Few people seem to be able to correctly attach a political position to these terms, as evidenced by the two questions in my history asking what both terms mean. They've just become generic insults the right and left trade. Few liberals attacking neo-conservatives have read Strauss or Kristol or really seem to know much about neo-conservatism. Likewise the right attacking liberals seem to know or credit little about the history of liberalism, and seem oblivious to the fact that the majority of politicians left and right self-identified as liberals just a few decades ago. And the irony of course is that they're very similar positions - neo-conservatism is essentially liberalism and an acceptance of leftish ideas like welfare state on social issues, but with hawkish foreign policy. Both ideas are actually quite beautiful as political philosophies, but nobody seems to care about the idealogies. Has our bickering stripped these terms of meaning, and should we do away with them?
2006-10-07
00:21:12
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7 answers
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asked by
Anonymous