The GOP Should Dump the Neocons

Edward Crane, founder and president of the Cato Institute has a commentary assaulting the GOP by highlighting the duplicitous nature of the neo-cons, but the essence of his comments should be applied here to Ohio light of Ohio Republican Party’s leadership that plunged Ohio into an unmitigated depression.

It is important to realize that neocons are not just nation-building, America-first advocates. They like big government across the board. No Child Left Behind, the thinly disguised effort to nationalize education in America, was principally a neocon initiative. Consider this comment from the late Irving Kristol, self-described “godfather” of the neoconservative movement: “Neocons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable.” Indeed.

There is an insidious philosophy underlying this acceptance of the “natural” growth of statism. Neoconservative columnist David Brooks wrote in the late 1990s that we need “a vigorous One Nation Conservatism that will connect a revived sense of citizenship with the long-standing national greatness Americans hold dear.” In another essay, he wrote: “Ultimately, American purpose can find its voice only in Washington. … Individual ambition and willpower are channeled into the cause of national greatness. And by making the nation great, individuals are able to join their narrow concerns to a larger national project.” A frightening worldview.

Which brings us to the war in Afghanistan. The neocons are predictably enthused about the prospect of a prolonged U.S. occupation there. A dozen or so of them recently sent a letter to President Obama urging him to up the ante. Astonishingly, the president who was elected as the antiwar left’s protest candidate appears poised to take the neocons’ advice and commit tens of thousands more troops to a conflict in which immediate U.S. interests are unclear at best.

Meanwhile, Obama’s domestic agenda is in shambles. Americans are outraged at the prospect of trillion-dollar deficits, auto bailouts and the subsidies to irresponsible bankers. And they don’t want socialized medicine.

The “tea parties” and town hall meetings are essentially libertarian. There is no conservative policy agenda — only a demand that the government stop trying to run our lives.

Republicans should take this opportunity to return to their traditional noninterventionist roots and throw their neoconservative wing under the bus. The Republicans have a chance at this moment to reclaim the mantle of the party of nonintervention — in your healthcare, in your wallet and in the affairs of other nations.

I disagree with him on one point, the tea party is rooted in the desire to return to localism, which essentially has it’s roots in traditional-conservative if one wants to apply a label. All in all I think the tide this country is decidedly against big government of any kind, and in that Conservatives (real Conservatives) and Libertarians can agree.

Honduras and the United States

I had been watching the situation in Honduras developing unfortunately through the mainstream media’s perspective  and I was having a difficult time sorting out the truth. Various “spins” were being promulgated through out by the two sides of the statist media complex, however, the facts are emerging and it looks as though the present administration, along with it’s recipient of the Noble Peace Prize, may be involved with some nation toppling. Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson, of Grove City College, offers an inportant overview and analysis of the situation that points to further mischief on the part of the globalists.

While many call the mainstream news media complex by the labels of liberal or socialist, I prefer to use the term statist because there are many neo-con outlets that subscribe to the ever increasing centralized government agenda (you know who they are) and are only subtly different from the left. Some might categorize them as part of the government media complex. I prefer to call it the statist media complex because the government hasn’t openly taken them over…yet.

AIPAC Pushing US into Next War

From What Really Happened:

‘The Israel lobby is aiming to soften up US public opinion for an attack on Iran,’ writes Richard Silverstein, ‘Americans should resist its propaganda’.

I’m not so sure Obama would keep us out of war with Iran. Events could unfold conveniently that could draw us into an even deeper hole than Afghanistan.

Washington’s War Cry for Iranian Blood

Pat Buchanan’s final post for February spotlighted the renewed cry for war with Iran. Make no mistake about this, there is a concerted effort among many in Washington, the self-aggrandizing that believe they are above us commoners, to spill young American blood for the further conquest of the Near and Middle East. To be assured, the two main political parties are joined at the hip with this perpetual war policy. (It’s time for a new way, a new party!)

PJB said:

For, unlike Israel, Pakistan and India, none of which signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and all of which ran clandestine programs and built atom bombs, Iran signed the NPT and has abided by its Safeguards Agreement. What it refuses to accept are the broader demands of the U.N. Security Council because these go beyond the NPT and sanction Iran for doing what it has a legal right to do.

Moreover, Adm. Dennis Blair, who heads U.S. intelligence, has just restated the consensus of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran does not now possess and is not now pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Bottom line: Neither the United States nor the IAEA has conclusive evidence that Iran either has the fissile material for a bomb or an active program to build a bomb. It has never tested a nuclear device and has never demonstrated a capacity to weaponize a nuclear device, if it had one.

Why, then, the hype, the hysteria, the clamor for “Action This Day!”? It is to divert America from her true national interests and stampede her into embracing as her own the alien agenda of a renascent War Party.

None of this is to suggest the Iranians are saintly souls seeking only peace and progress. Like South Korea, Japan and other nations with nuclear power plants, they may well want the ability to break out of the NPT, should it be necessary to deter, defend against or defeat enemies.

But that is no threat to us to justify war. For decades, we lived under the threat that hundreds of Russian warheads could rain down upon us in hours, ending our national existence. If deterrence worked with Stalin and Mao, it can work with an Iran that has not launched an offensive war against any nation within the memory of any living American.

Can we Americans say the same?

No we can’t; we have misused the tremendous might this country has at it’s right hand. We have wielded our great power for everything other than “defense.”

The call must go out to every citizen to rebuke the Washington insiders march to war. We must demand our congressional representatives exercise their constitutional authority and stop this maddening march to war. Congress decides where, when and if we go to war, not the self-annointed aristocracy, or some Caesar.

Anti-War Verses Noninterventionist

I ‘m really tired of the label “anti-war.” I’m tired of the weblog Anti-War and the whole libertarian and liberal mantra of anti-war. I’m especially tired of the whole effeminate anti-war attitude so many men proclaim. But topping the list is the whiny pasty faced screeching women that endlessly preach the anti-war tune.

Let’s face it anyone with a shred of commonsense is anti-war. No one really wants war, no one wants to die and no one wants to kill, but as long as we have our human nature we are prone to violence and transgression. So we are going to have bad actors or bad nations that need confronting.

But why do these moronic people run around all day screaming their anti-war message. Well probably because they are moronic. They have no clue about human nature and probably had the typical effeminate socialist for their college history professor or high school teacher who filled their head with the neutered message of dieing in place with your head in the sand. Or they live in this virtual cyber world of the X-Box and Second Life and believe all life’s problems can be solved with individual contracts never once realizing the cash draw is being cleaned out from under their nose.

The other part of the problem are the idiots that glorify Bush and war at the expense of those that choose to supposedly defend this country, but who actually get used, abused and killed in the process. Sometimes I think these chicken hawks actually are the central reason so many whiny people run around screaming the anti-war song. It’s all part of the reaction, counter action environment.

I consider myself a member of the noninterventionist club. Basically the club operates like this: I have a big gun in my holster, I want to be friends with you and I hope we can be friends. And I’ll be friends until you commit an act of violence against me. Then I’ll draw the gun out, and take some suitable action to restore the boundaries. After that I hope we can be at least acquaintances.

I didn’t go looking for the fight; the fight came to me, and when it did I used the appropriate force to deal with the situation: no more, no less. That is a noninterventionist; that is what the United States of America was, and should be, as well as every citizen.

As for the chicken hawks…lets hope that when there are enough adult noninterventionists squarely in charge of this country the chicken hawks will go back playing Dungeon and Dragons in their little masturbatory world of make believe, leaving the adults to foster prosperity.