Neo-Cons

It's funny. Well, not funny, so much as perplexing. And not so much perplexing as it is frustrating, infuriating even.

I'm talking about neo-cons, of course. Specifically, their bizarre extroversion in terms of interference.

Let's cut right to it. Neo-cons believe that the US should reach out and improve the world. We should intervene in foreign situations, stick out noses in other people's business, because we know what's best for truth and freedom.

But since all these neo-cons are conservative (hence the "con" part of the name, although I guess it could also stand for "convict" or "confusion") they also believe that the US, in the person of the government, should stay out of people's business. The government should butt out and let the free market take care of it. The government handles things poorly, and thus should be minimized or eliminated.

Now I know there are weird, convoluted ways of reconciling those two beliefs. And not all of them involve simply ignoring the hypocrisy and hoping it goes away on its own.

But mark ye: the neo-cons care more about other countries' welfare than they do about their own. They're willing to throw their own people to the wolves because it's destiny, or freedom, or whatever, but other people, they march in, dollar-signs blazing. Spend, spend, spend.

Welfare is bad. It encourages people to rely on corrupt government, to suckle on the government teat.

Military intervention is good. It encourages people to rely on freedom-bringing government, to suckle on the teat of freedom.

I could go on, but I'm sure the point has been made elsewhere. Besides, neo-cons are, at the moment, something of an old hat. At least, they've gone to ground, to continue their struggle in a more guerrilla-type aspect. One might almost call them freedom-fighters, underground resistance. Everyone will eventually forget that they were dead wrong about pretty much everything, and then they will rise again and embroil us in another pointless land war in Asia.

I'd just never cut through this particular knot of cognitive dissonance before. It was there; it simply hadn't occurred to me.