liberal, and so they joined Republican ranks. Reagan’s increase in military spending, and his promise to fight the “evil empire,” were exactly the kinds of thing they liked. At some point, they created a sort of revolving door for themselves between the government and a whole slew of think tanks funded with the wealth of long-dead tycoons. (For instance, Richard Perle is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute when he’s not doing anything for the government.) They also derive support from right-wing media outlets funded by such people as Richard Scaife and Rupert Murdoch.

The main goal of these neoconservatives is war. About a decade ago, Paul Wolfowitz wrote a memorandum in which he proposed a “new” foreign policy for America, one that involved putting a dominant military presence on every continent. Somewhat later, the think tank known as the Project For A New American Century came about, and started publishing similar policy proposals. (This think tank was run in the offices of the Weekly Standard, a rag owned by Rupert Murdoch; also, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz have all been PNAC members.) The neoconservatives used this and other pulpits to call for war with Iraq and other countries in the Middle East many times. Among other neoconservative policy initiatives were astronomical increases in military spending, control of the Middle East (starting with Iraq), installation of permanent military bases around the world, the willingness to use nuclear weapons, and the destruction of international treaties that would be necessary to do the above.

It so happened that Dick Cheney was in charge of the presidential transition, when Bush was about to take office. During this time, he didn’t forget his neoconservative pals. Some had predicted that Colin Powell, a more moderate voice, would come to shape Bush’s foreign policy, but instead, Powell ended up being outnumbered by neoconservatives like Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, and Lewis Libby, and after 9/11, Bush chose to listen to them. (Yet, a non-neoconservative wing of the administration still exists, and the CIA and the Pentagon are largely non-neoconservative; this is probably why neoconservatives have not achieved all of their goals yet.) Today, neoconservatives also receive the support of some fundamentalists whose flag-waving jingoism is informed by religious fervour. In exchange for that support, neoconservatives are perfectly willing to promise those fundamentalists what they want - a narrow, extremely reactionary social agenda (prohibition of abortion, intolerance of homosexuality, forced prayer in schools, the mingling of church and state) carried out in the name of “family values.” But neoconservatives themselves don’t really have such an agenda. They don’t really have any one set of beliefs on this matter, but none of them disagree with that agenda so much as to start a fight with the fundamentalists over it.

On the domestic front, the only party line neoconservatives have is unconditional support of any measures that restrict civil liberties, such as the draconian “Patriot Act.” They pay lip service to the idea of free speech, but they always raise the spectre of a “fifth column,” claim the pervasive influence of “traitors” (whenever an antiwar demonstration takes place, neoconservatives like to howl about how it consists of Marxists, communists and “the Left”) and use these “arguments” to justify such things as, for instance, allowing authorities to force anyone (doctors, bookstores, libraries, ISPs) to hand over any records they might have on anyone, without the requirement of “probable cause.” (This is part of the “Patriot Act”.) They also favour indefinite detentions of prisoners, permission of secret trials and secret executions held in secret locations where the defendant is denied a lawyer, restrictions of protests, and all other measures that would consolidate their influence.

However, aside from supporting police measures, neoconservatives don’t really have one coherent set of domestic policies. In other words, such things as environmental issues, Medicare, welfare, the economy, abortion, and other such issues aren’t really addressed in the neoconservative “platform,” as it were. That usually isn’t a big part of their rhetoric. Nonetheless, the sheer vicious <i>callousness</i> that fills the rhetoric of contemporary neoconservatives towards the antiwar movement, Europe, and civilian casualties in Iraq and other places, as well as their contempt for civil liberties, usually leads them to sneer at most of those things, as well. Additionally, they need funding for their many wars, and that means that they have no compunction about a) draining money from government programs that spend it on other things, and b) cozying up to profiteers and corporations, since they’re the ones who have the means to support their ideology and their wars. In doing these things, they co-opt conservative bromides about “limited government” and “economic freedom” from time to time, purely as a PR move.

