Thread: Nuclear Logic?
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Old 28-01-2008, 22:33   #30
BBKing
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Re: Nuclear Logic?

Quote:
Neocon? Is that like "PC Brigade" and "Tree hugging liberal" where it's actually all in someone's mind
Short answer: No.

Long answer: The existence of something called 'Neoconservatism - Why We Need It' is the giveaway, unless you can point me to someone somewhere at some point writing 'PC-Gone-Mad-Woolly-Liberalism - A Really Good Idea', in which case my birthday's coming up and I could do with a good laugh. Neoconservatism is a movement with leaders, philosophers, strategic aims and a solid footprint on the planet you can go and look at (it's the smoking one full of wreckage where Iraq used to be). It's also an ideology that, like all ideologies, prizes loyalty, fanaticism and obedience above rationalism, evidence-based decision making and independence of thought (any display of the inverse characteristics is grounds for expulsion and denunciation).

Ideologies are *always* dangerous - liberalism, being defined as the absence of ideology, is the only sensible choice if you like the idea of individual freedom. Ideologies also like the idea of nice, clean Year Zeros where you can start from scratch, so giving them nuclear weapons and carte blanche to use them first is therefore like giving Amy Winehouse the keys to the crack den. Just Say No.

Neoconservatism comes out of things like the American Enterprise Institute, rags like the Weekly Standard and the Free Republic, and of course Fox News, is perfectly blatant and up-front about its aims and desires and has adherents and advisors at high levels in Europe, America, Australia and the Middle East (well, Israel, anyway), in both main UK parties (and a lot of ex-Trots, proving that you can't trust an ideologue anywhere), the British press (hi, Rupert), plus has a nice line in supplying oxygen thieves like John Bolton who crop up *everywhere* (such as Simon Mayo's show on Radio Five Live a few months back) advocating Bombing Iran Now Or Preferably Yesterday.

It's not a conspiracy theory if you can *see* it (and its effects), which is why I keep asking people to prove the 'PC Brigade' exist. No one has yet produced any compelling evidence*, although my door is always open.

So, are you intimating that neoconservatism doesn't exist, despite the obvious evidence of people describing themselves as neoconservatives acting in public in ways commensurate with a neoconservative political position? That sounds dangerously like a conspiracy theory to me ('just because you saw them blast off, film the trip to the Moon and come back with some moon rock doesn't mean it wasn't filmed on a soundstage in Hollywood').

* I'd accept any evidence of powerful, well-funded, organised groups ruthlessly dedicated to banning inoffensive pastimes like conkers or songs about pigs, or Christmas. Sounds a bit silly expressed like that, doesn't it? If you had a brigade, surely you'd do something a bit more challenging with it? Or alternatively, you'd want a bit more tangible success at the banning, since none of those have been banned.
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