Neo-Conservatives

 Neo-Conservatives

Conservatism means either fiscally responsible, e.g. balanced budget, low corporate taxes, and social service cuts except for police and judiciary, OR religious and social conservatism: strongly anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-sex and pro-family. The problem with the former is that wages and income are low for most people, income does not become significant until workers have put in 20+ years at a good job. The problem with social conservatism is that it leads to domination or violence in domestic settings; it is bald patriarchalism with strict gender roles and condemnation for difference. The paradox is that conservative pro-natal, marriage for life and anti-abortion/adoption value commitments are shared between conservatives and their rivals who have secured same-sex marriage rights!

These two strands of conservatism consist of contradictions in terms of rights and individuality, still a tolerated ideology in the context of the entanglement of the 4 norms: couples, marriage, heterosexuality and parenting. Republicans tend to go up and down - backing fiscal conservatism when in the minority but flaunting overspending when in the majority. Individualism is a conservative notion about character, decency, integrity and dignity, and working to become successful. Fiscal economic and libertarian inconsistency is the hallmark of Republican incoherence.

"Anti-Liberal" or neoconservative are more pejorative and diffuse synonyms for conservatives, but a key difference is that liberals rely on the state, e.g. judges protect property rights and individual rights, whereas neoconservatives expect the state to follow their advice concerning handling the poor and working classes, and conservatives generally wish for a smaller, less expensive state, e.g. lower taxes, but taxes never decrease for the people - a tax cut here means a tax increase there! Should states with no income tax receive federal funds that originate from states which do not charge income taxes?

But, the neoconservative Republican inconsidtency is more blatant in the contrast between the def eg Mae budget and the social safety net. The result of this contrast can be seen in the highly effective precision ABM called the Patriot missile and the oppressive totalitarian policy called the Patriot Act.

 

These 2 dominant neoconservative attitudes regarding fiscal budgets and social norms, or defense budgets and policing policies, are not about bargaining or negotiation. They are defensive and entrenched positions against complaints from the state, workers, unions, women, minorities, pressure groups and foreign nations which all push back over issues of inequality, domination, unfairness and poverty, i.e. homelessness and drug abuse.

The catch to this aspect of political philosophy is that the liberalism of Hobbes, Locke, or the founding fathers is conservative. They are exactly the same: the belief in property, that is, happiness, the belief in freedom and equality, and the belief in rights. All of these core values have survived, they are the basis of our customary way of thinking; they are the basis of democracy but they are often violated and have to be enforced. The liberal core value is the state as the enforcer of the laws, not the individual. The state as federal/state/city jurisdictions sets the legal framework and incentivizes or enforces it.

The contest over values, e.g. multiculturalism, culture war, politically correct, free speech, racism and sexism, the reading war, etc., demeans the group that the conservatives call pejoratively "liberal" progressives, dependents of the welfare state, or those called by the "liberals" defiers of our constitutive values. "Conservative," is often a smoke screen or illusion masking of the interests of one group against the other in terms of what they feel or believe is right and wrong about a particular circumstance, situation, or state of affairs. So, each issue and problem has to be elaborated, investigated, evaluated and argued for and about. But, humans are emotional and manipulate each other very subtly, humans try to dominate each other to get their own way, to get their version of the national interest implemented by the power of the state. The income of the people is taxed, the revenue is distributed to the wealthy, and in other cases, the rights of some people are violated favoring the interests of the more dominant. These problems are argued about, which is the normative process, but power, influence, deception even force and fraud, come to play causal roles, often without a critical eye noticing, and sometimes with protest. Political commitments - party ideology and value orientation - determine attitudes and behaviors, and form the divide between the anti-liberals and the liberals.

The difference between these two ideologies or parties are the interests at stake in any dispute, any issue, the respective arguments and tactics on each side, the big picture, the possible results and the unintended consequences. However, both sides feel strongly that the other side is looking down on them, holding them in contempt, disrespectful, mistreated and left out.