One might wonder what motivates neoconservatives. It looks like their warmongering is informed by a messianic worldview. Neoconservatives think that by fighting all of these wars, America will become the uncontested dominant force in world affairs forevermore, and thereby usher in a “New American Century.” (Some neoconservative hacks and pundits also like to talk about “national greatness.”) The PNAC, for instance, declares that “American leadership is good for the world” and that this leadership requires “moral principle.” This is why neoconservatives are so contemptuous of civil liberties - to them, the antiwar movement, by failing to accept the “morality” of neoconservative ideology, has forfeited all “moral principle” and therefore represents either decadence, weakness, and immorality (neoconservatives love to hate “liberal college professors”), or treason, evil, and terrorism. Furthermore, this same “moral principle” gives neoconservatives (in their view) not only the <i>right</i>, but the <i>duty</i> to use force in promulgating their ideology - the ends, and the morality behind them, not only justify but demand the means. Additionally, neoconservatives have reapplied Trotsky’s old opinion to their ideology - just as Trotsky said that a communist revolution will not be successful until it has overthrown capitalism everywhere on earth, so do neoconservatives say about American dominance and “democracy” versus non-democratic countries. As a result, this moral imperative that neoconservatives have concocted for themselves outweighs all other considerations - if American intelligence can’t come up with any evidence that Iraq was a threat to us, well then, neoconservatives see nothing wrong with bypassing American intelligence and presenting fabricated evidence, no matter how obviously fraudulent it might be. The end of the Soviet Union cheated them out of an enemy to direct this struggle against, but now the threat of terrorism presents a new backdrop which they use to smear their opponents, ennoble themselves, and advance their ideology. The favourite tactic of neoconservative pundits is to talk about an abstract, looming “evil,” a Manichean struggle in which they represent justice and truth, and thereby have licence to do as they wish.

Damn. ::dekar!::

Yeah dude. Welcome to the New American Politics, it’s pretty freaky crazy stuff. Scary, too.

-Mazrim Taim

Oops, I was off. Thank you for the details. =)

I will continue to stand by my original statement.

Originally posted by Mazrim Taim
The way I define it, neoconservatives are conservatives who are for pro-American globalization by any means necessary, including making war on other countries for little to no reason - and they justify their actions through traditionally conservative values - heavy on Christianity and “family values” and the American Dream and all that stuff. But the difference between neoconservatives and conservatives as I see it is that the neoconservatives just say that stuff because they want power over the rest of the world (through pro-American globalization), while conservatives actually strongly believe in those values they espouse.
Just be careful Mazrim, as I took a course on Globalization last year, and those who are in strong favor of rampant globalization everywhere are actually considered to be neoliberals, after the economic liberalism that both propelled and emerged from the first Enlightenment. And my teacher wasn’t exactly a neoliberal either :stuck_out_tongue:

And thank you SK, that was very informative. I may even save those paragraphs to reread as time goes on. But, I do have a question. What exactly would be so bad if everyone adopted 'American “democracy” ’ as you call it?

Dean will get the nomination.

Does that mean he is a good candidate for president? No. I think the dems are just so desparate to regain control they will use anyone with any popular support whatsoever.

Originally posted by Merlin
But, I do have a question. What exactly would be so bad if everyone adopted 'American “democracy” ’ as you call it?

In my opinion, it relieves people of their own culture, and doesn’t let people create their own government, one that they think would best fit their needs. Our’s isn’t very perfect either, so why we’re spreading it like gospel is beyond me.

I think that when the election hits, all the bush-haters are gonna come out of the woodwork. I wish I could too, but I won’t be old enough. (Fucking shit birthday…rassafrazza…)

Wow.

Nicely said, SK. I learned more in that brief essay than an entire year of PoliSci, and in nicely articulated terms too.

I still think we’re screwed either way. I like Dean, but then again, I liked John McCain, and usually the people I like are the ones who don’t end up making the cut. So I’ll just wait and see what happens and decide whether or not it’s worth taking several hours out of my day this November.

Originally posted by Sorcerer
In my opinion, it relieves people of their own culture, and doesn’t let people create their own government, one that they think would best fit their needs.
So you’re saying a government that endorses racial genocide of one group against another, or a government that promotes jihad, or a government that mandates women walk covered in public, or an equivalent, is just as legitimate as ours of existence? I’m sorry, and maybe this is just because I’ve grown up in the ecstasies of the Western tradition, but that doesn’t seem right to me. And I think one of the pillars of Western democracy (or social democracy, whatever) is the belief that it’s the government people <i>want</i>; and is the only government that is the people’s true desire.

Originally posted by Merlin
What exactly would be so bad if everyone adopted 'American “democracy” ’ as you call it?
This question misses the points of both neoconservatism and the argument against it.

