“More important than the names of people affiliated with neo-conservatism are the views they adhere to. Here is a brief summary of the general understanding of what neocons believe:
1. They agree with Trotsky on permanent revolution, violent as well as intellectual.
2. They are for redrawing the map of the Middle East and are willing to use force to do so.
3. They believe in preemptive war to achieve desired ends.
4. They accept the notion that the ends justify the means and that hardball politics is a moral necessity.
5. They express no opposition to the welfare state.
6. They are not bashful about an American empire; instead they strongly endorse it.
7. They believe lying is necessary for the state to survive.
8. They believe a powerful federal government is a benefit.
9. They believe pertinent facts about how a society should be run should be held by the elite and withheld from those who do not have the courage to deal with it.
10. They believe neutrality in foreign affairs is ill advised.
11. They hold Leo Strauss in high esteem.
12. They believe imperialism, if progressive in nature, is appropriate.
13. Using American might to force American ideals on others is acceptable. Force should not be limited to the defense of our country.
14. 9-11 resulted from the lack of foreign entanglements, not from too many.
15. They dislike and despise libertarians (therefore, the same applies to all strict constitutionalists.)
16. They endorse attacks on civil liberties, such as those found in the Patriot Act, as being necessary.
17. They unconditionally support Israel and have a close alliance with the Likud Party.”
Congressman Ron Paul
Neo-Conned Speech
There is a great deal of talk these days about conservatives recapturing the Republican party to use it as a vehicle to advance their agenda. This is all well and good. However, what I suspect may very well happen is that the conservatives that end up capturing the Republican party as a vehicle will be the neo-conservatives (actually neo-liberals) that the Republicans have been plagued with since Reagan allowed them to hijack his conservative revolution. These neo-liberals are not conservative in the slightest. Their agenda for big government was clearly on display during the Bush administration where government welfare was expanded through the “no child left behind act,” the prescription drugs legislation for senior citizens, the attempt to force amnesty for 12 million illegal immigrants down the throats of Americans, and the unnecessary preemptive war on Iraq. None of this is conservatism and yet many if not most of the major Republican players are certainly neo-libs. Voices in the Republican party such as Dick Cheney, Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, George Will and Glen Beck are all neo-liberals. This means all of these people are on the right side of the left as opposed to being on the left side of the left where people like Barack Obama hang out. The differences between the left side of the left and the right side of the left is merely one of degrees.
Rank and file activist Republicans, as well as activists in the Tea Parties need to do their homework on neo-liberalism. Many of these people profess a deep and abiding love for the constitution and yet if they fail to familiarize themselves with the neo-liberal movement — a movement that is easily identifiable as distinct from classical conservatism — they will end up supporting a candidate that will be merely a George W. Bush retread.
The reason that this is of great import is that it looks like, unless something drastically changes the political landscape between now and November, we are going to have a election cycle that is going to be a massive correction to Barack Obama and the left side of the left. My fear is that, despite the rise of Middle America that we have seen in the past year, what is going to happen is that this rise is going to be betrayed by a Republican party that remains ideologically captive to the neo-liberals. What Middle America does not yet realize (even after 8 years of Bush) is that the Trotsky-liberals are every bit as capable as the Marxist-liberals of constructing a Fascist state.
If Middle-America really desires a return to a two-party system they will flush the neo-liberals out of their party and instead build the party with people who;
1.) Support decentralizing the Federal state and so return power to the states per the 9th and 10th amendments.
2.) Enforce immigration laws and so give time for America to re-establish its historic identity.
3.) Withdraw from areas of the world where we have little or no pressing national interest and so relieve some of the strain upon our massive government debt.
4.) Eliminate the department of education so that education can be returned to states and families.
5.) Creatively restructure the welfare / entitlement state so that contractual obligations come close to being honored and government debt is paid down and personal responsibility restored in the citizenry.
6.) Pursue a fair / free trade policy that would include the dismantling of globalistic trade agreements that work to the end of disintegrating national sovereignty.
7.) Eliminate corporate welfare thus insuring that mega-corporations can’t use government handout and government policy to crush their competition and institutionalize their market hegemony.
8.) Eliminate Federal government involvement with social engineering programs such as quotas thus ending the race pimp industry and allowing all Americans to make their own choices with who they will and will not associate with.
9.) Substantially reduce the oppressive regulation put upon American small business thus freeing the entrepreneur to be once again be the engine of our economy.
10.) End the Federal Reserve return to a hard money that has objective value. Such action would forever break the back of the controlling reach of the money interest.
11.) Simplify and restructure the tax code so that it can not be used as a means of social engineering.
12.) Pass legislation that will make it possible to impeach judges so that judicial over-reach will not be attempted without consequence.
13.) Eliminate abortion and pass legislation, based upon the US Constitution’s requirement for Due Process, that abortion will be outlawed in the 50 states.
If Middle America really wants to return to a two party system, requiring all or any number of these proposals for candidates for office would go a long way towards creating a true second party.