Irving Kristol-R.I.P.
While Neo-cons acolytes like Jonah Goldberg are busy sanctifying Irving Kristol, I need to introduce a note of reality here. Irving Kristol and Milton Freidman are responsible for the mess we are in. Kristol's two tenants of the neoconservative faith were simple.
In domestic affairs the national government should shrink (by cutting taxes and business regulations)
In foreign affairs the government should grow (by becoming the world's sole military superpower).
The simplicity has a frightening economic and moral inconsistency. Obviously if you cut taxes and grow your military you are going into debt. Obviously if you eliminate business regulations, grifters (which we breed in the millions) are going to take advantage of the system. Too much debt and too many people trying to game a system with few regulators. That about sums up our economy since Kristol's ideas in the form of the Reagan era took hold. Even if Bill Clinton was able to get the debt briefly under control, he never took on the question of what we gained by spending so much money to be Kristol's "world's sole military superpower". Perhaps President Obama will be willing to answer that question. Our economic rivals give all their citizens world class health care and K-College education as a right of citizenship (paid for by taxes). They spend 5% of our defense budget on their own military.
May Neoconservatism rest in peace.
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Well there has been no indication of that being a possibility as of yet as more US bombs kill women and children near the Afghan/Pakistan border.
Mark my words we may wish for neoconservatism's return, as repulsive as it was, judging by what it looks like it might end up becoming after the death of its Dr. Frankenstein.
September 19, 2009 10:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
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December 16, 2010 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
And furthermore...
That is why we are changing things by reforming health care in a way that it will mandate the people buy insurance on the private market? If you ask me neo-conservatism monster seems very un-dead and well.
September 19, 2009 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Neo-conservatism = subverted and perverted liberalism
Just like the Milton Friedman/Ayn Rand crowd hijacked and subverted libertarianism for the benefit of the wealthy neo-cons did the same thing with liberalism. Now we have 2 parties...the corporate left party and the corporate right party.
/rant
September 19, 2009 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very funny, Jon, since (1) they always rested not in peace but in war and (2) now the neolibs are carrying the war banner, with nary a miss of the war-drummer's beat. Reportedly it does anguish President Obama to sign those next-of-kin letters, though, so that's a good thing.
Meanwhile, they are laying off teachers and closing parks around here while the national "security" forces get the big bucks -- all borrowed, of course. How about where you live?
Would you believe war profiteering? Contract awards over $5m announced by DOD on one typical day, Sep 18 2009:
Supplycore, Inc., Rockford, Ill. $525,000,000
Parker-Hannifin Corp., Irvine, Calif. $16,570,224
Bijan’s Protective Equipment, Santa Rosa, Calif.$5,617,400
Hensel Phelps Soltek Joint Venture, Greeley, Colo $116,920,072
BAE Systems Technology Solutions and Services, Rockville, Md $76,000,000
Raytheon Co., McKinney, Texas $44,289,514
DRS Systems, Inc., Parsippany, N.J., $13,818,940
Greenhut Construction Co., Inc., Pensacola, Fla., $10,598,586
HDR Architecture, Inc., Alexandria, Va., $6,500,000
Boeing Co., Long Beach, Calif., $72,486,194
DTS Aviation Services, Inc., Fort Worth, Texas $41,111,000
EDO Corp., of North Amityville, N.Y. $39,267,458
Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. of Herndon, Va., $38, 646,488
DynCorp International, LLC of Fort Worth, Texas $31,276,841
Wyle Laboratories, Inc. of Huntsville, Ala. $28,349,190
McDonnell Douglas Corp., Long Beach, Calif., $20,000,000
Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, Ohio $13,665,951
L3 Communications Vertex Aerospace, of Madison Miss., $8,561,632
Balfour / S&P Joint Venture, Dallas, TX, $46,437,194
John J. Kirlin Special Projects LLC., Rockville, Md., $9,255,853
General Dynamics lands Systems, Sterling Heights, Mich. $ 7,218,657
Black Horse Group LLC., Watertown, N.Y $6,628,600
Sun Star LLC., San Diego, Calif. $24,973,773
Hanco Corp., Hattiesburg, Miss., $8,174,000
Camelbak Products LLC., Petaluma, Calif., $5,966,953
http://www.defenselink.mil/contracts/contract.aspx?contractid=4121
September 19, 2009 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
And let's not forget the politicians! They profited too!
Take the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, for example. John Murtha, D-Pa., and C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla.are the Senior Earmarkers there, granting "earmarks" to favored "defense" corporations in exchange for political contributions.
The Center for Public Integrity found that more than 50 earmarks are involved in 2008, with fully three-quarters of the subcommittee members having been involved in similar patterns of behavior, totaling more than $100 million, while the campaign contributions amounted to more than $1 million.
Several "companies received an impressive $30,200,000 in earmarks from Murtha and Murtha received $83,800 in PAC contributions and $209,050 in donations from executives at the companies."
http://www.post-trib.com/news/1762133,Murtha-Visclosky-910.article
September 20, 2009 12:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
It must have been very difficult growing up with a name like 'Irving'. Boys being boys and all. I wonder if that is what he meant when he referred to his having been “mugged by reality”.
September 19, 2009 11:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
May Neoconservatism rest in peace.
The neoconservatives are as potent as ever.
September 19, 2009 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
With all due respect for the dead, I agree with Dan K.
September 20, 2009 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Given the extent to which Kristol's erudite and irreverent skepticism was transformed into flaming obnoxiousness and malignant hypocrisy by latter neo-cons, perhaps the R.I.P. here might better be taken as the initials for Rotate in Perpetuity.
September 20, 2009 4:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've heard that deaths happen in threes;
Novak, Kristol......Cheney?
September 20, 2009 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nah. Death is too good for him. Maybe incurable crabs.
September 20, 2009 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Friedman would maybe have been surprised to see himself clumped in with the neocons.
September 20, 2009 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Since I was the one who brought him up I only have to say he was mentioned only in the context of his ability to subvert a political ideology for the benefit of the wealthy.
September 20, 2009 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oops...nevermind, Taplin brought him up too. My bad.
September 20, 2009 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hmm, which foreign affairs? What grifters? The common denominator tells all.
September 20, 2009 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
It has been obvious to me since the Nixon era that military spending has been what sopped up the government money that should have long ago been spent on universal health care. It gave the budget scolds the political power to kill reform in Congress.
Both the excess military spending and the lack of an efficient universal health care system have been major elements in the decline of the American economy. Add add the major efforts to either politicize the public education system by teaching conservative ideology instead of logic, real history and thinking, or to turn it into an evangelical adjunct of the fundamentalist evangelical churches and the clear decline of the American economy in comparison to the rest of the world is no surprise.
September 20, 2009 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pretty odd to lump Milton Friedman - who actively campaigned to end the draft, for example - in with the Neocons.
Whilst I'm no particular fan of Friedman, his serious academic credentials and advocacy for personal liberty go a long way to off-setting some of the more problematic anti-government dogma he also favored. With Neoconservatism, not yet clear they have any redeeming legacy.
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