Do you remember the first day you heard the word “neoconservative”? I do. I remember it like it was a good 6 or 7 months ago. As with any new word, once I heard it I started hearing it over and over again. Neoconservative this, neoconservative that. If you’re like me, you ascertained the meaning by its context. Initially I knew it had something to do with George Bush’s administration and republicans in general, and the “neo” part (meaning new) had me thinking that these conservatives were somehow different from regular conservatives, perhaps even irrepresentative of the body of people that voted Bush in office in either election. As with any word, more experience should allow one to accurately refine its meaning; unfortunately for me, because of my exposure to biased sources (such as the internet), I suspected that when I heard someone say “neoconservative” they really meant “Republican I hate.” I did a bit of research to get an objective explanation and here’s what I found:
Basic neoconservative beliefs can be explained as follows:
-The United States is founded on universal principles
-The United States is and should be the greatest nation in the world
-Democracy and capitalism are so good, that they can and should be installed by conquest
-Nothing is worse than communism.
We can see that this surface look of neoconservatism is not very controversial. Democracy, capitalism, and the goodness of the United States are certainly well-accepted core beliefs of Americans and both the political power of the United States and good deeds done internationally certainly seems to exhibit the appropriateness in such a power. However, these core beliefs take mainstream American values and skew them so that a neoconservative reality is a highly distorted picture from the truth.
Let’s begin with the first belief. There are certain founding principles that are universal; civil rights, due process, even spirituality in government to some extent. However, some are not universal: democracy, western thought, 18th century philosophy, capitalism, limits to government, and merit-based class are all things that we Americans value and hold esteem to but are not valued, embraced, or even recognized by many people outside of our borders. In fact, it could be argued that for a good 1500 years the whole world didn’t reflect many of these values, so already the neoconservatives are standing on shaky ground. Since there is variance between the world’s nations in regards to democracy and capitalism (probably the principles they’re focusing on), this would mean that the nations that are undemocratic and/or communist are illegitimate.
This also ties in with the second belief to create a major catch-22 for one main reason: when you believe that you are the best, you act like an arrogant jerk. The belief, even if originally true (such as with the founding principles), can be reinforced by blind faith even after the goodness has long disappeared; a sort of momentum that means the United States can act very similar to “bad” or “corrupt” nations but draw on the memory of its benevolent past as an excuse. This wouldn’t make the United States great at all. Believing that the United States should be the greatest nation (another word for superpower) also violates democratic principles, because the implication that our interests and our lives are more important than the rest of the world means that we would have to ignore a good 99.5% of the nations of the Earth and 95% of the population.
The idea that democracy should be installed by conquest if necessary also violates democratic principles. The status quo is a huge indicator of what the majority prefers, if this is a bad or corrupt situation it’s possible that the people prefer it because they don’t realize the truth and no amount of democracy can fix that; democracy is also inherently about a government being (in the very least) accountable to the governed and (in some situations) even being composed of the governed themselves, the idea that a less than perfect government should be rejected or abolished only involves those outside of the governed when there is great difficulty in rebelling alone. Inherently, democracy only exists and lasts when the people of a nation act for themselves in the spirit of maintaining the democracy and simply installing it does nothing to change the attitudes of these people. Also, believing that conquest is appropriate means that America-the-Superpower has the right to act out this conquest by itself. It doesn’t.
Finally, the idea that communism is bad stems from the idea that democracy and capitalism are always good. While I myself am not a communist, I recognize the positive aspects of Marxism, especially the idea that capitalist societies have a difficult time with true democracy because of the political power associated with wealth (remember, democracy and communism are not mutually exclusive). In keeping with their extremism, neoconservatives err in supporting unregulated laissez-faire capitalism. Once again turning to history, it could be said that the unregulated laissez-faire capitalism was so detrimental to workers and even government that it took the idea of regulating capitalism (from the fascists) to save it from The Revolution. Marxism also addresses issues about worker health and rights, poverty reduction, and social equality whereas neoconservatives neglect many domestic issues. In practice, the idea that communism is bad has meant that policymakers have chosen to support right-wing dictatorships over left-wing governments (whether democratic or not). This last element points to a great problem with neoconservatives: when exposed, they’re not popular. If we reformatted their beliefs to what they really mean, the merit of their positions would shrink:
-United States interests trump international law
-Imperialism is appropriate
-Any right-wing government is better than a left-leaning one
-Everyone wants to be an American
-Unregulated capitalism is best
Because of these values and because a yield from creating democracy is not as immediate as a yield from creating unregulated capitalism, it’s likely that neoconservatives tend to be warhawks, actors of corporate interests, and possibly power-hungry politicians—although the latter is probably not uncommon in any politician—but I concede that it’s also possible that some are truly acting on principle.
In essence, although true neoconservativism is not reflective of mainstream American belief, it is inherently American. Widespread acceptance of American exceptionalism, the common hostility to communism, and basic neglect of both international concerns and the affects of US foreign policy are all appealed to by neoconservative thought. If Democrats and Republicans were a husband and wife respectively, neoconservatives would be the mentally challenged offspring: the Democrats would’ve preferred an abortion, but the Republicans would see that as a cop-out and now that the Republicans have birthed the neoconservatives, the Democrats have to pay child support since they’re just as responsible for the creation of neoconservatives as Republicans are. Meanwhile everyone says “what a cute kid” and the Democrats roll their eyes and mumble something about speech therapy.
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