As neocons and Republicans walk down the street, houses collapse behind them.

Daniel S. writes:

It was once an article of faith among the neocons and Fox News types that Iraq was to be the Arab world’s first successful, pro-American democracy. It would be a beacon of hope and freedom to all the neighboring Arab and Muslim peoples living under the jackboot of despotic regimes. Oddly, we don’t hear too much of that anymore from the neocons and movement Republicans. Indeed they hardly speak of Iraq at all anymore, which makes sense in light of the plain fact that Iraq is now a shariah state more or less allied with Iran. Iraq was once a relatively secular nation, now under Iraqi re-Islamization Iraqi women are forced once again to adhere to strict Islamic dress codes, and the dwindling ancient Christian community lives in a constant state of fear. These remain as realities rarely spoken of in the Weekly Standard and Commentary and on Fox News.

Similarly in Egypt, where neocons vocally supported the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi has granted himself ever more executive powers and Muslim Brotherhood clerics are describing the recent ceasefire as a deception and are calling for jihad against Israel. Yet we have still to hear any apologies from the neocons for supporting the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak which paved the way for the rise of Islamic radicalism in Egypt.

- end of initial entry -

Jessica K. writes:

While I don’t like Jon Stewart, I loved the very first question he asked Bill Kristol when he sat down for an interview: “Don’t you ever get tired of being wrong?”

Indeed, that’s a question that needs to be asked of every neocon.

LA replies:

The neocons’ being wrong a thousand times, and their being asked a thousand times, “Don’t you ever get tired of being wrong?”, will make no difference, because they do not live in relation to truth or falsehood, right or wrong. They are promoters. As such, they’re not even aware that there is such a thing as right and wrong. All they know and care about is to keep promoting whatever it is they have to promote.

As in “Highway 61 Revisited”:

Now the roving gambler he was very bored
Trying to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said, “I never engaged in this kind of thing before.
But yes, I think it can be very easily done.
We’ll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61.”

LA continues:

Describing the neocons as “promoters” is not the whole explanation or even the best explanation of them, but it’s valid as far as it goes. Another way of explaining them is that they want to be a part of the conversation, they want a place at the table, and they would lose that if they opposed liberalism seriously. At the same time, in order to have a place at the table, you need to stand for something, you need to be promoting some point of view, some cause. You don’t need to believe in that cause deeply, but you need to believe in it at least somewhat. For the neocons, spreading democracy is that cause. Before Spreading Democracy, there was National Greatness Conservatism. Before National Greatness Conservatism, there was Fighting the Culture War. They didn’t really believe in these causes, as shown by the fact that they soon dropped them, but they needed something to promote, to give themselves a political raison d’etre, because, at bottom, they don’t believe in anything. For them, at bottom, it’s all a game.

Allan Wall writes:

The paleocons assured us that everything the neocons did in the Middle East was for Israel. Now it turns out that the neocons have made the Middle East worse for Israel. Could it be that both the neocons and paleocons were wrong?

LA replies:

I have said, oh, maybe dozens of times, that the neocons’ Muslim democracy policy was harming Israel, and that the paleocons in their kneejerk hatred of Israel and of neocons could not see this.

Not only are both the neocons and paleocons wrong, as I have been arguing for twenty years, but they are both unregenerately wrong. Both groups live in such a distorted relationship to reality that they can never see the truth and thus can never recognize their own respective follies.

LA continues:

Just before the election, I was reading the largely pro-Obama election symposium at The Paleostinian Conservative (a.k.a. The American Conservative), in order to write an article showing in detail these individuals’ distorted views of reality and their (to put it kindly) immature and irresponsible character. I got halfway through it and stopped. I will try to get back to it and write it up.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 23, 2012 11:31 AM | Send