Sunday, January 27, 2008
Opinion, Stephanie Ramage

Neocons vs. Paleocons

You might be surprised to learn that many of the folks commonly called neocons are nothing of the sort.

You might be surprised to learn that many of the folks commonly called neocons are nothing of the sort. Take Ann Coulter. Although she’s often referred to as a neocon, she’s actually what is known as paleocon. The proof is in her book “Godless,” a shrill excoriation of secular America.

In recent years, the two “cons” have become mixed. Paleocons are conservatives who believe America is God's favorite country. They tend to be isolationist, except in those instances where they think the American military or foreign service can be used to proselytize Christianity to the world, and they tend to think of white America as being under siege.

Neocons, on the other hand, believe that America’s leading role in the world is not the result of being God's favorite, but of our size and wealth (still, despite our economy’s recent downturn and the many economic downturns we’ve survived in the last century). They believe that if we have the resources to alleviate suffering elsewhere in the world, we should do it.

While the impetus and ultimate goal of the paleocons is proselytizing Christianity, the impetus and goal of neocons is proselytizing democracy. There’s a lot to be said for the democracy theory of peace, if democracy is nurtured with prudence, pragmatism and flexibility. It does no good to foster democracy in a country that doesn’t want it or isn’t ready for it, and a country that doesn’t have a free market isn’t ready for democracy.

Citizens must have an economic stake in their society if they are expected to care about their representation in government. In Iraq, we put the democracy cart before the free-market horse, but the last year has seen the Iraqis making up for their foreign partner’s lapse of judgment with astonishing fortitude. That aforementioned flexibility is in the understanding that even when other countries do adopt democracy, their version may not be a copy of ours.

Paleocons and neocons were distinctly different groups by the mid-'50s and remained so for decades, but then a curious thing happened. In the mid ’90s, a conservative intellectual—presumably the station of “intellectual” is a sinecure that comes with being a professor—named Newt Gingrich hitched his neocon aspirations to a paleocon slate of issues. Speaker of the House Gingrich and a Republican majority Congress passed the “Contract with America.” There were some good ideas in the contract—like tax breaks for the middle class—but it also sought to tie our fiscal policy to family values. For example, it discouraged illegitimacy and teen pregnancy by prohibiting welfare to mothers under 18 years of age. (That portion was vetoed by the president.)

Meanwhile, Democrat President Bill Clinton whittled down our military and sat on his hands as the U.S.-led United Nations sanctions on Iraq resulted in the deaths of a half-million Iraqi children, perfecting the conditions that have caused us so much grief since March 2003. If the guardians of our family values had instead guarded our foreign policy, much heartache could have been avoided. But as long as the megachurches were handing out campaign contributions, who could stop stuffing their pockets long enough to notice?

Since then, most neocons have been paleo-ized and co-opted into the Christian right. We are left with a GOP that is a paleo-neoconservative hybrid. Some holdout neocons, like Sen. John McCain, simply make the most of being pariahs—which is why political pundits continue to say that McCain is picking up the “independent” vote, although anyone can see that many of his “independent” supporters are in fact neocons who can’t stomach their paleocon, right-wing Christian hijackers anymore.

Why can’t the GOP face the unpleasant fact that it has lost a lot of good people who believe that one’s personal relationship with God is just that—personal—and therefore not a matter of public policy? Maybe the Christian right knows and simply doesn’t care. Religious-political cabals around the world survive because of the arrogant view that unquestioning devotees are closer to God than the rest of us.

The recent film “Charlie Wilson’s War” does a fine job of delineating the difference between paleocons and neocons. The movie, based on a true story, features a cameo by an unnamed character who’s a ringer for John McCain. This character laughs at Rep. Wilson’s request for money to build a school in Afghanistan after America’s covert operation results in the Afghans’ ouster of the Soviets. Wilson tries to impress upon him and others that if the U.S. does not help rebuild Afghanistan after the Soviets laid waste to it, that something unsavory (like the Taliban) might take root there. The McCain lookalike  scoffs and tells him, basically, that he did a good job in Afghanistan, but now it’s over.

If that character was intended to be McCain, then the Arizona Senator has learned a lot in the past 20 years, judging by his town hall meetings. Now he’s the only candidate who tells voters that we’re likely to be in Iraq for 50 years, just as we have remained in South Korea as a peacekeeping force. He doesn’t dress it up in talk about the will of God and the responsibility of a Christian nation. He merely talks about keeping our diplomatic agreements and carrying out our foreign policy in keeping with our role as the leader of the free world.

The philosopher Epictetus taught that virtue is achieved by acting in accordance with one’s role. If we are to have virtuous foreign policy that revives our sense of who we are, then we must act in accordance with our role as the leader of the free world—not as a Christian theocracy or “just another country.” We are capable—by virtue of our resources and not because we are God’s favorite children—of doing good things that no other nation can do. SP

Stephanie Ramage is news editor of The Sunday Paper.