A rose is a rose
Have you noticed how conservatives are running away from the term “conservative”? Bill O’Reilly says he runs “The No Spin Zone,” even though the registered Republican should be taking Dramamine every night. Dean Esmay, the neocon’s neocon, calls himself a “liberal” because he’s “open-minded” or something. (I was just called a “reactionary” over there, which shows you how deep the rabbit hole goes.) And you should see him shriek like a banshee when he’s called a neocon, even though he lines up perfectly with the neocon view of the Iraq war.
Why are these guys so ashamed of their views? I know liberals kept “liberal” even when it was tantamount to “vicious baby-killing communist.” Too bad these guys (and so many others like them) don’t have the courage of their convictions.
Words mean things.
Well, to be honest, I havent a clue what neocon is supposed to mean, except that, yup, I see it used as a slur by friends and bloggers. So, a serious question – is there a place to find this term defined, and I mean by someone who embraces the ideology, not someone who disagrees with it?
That’s what I dislike about labels, in any walk of life. Conservatives, liberals, neocons…whatever it be. They’re easy to tack onto people, when I think in a great majority of situations, we have never stop to think that we’ve never walked in that individual’s shoes, have not had the same exact life experiences. We are all molded in different shapes, with different ideals, beliefs, from all walks of life.
Words mean things, but I believe that the different things we all believe as individuals, many times are not so simple that they can be labeled and accurately represented, by one word.
Unfortunately we have a system where you are supposed to force all your views into one of two groups of thinking, and when you have that label securely attached to yourself, it allows someone who doesn’t know you from a hole in the wall to assume that you believe A, B, C and D. And if you don’t put yourself into one of those groups, either side will take the opportunity to say you are either weak minded, a fence sitter, unable to come down on the right side of a complex, and many times personal issues-from their perspective…whatever.
I believe it’s unrealistic to think, being the complex beings we are, facing the complex issues we face everyday, that we can always be attaching these labels to ourselves and honestly be satisfied with all that comes with it.
Wayne: The problem is, these guys want to run away from people labeling them, but still want to label other people. They want to use labels as a bludgeon, and rhetoric cuts both ways.
BJ: A good basic definition of “neocon” here:
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/neocon101.html
If it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is a duck. I don’t know what your definition of “slur” is, but I use the term “neocon” when I see people espousing those positions, like Dean Esmay. And no, I don’t agree with those positions. Does that make the word a slur? I think we’re letting the right determine what is and is not a slur – just another example of letting them set the terms of discourse.
I think words can come to mean the wrong thing, or the right thing and then some, so people shy away from labels because they don’t want to be associated with the wrong thing or things they disagree with as part of the package.
Phillip: yes indeedy. The word that popped into my head when reading your comment, actually, was “feminist”, although unlike “liberal”, a lot of folks have run away from it. You know: “I’m not a *feminist*, I just think that men and women should have equal opportunities.” Which is actually the dictionary definition. Doy.
I have a friend whom I think most people would consider a ‘conservative,’ but who calls himself a liberal — but he means ‘liberal’ in the classic sense, as I suspect Dean Esmay does.
I don’t think they’re being deliberately dishonest. My friend and Mr. Esmay want to return to what they see as an older, truer definition of liberalism, while others prefer a post-Marxist, more aggressively egalitarian approach. The crux of the rift, if you want to put it that way, is property rights. They don’t like heavy taxation and massive retribution of wealth while the other side views them as ‘bourgeoisie liberals’ (or yucky conservatives, in other words).
Really, I think this confusion over terms just highlights our common bond. America was founded on liberalism and we’re all just warring factions of liberalism in one way or another. There was a time when conservatism meant state churches and absolute monarchs.
I meant redistribution of wealth, but retribution is an interesting typo. 🙂
Miss A: I think calling it “confusion over terms” is misleading. I don’t know about your friend, but I’ve read enough Dean Esmay to know that he loves calling himself a liberal, under his own definition, so he can better savage the left. “I used to be one of them, but now I know they’re insane! I’m the real liberal!” And being a “reformed” “liberal” is a classic marker for a neocon.
It’s funny how these guys dislike other people redefining terms (“marriage,” anyone?), but love doing it when it serves them.
Thanks, Adam, for the neocon link above. I did the QUIZ – http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/quiz/neoconQuiz.html — and surprise, surprise, I’m a LIBERAL. Now, my next serious question about NEOCONS. Who are the NEOCONS who actually CALL THEMSELVES NOECON??
BJ: Richard Perle, one of the main architects of the Bush foreign policy (and the Iraq war), has no problem with “neo-conservative.” At least he’s honest about it.
As I see it the terms (Conservative/Republican or Liberal/Democrat) have pretty well lost relevance to those words used to identify them, They’ve basically just become names for oppsing teams, might as well just call it the red team vs. the blue team. The biggest issue I have with both sides is that same fact that they’ve become teams. And the bipartisan ideal tries to tell us that we’re supposed to pick a team and play for that team. In my world, I go with my beliefs, sometimes they align with one team, sometimes the other – while this works for me, i constantly find myself being accused (in often subtle, though sometimes blatantly) of being a turncoat or “poor team player” by those who would like to see me place myself in the neat little box that tells them I’m on “their team” rather than accepting that it might not be a bad idea to make the effort to consider the individual merits of their teams place on a specific issue. So as unpopular as it may sometimes make me, I’ll play for myself, and support those who I feel share my beliefs most closely.