Neo-cons, etc.
Ramesh Ponnuru (at The Corner) has been arguing that "neo-conservative" is no longer a meaningful category to distinguish some conservatives from others. You get a sense he wants to keep the team united.
Eve Tushnet has responded--mostly with questions.
I've been doing some work on different kinds of conservatives. One question, of course, is whether there will ever be a truly conservative movement or party, that hopes to win elections, in a dynamic society. Here are some attempted definitions--or maybe just "indications":
Paleo-cons: Used to be for balanced budgets, with a vague hope that spending and taxes could be cut. Reagan converted many of them to accepting deficits as long as taxes were cut and the economy was good. Why should the liberals have all the fun of making promises to be paid for in the future?
In fairness, some will still emerge from time to time and worry about deficits.
Social issues: Republicans became pro-life when Reagan brought Catholics and Evangelicals on board. This stand is not in itself a big winner; many successful Republican women are pro-choice. (There was a story during one of the Clinton elections to the effect that some New England Republican women, whose families had been Republican for generations, were pro-choice, and were voting Democrat. I thought the headline could read: Muffy and Buffy both vote for Clinton.)
Death penalty: for a while there this issue was such a winner for Republicans, Clinton felt compelled to be pro-death penalty, with no reservations, even to the extent of being in Arkansas early in 1992 when one brain-damaged individual was executed there. (Clinton as governor wanted to remind everyone he did not commute the sentence, or grant a pardon).
"Old" Republicans are more worried about gays in the military than they are about women there. Their admiration for capitalism undermines any attachment to tradition. Not necessarily church-goers, and if they are, they are something like Episcopalians--they don't talk about it much.
Neo-cons:
Were or might have been Democrats until about 1972. Classic voting pattern: Humphrey in 1968, Nixon in 1972.
They think the U.S. effort in Vietnam was a "noble cause" (Reagan again), and wouldn't mind seeing it re-fought and won.
They were always kind of excited by the Cold War, and became comfortable with it: a powerful enemy, steps had to be taken on a regular basis, the U.S. always with a clear superiority if only in technology. In some ways they miss the Cold War: their sense of direction, of "us" vs. "them" is a lot murkier without it.
Domestic programs: they take a real interest in the nuts and bolts of policy, and in making government programs work better. They share this interest, and welfare reform in particular, with Clinton. They are always a bit detached from an ideological debate as to whether the public sector is good or bad. They regard "Reinventing Government" as a great book.
On social issues, they're not particularly conservative. They may support religion and traditional values for their alleged social benefits. "Somebody had better start going to church, and it's not going to be me." (See Tom Harmon's post to Eve Tushnet).
Evangelicals: Somewhat unpredictable, if not arbitrary. They go where the spirit takes them.
In the 70s they changed from a basically a-political movement, to a commitment on abortion, to being the biggest complement of pro-lifers. Pro-Reagan and pro-Israel. (In the latter case, this may be due to their beliefs about the end times; they may even have shared some of these views with Reagan, who was not really a church-goer). Intense interest in all social issues--sodomy, sometimes even divorce. Not true to say all evangelicals are conservative (see Jimmy Carter), but they tend that way.
Country-club Republicans, aka liberal Republicans, not that different from some so-called "Red Tories" in Canada. Welfare state is growing, best to accept this and make of it what we can. Maybe even launch some big spending programs--likely to be infrastructure rather than a war on poverty. Proud to be progressive on social issues. This is truly a dying breed, e.g. Jim Jeffords, my examples of Buffy and Muffy above. Oddly, Bush II with the huge deficits, and his failure to be really conservative on many issues, is reminiscent of this group. This is his family group. But he also has an evangelical side. Sandra Day O'Connor has been a very influential member of the Supreme Court: promoted by Barry Goldwater, who literally knew her through the country club in Phoenix.
Many Republicans, except for neo-cons, may not actually enjoy government very much. They always think there is someplace better to go--mainly the private sector. They are unlikely to learn the nuts and bolts, so in a way they leave the field to others.
Liberals: define themselves in relation to the majority, "the voters." They like to see themselves as defenders of downtrodden minorities, so the majority is always somehow an obstacle or a problem.
Insofar as the majority wants government programs, with taxes to match, liberals are in sync. Many things the majority wants, or will tolerate, are bad: maintaining traditions like heterosexual marriage, church in public arenas, guns--mostly out of habit. The apathy if not hostility of the majority supports oppression of minorities.
Worse yet, it is possible that the majority wants capital punishment at home, and guns abroad; it may even be that they don't actually want national health insurance. If that's all true, they should be treated somewhat like mad dogs.
Libertarians. Their great strength is focussing on contracts. What exactly have we agreed to? What does it make sense to agree to? We should have a lot of freedoms, both social and economic, because it makes no sense to give them up simply in order to prevent an ever-shifting majority from getting irritated.
In the Cold War libertarians were usually united with conservatives on "big issues." One teacher of mine said all they really had in common was a desire to kill Marxists. That was an exaggeration. They probably agreed that the welfare state was creepy and mediocre, somehow: by and for mediocrities, violating privacy, suppressing individuality and creativity.
The neo-cons are not likely to be hawks on either deficits or tax cuts. (Of course, they can come around temporarily if they are convinced these are winning issues). They believe government needs a lot of money to spend on both the military and domestic programs. (A naive person, or an old-fashioned conservative, might have expected the CIA to be downsized by about 90%, and the U.S. military by about half, with the end of the Cold War. Er...no). As LBJ said during the 1964 campaign: "We are in favour of a great many things, and opposed to very few."
Update July 23: Thanks to Nick Gillespie on Reason's blog, Hit and Run, I have found a chart showing that the number of U.S. military personnel has gone down sharply with the end of the Cold War.
Tax cuts are now a unifying and defining issue for Republicans--almost as much so as being pro-choice for Democrats.
Neo-cons are not bothered by big expensive wars that might go on for a while and raise unexpected complications. In a way this is what public service is all about. They remember JFK's Inaugural in
1961 ("Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty") very fondly, even though JFK himself might have been learning before his death that it was not wise to try to put his most extreme words into practice.
Paleo-cons see the value of some wars, sometimes. War can be a test and proof of patriotism. It can rally voters and citizens. But insofar as they are in charge, they try to insist on small, easy wars. Defenders of Eisenhower speak with pride of stern action in the Central African Republic,
Congo, and Guatemala.
Reagan gets similar credit for Grenada.
Stopping at the Iraq border (or so) in the 1991 Gulf War was a classic paleo-con move. (It took Bush I some time to be persuaded to go to war at all). Invading Iraq in 2003 was a classic neo-con move. Obviously the President makes the decisions; it may have been decisive that both he and Condeleeza Rice bring the evangelical pro-Israel position with them. Bush I was not really evangelical about anything.
Update: July 25: George Will has weighed in, big time.
(Link from the Corner; many comments, led by Jonah Goldberg ).
Will identifies 4 conservative "factions" and claims that none are being satisfied by the policies of the Bush II administation. The conservative positions, according to Will: In foreign policy: don't follow the UN lead, avoid dubious and costly interventions and "nation building"; on fiscal policy: keep taxes low while balancing budgets; support the Constitution, more or less according to the "original intent"; and defy what is called the "progressive" view on social issues. Bush II as President is either doing nothing to support the conservative cause, or doing quite a bit to support the opposite.
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