The Neo-Con Disease

In today’s conservative movement, one particular sect of the movement is plaguing the entire movement, neo-conservatism.  While many think this “new” ideology is just a foreign policy, I am sad to say that it is much more than that.  Neo-conservatism has become a complete ideology that pushes conservative ideals through big government.  Many believe that this movement of conservatism started with Irving Kristol and then spread to Richard Nixon where it became viral and spread throughout the conservative movement.  The problem with this analogy is that neo-conservatism has a much longer history; it in fact began with the policies of Theodore Roosevelt and the progressive movement.

President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, a man who many neo-cons idolize (including William and Irving Kristol) was not a conservative that some say he was.  Roosevelt dramatically changed America’s foreign policy from what the founders had envisioned.  Roosevelt advocated for an imperialist America that would no longer continue the policy of commercial relations with all nations and entangling alliances with none.  Roosevelt also had a profound impact on economic policy by “trust-busting,” in other words; Roosevelt intervened into a high-functioning free-market economy to break up companies that provided needed competition.  Roosevelt imposed price controls on the railroads, supported hyper-protectionist tariff policies, and drummed up a fake food crisis to create new regulations that only protected the large food corporations and not the consumers.  Roosevelt was also seen by neo-cons and liberals alike (hmm . . . could there be a similarity between the two) as the first “green” politician and conversationalist.  He was in fact, very much not.  Roosevelt’s “green” policies included wasting massive amounts of tax dollars on damns that flooded canyons and rivers, national foresting policies contributing to overgrazing and massive forest fires and a his policies to oppose the privatization of government land.  But perhaps Roosevelt’s worst policy implication was his revival the income tax, an idea he advocated for strongly and was passed under Roosevelt’s progressive successors.

Although Roosevelt did not start the neo-conservative movement, he was the father of the movement.  The neo-conservative ideology wouldn’t be official until Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger took office in the late sixties.  Nixon fully developed the neo-conservative foreign policy with the Vietnam War and his Détente strategy that called for more government and a beginning of the neo-conservative nation building policies.  Nixon also tried Keynesian economic policies that included price controls on oil among other goods and also ended the link between the dollar and gold which permanently took the U.S. off any reminisce of the gold standard it once held.  Nixon is also the president responsible for the EPA, OSHA, federal affirmative action, national drug laws, and piles of graft and federal interventions in every direction.  These are policies that Richard Nixon handed down to his new breed of statist conservatives (wait a minute, can those two words exist in the same sentence?).

Neo-conservatism would continue to grow under men like Bill and William Kristol of the Weekly Standard (the neo-conservative powerhouse magazine), Democratic New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, ‘Conservative’ talk show host Sean Hannity and the culmination of the neo-conservative ideology – George W. Bush. 

Bush completed the link between the neo-conservative foreign policy and domestic policy.  Bush’s foreign policy (The Bush Doctrine) consisted of high defense spending along with spreading democracy across the globe came together with “big government conservatism” such as Medicare part B, the formation of the Department of Homeland Security, No Child Left Behind, and Faith-Based initiatives.  All of these policies push conservative causes through the expansion of federal powers and more government spending.  What made it worse was Bush’s continual talk of himself as a constitutional conservative; all the while he uses the constitution as toilet paper.  Acts such as the PATRIOT Act, quite possibly the most unconstitutional act ever passed by Congress, highlight Bush’s (and neo-conservatives) disregard for both the constitution and the conservative ideology. 

Perhaps the worst policy of the neo-conservative ideology is that of nation building.  The policy is to build democracies in areas where there wasn’t one before.  Although some traditional conservatives may think this is a good idea, it is actually a deeply flawed one both in the terms of the conservative agenda and in the terms of government spending.  The basis for nation building is to free the people in totalitarian states.  The problem with it is that people must choose on their own to form a free society.  They must set up a social contract with each other and choose freedom, something that must be chosen by a free people or it simply isn’t freedom.  Freedom without a choice is not freedom at all, but just another form of enslavement.  Nation building also created an enormous amount of government spending, spending that has to be paid for in one form or another.  The current form of paying for this policy is that printing fake money.  The simple truth is not only is nation building a bad policy for conservatives, and it’s a bad policy for America.  The Iraq/Afghanistan war has cost a minimum of $1.5 trillion with some estimations in the $3 trillion range.

Nation Building is only one consequence of neo-conservatism, but so far it is the most costly effect.  Other neo-conservative policies such as the EPA and No Child Left Behind have also been costly, although nowhere in the range of the Iraq War.  Now the question is what to do about this plague.  Fortunately for conservatives there is a cure; it comes in the form of a document that was written over 200 years ago, the Constitution.  Conservatives must educate not only society, but members of its own movement (especially those who follow the neo-conservative ideology) what the Constitution stands for: a truly limited government, a non-interventionalist foreign policy, spending within its means, individual liberty and enforcing the rights of states.  If the conservative movement is to survive, we must return to true conservatism. What I am calling for is an alliance of Libertarians, Economic Conservatives, Social Conservatives and Traditional Conservatives to take back the conservative movement.  We must look back at our heritage and remember the polices of men like Thomas Jefferson, Grover Cleveland, Calvin Coolidge, Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan and condemn the polices of Theodore Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Mitt Romney.  This last election showed us that the American people are ready to embrace true conservative ideals.  The time to act is now, for liberty, for the constitution, for America.