MoEnzyme
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WTF does "neo-con" mean?
« on: 2008-08-28 17:34:49 » |
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"Neo-con" - What The Fuck does that word mean? I'm not going to bother giving any references on this one because when people say stupid bullshit I generally don't bother reading their resumes, checking their alleged credentials, or even asking for a valid ID. Bullshit happens to such a degree that its origins are particularly uninteresting.
So as I've generally heard it, the advocates of Neo-con-ness tell me that a neo-con is a liberal-turned-conservative; a person who somewhere along the way suposedly realizes that liberal goals can be best achieved through conservative means. This doesn't make much sense to me when you look at examples of neo-cons . . . most of the Bush administration for example. Quite frankly they are with few exceptions lifelong conservatives often recycled from previous Republican administrations. Academic exceptions like Francis Fukayama be damned (who now seems to distance himself from his former neo-con friends. Does that make him a neo-neo-con?)
As best I can tell, the new con is pretty much the same as the old con. In fact it seems to me that with the growing impotence Bush administration the word has lost much of its shine, becoming increasingly rare on right-wing radio etc. It seems in the last few years the usual blowhards have dropped all use of the word, reverting to simply "conservative" in their self-identification. Conservatives are . . . well . . . conservative that way.
In contrast "Liberal" in the US has undergone some change in the last 40-50 odd years. It seems to have at one time meant social liberals . . . advocates of free-speech, individual freedom, etc. . . however in recent years has come to mean social liberals on the political-left (economically) while strictly social liberals have tended to identify as traditional liberals or libertarians tending to differentiate themselves from new-deal liberals.
However as a group I've seen no such issue distinctions between neo-cons and old cons. I'm guessing it was all simply an attempt to dress up old ideas with shiney new words.
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