{"id":792,"date":"2013-03-21T09:53:21","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T13:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=792"},"modified":"2013-03-21T09:53:21","modified_gmt":"2013-03-21T13:53:21","slug":"you-might-be-a-neocon-if","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/03\/you-might-be-a-neocon-if.html","title":{"rendered":"You Might Be A Neocon If…"},"content":{"rendered":"

The bulk of what passes for \u201cthe right\u201d these days consists of, not conservatives, <\/em>and certainly not libertarians, <\/em>but neoconservatives.\u00a0 <\/em>In varying degrees, virtually every mainstream politician, journalist, and commentator deemed to be on the right is a neoconservative.\u00a0 In fact, the same can be said for many Republican voters.<\/p>\n

So, how do you know if you<\/em> are a neocon?<\/p>\n

You just might be a neocon if:<\/p>\n

You take offense at the very mention of the word \u201cneoconservatism,\u201d perhaps even going so far as to treat it as an anti-Jewish epithet.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cJudeo-Christian\u201d figures much more prominently in your vocabulary than that of \u201cChristian.\u201d<\/p>\n

You think that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest president of all time.<\/p>\n

You routinely lavish praise upon yesteryear\u2019s Democratic Party, especially upon such Democrats as John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, FDR.<\/p>\n

You speak incessantly of a war <\/em>on \u201cterror\u201d or a war against \u201cIslamists,\u201d \u201cradical Muslims,\u201d \u201cIslamic extremists,\u201d \u201cIslamofascists,\u201d or \u201cIslamonazis.\u201d<\/p>\n

You spare no occasion to invoke images of \u201cthe good war,\u201d World War II, in connection with this war on \u201cterror\u201d over which you obsess.<\/p>\n

You accuse anyone who proposes to cut the military\u2019s budget by a single penny of being \u201cna\u00efve,\u201d an \u201cappeaser,\u201d or otherwise weak on national security.<\/p>\n

You accuse anyone who refuses to affirm that there really is a war on terror of being \u201cna\u00efve,\u201d an \u201cappeaser,\u201d or otherwise weak on national security.<\/p>\n

You obsess over the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, and accuse anyone who doesn\u2019t as being \u201cna\u00efve,\u201d an \u201cappeaser,\u201d or otherwise weak on national security.<\/p>\n

You brand as \u201canti-Semitic\u201d anyone who talks about cutting all <\/em>foreign aid, for Israel receives American foreign aid, and this would mean that Israel would no longer be a beneficiary of it.<\/p>\n

You advocate on behalf of \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform\u201d\u2014i.e. amnesty\u2014for the millions upon millions of illegal immigrants living within our borders.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t argue for amnesty, you fail to resist those who do.<\/p>\n

You treat Ronald Wilson Reagan as a conservative hero who ignited a \u201crevolution\u201d (while failing to mention that the Gipper raised <\/em>taxes more often than he cut <\/em>them, and eliminated not a single government program, <\/em>much less an agency<\/em>).<\/p>\n

You talk as if there was no conservative movement in America before William F. Buckley.\u00a0 Put another way, you never mention such pivotal post-WWII conservative giants as Russell Kirk, if not for whose influence there would never have even arisen a conservative movement, as even Buckley acknowledged.<\/p>\n

You castigate as \u201csingle issue voters\u201d those Republicans who refuse to vote for candidates whose records on, say, abortion, have been shaky.\u00a0 Yet at the same time, you prefer to vote for a Barack Obama, a John Kerry, or a Hillary Clinton over your own party\u2019s candidate as long as the latter urges for a more humble foreign policy.\u00a0 That is, \u201csingle issue\u201d voting is bad as long as it is any issue other than the single issue of foreign policy upon which you <\/em>always cast your vote.<\/p>\n

You talk tirelessly of individual responsibility even as you affirm political determinism <\/em>when it comes to black Americans and Middle Eastern Muslims.\u00a0 All of the ills that plague black Americans you chalk up to the poisonous policies of the Democratic Party while all of the problems of which the Muslim world is ridden you attribute to its lack <\/em>of \u201cdemocracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though Hispanics voted for Barack Obama by over 70 percent in November, and blacks voted for him by over 90 percent, you insist that the only reason for this is that Republicans have failed to \u201creach out\u201d to these groups.\u00a0 If only their members knew what the Republican Party could do for them (more political determinism), you imply, they would flock to the GOP, for blacks, and particularly Hispanics, are \u201cnatural conservatives.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

You make claims regarding the \u201cnatural conservatism\u201d of Hispanics and Hispanic immigrants that you would never <\/em>think to make about Muslims\u2014even though, by many measures, Muslims are far more \u201cconservative\u201d than Hispanics and white Americans alike.<\/p>\n

You believe that National Review <\/em>remains the premiere conservative publication, with The Weekly Standard <\/em>not far behind.<\/p>\n

You believe that Fox News is a conservative network and that talk radio is dominated by conservative hosts.<\/p>\n

If one or more of the foregoing descriptions apply to you, then you just might be a neoconservative.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The bulk of what passes for \u201cthe right\u201d these days consists of, not conservatives, and certainly not libertarians, but neoconservatives.\u00a0 In varying degrees, virtually every mainstream politician, journalist, and commentator deemed to be on the right is a neoconservative.\u00a0 In fact, the same can be said for many Republican voters. So, how do you know…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nYou Might Be A Neocon If...<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/03\/you-might-be-a-neocon-if.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"You Might Be A Neocon If...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The bulk of what passes for \u201cthe right\u201d these days consists of, not conservatives, and certainly not libertarians, but neoconservatives.\u00a0 In varying degrees, virtually every mainstream politician, journalist, and commentator deemed to be on the right is a neoconservative.\u00a0 In fact, the same can be said for many Republican voters. So, how do you know…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/03\/you-might-be-a-neocon-if.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-21T13:53:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"You Might Be A Neocon If...","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/03\/you-might-be-a-neocon-if.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"You Might Be A Neocon If...","og_description":"The bulk of what passes for \u201cthe right\u201d these days consists of, not conservatives, and certainly not libertarians, but neoconservatives.\u00a0 In varying degrees, virtually every mainstream politician, journalist, and commentator deemed to be on the right is a neoconservative.\u00a0 In fact, the same can be said for many Republican voters. 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I teach philosophy at several colleges in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jackkerwick.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/author\/jkerwick"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":793,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions\/793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}