If you recall, we didn’t instantly adopt democracy either; we first went through the eras of feudalism, absolute monarchies, the Dark Ages, the theocratic Inquisition, the religious Crusades, and so on, before we really started tossing the idea around. If a more “free” society were to come during those times and start killing us in the name of its “enlightenment,” we would have fought tooth and nail. But therein lies the whole point - a free society wouldn’t do that, because empire and its concomitant wars are first and foremost tools of repression. To maintain its own power, empire will throttle other movements, regardless of whether they’re enlightened or not. If democracy really is the best system (as you and I think), then there will probably be some point in time in the future at which everyone will come to adopt it. But no one is going to voluntarily adopt it because a bunch of foreigners come from half the world away and shove their ideology down one’s throat at gunpoint, which is exactly what happens during a war of aggression (such as our unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq) and an ensuing occupation, even one with the best of intentions. This isn’t because the occupiers are “evil” or “inhuman” or anything, it’s just what happens when a bunch of people get put in the middle of a culture they know little to nothing about, and then are told to “build a democracy” by a bunch of ignorant ideologues.

The fact is that this sort of ideology (in addition to being fundamentally non-democratic) <i>invites</i> ignorance. Neoconservatives say “democracy” and “oppression” and “pre-emptive war,” but they reason with those terms in the same abstract way - “well, it would be good if everyone adopted democracy!” But when they got what they wanted in Iraq, what did they actually know about the reality of the war? Nothing! They claimed that the war was going to be a “cakewalk” and that we would be greeted with roses and kisses; they knew absolutely nothing about the nature of the war or how it should be conducted militarily. Then, when the occupation began, they had no plan whatsoever for the reconstruction; the looting, the crime and the insurgencies all came as complete surprises. Maybe they assumed that “democracy” was just going to magically build itself because they said so. Ideologues like that have no grasp of how the consequences of their proposals translate into real life - that’s why they exhibit such callousness towards civilian casualties.

Originally posted by Merlin
So you’re saying a government that endorses racial genocide of one group against another, or a government that promotes jihad, or a government that mandates women walk covered in public, or an equivalent, is just as legitimate as ours of existence?
If we wantonly attack “illegitimate” governments without provocation just because we consider ourselves entitled to spread “freedom” by bombing defenceless third-world countries, we will eventually destroy our own “legitimate” government in the process and replace it with another “illegitimate” one. We can’t have an empire overseas and a democracy at home. The neoconservatives talk about “liberating” this country and that country, but in the process they support the draconian “Patriot Act,” no-fly lists, secret trials and executions, and other measures that are in direct opposition to our own free society.

Originally posted by Merlin
And I think one of the pillars of Western democracy (or social democracy, whatever) is the belief that it’s the government people want;
So what is one going to say to people who live in some faraway country and happen to overwhelmingly favour a monarchy, or communism, or some other thing? That one knows what’s best for them even though one knows nothing about their culture, nothing about their language, nothing about their daily lives, nothing about their history or frame of reference, and therefore is entitled to come from half the world away to kill whomever one chooses and proclaim that whoever one didn’t kill is now “better off”? That in spite of all that, one somehow “knows” that they “don’t really” want that government and “really” want what one says, and that one derives some kind of right to use force in the name of that? That’s not “one of the pillars of democracy,” it’s the reasoning of an inquisitor.

Originally posted by Merlin
Just be careful Mazrim, as I took a course on Globalization last year, and those who are in strong favor of rampant globalization everywhere are actually considered to be neoliberals, after the economic liberalism that both propelled and emerged from the first Enlightenment. And my teacher wasn’t exactly a neoliberal either :stuck_out_tongue:

Well, maybe “globalization” is less the word I’m looking for…since you seem to be using it in a strictly economic sense. Like, I never studied these things officially, so I don’t know all the official lingo, or whatever. :stuck_out_tongue: But I guess the word I was looking for more would be closer to “hegemony” or “an unbreakable sphere of political influence over the entire world.” But whatever, what SK said in that long post was a better-worded, more complete analysis than my half-assed post so like, take your argument to him. I’m done. :stuck_out_tongue:

-Mazrim Taim

ok SK, that explained things to me better. I was delineating certain elements of your argument incorrectly. I understand it better now. Thanks.

And I guess every government presumes it’s what’s best for everyone so if Western democracy does too then that’s not that huge a thing :stuck_out_tongue: And while I think our democracy is better than say a fundamentalist regime, that doesn’t give us the right to unprovokedly attack them obviously. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t agree with someone who felt that they were in the end equally legitimate; but that’s a personal preference.