As a general principle, when you hear the term "neoconservative" used to describe a person, it tends to have negative connotations.
However, I believe that this remains a product of the media - specifically of those members who have an agenda to push. Regardless of the motives, the neoconservative movement is not represented properly and this piece is my attempt to clarify some misconceptions.
In order to understand the political divide - which I consider imperative to understanding our current political climate that casts everyone under a specific label, either red or blue - one must understand the terms and the ideas that motivate our politicians.
These times are especially worrisome; after all, it has only been a few weeks since the most recent major terror plot was prevented, this time in the United Kingdom.
And we are still only five years removed from Sept. 11, almost a year and half from the July 7 London tube bombings, three years from the March 11 Madrid bombings, and just a little more than six months from the July 11 Bombay commuter train bombings. In these times of peril it is more important than ever that Americans understand their choices.
What differentiates the political divide for many Americans is the extent to which they truly believe in these values not only for themselves, but also for people across the globe. In particular, Americans today have nobly put themselves in harm's way to spread freedom in the Middle East. It is the prevailing ideology in this country that motivates this passion, and it is precisely what the media calls neoconservatism.
The notion that this lifestyle is not exclusive to all people seems to be the prevailing "liberal" idea. However, this is a sharp deviation from the past history of the term liberal.
The highly influential British philosopher, John Stuart Mill, envisioned a liberal state; that is, one in which there is no imposing conception of what is termed "good." Realizing, however, the difficulty of discovering the true nature of what is "good," Mill proposed certain inalienable rights. These inalienable rights - free speech, liberty, happiness - aim to allow honest dialogue between people with the hope of reaching a satisfactory conclusion.
Neoconservatives seek to implement these certain inalienable rights, e.g. freedom of speech, in countries around the globe; thus, as a general ideology, neoconservatism tends to refer solely to foreign policy.
The task at hand is not to make everyone think like we do, but rather to allow everyone to think for themselves. Thus, in this sense, neoconservatism is truly a liberal party; while the actual "liberal" party would be best called something else, perhaps "the party of the left."
Neoconservatives argue that British philosophers (and most others, e.g. Plato, Tocqueville, etc.) are still relevant today, not just for Americans but for humanity as a whole. The explicit inalienable rights in the Constitution should not be selfishly held; rather, every man, woman, and child worldwide should benefit from them.
Leftists argue against the war on terror or the globalization of democracy by saying that they should not pay for someone else's way of life and that it is simply not our place to interfere. However, liberals are clearly hypocritical in this regard, as current foreign policy ideology resembles the more traditional conservative view of isolationism. In essence, this new way of thinking is, as Jacques Barzun calls it, an "attempt to combine progressive values and conservative concepts."
Neoconservatives have a bad rap because their ideas tend to be incongruent with other ideologies worldwide, thus causing America to be isolationist. For instance, the French are very happy with their own civil liberties, yet they have little interest in sharing them with oppressed people in other nations. It is by promoting these ideals of a liberal and democratic world that neocons believe their national security will be best preserved.
Traditional conservatives and the Republican Party have plenty of complaints against the neoconservatives. Recently Patrick Buchanan, a self-dubbed "traditional conservative," lambasted the conservative party for having "their movement hijacked by ideological vagabonds and hustlers who are redefining it to mean what it never meant." Buchanan's sentiment is perhaps more popular than both sides would like to admit. However, neoconservatives have strengthened their beliefs, and all the while have become more and more relevant.
True neoconservatives hardly resemble the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, or any other organized party to date. It is an ideologically ambitious struggle aiming to implement liberal democratic principles all over the world. And as Irving Kristol, the founder of the modern neoconservative movement, once said, a neocon is a "liberal mugged by reality."
Neoconservatism's main goals are to spread the opportunity for liberal democracy and free speech and other freedoms throughout the world.
Daniel Halper is a sophomore majoring in political science. He can be reached at Daniel.Halper@Tufts.edu.
