If Occam were alive today he'd trade in that razor for a meat ax. Over here, a burning question:
Why is "neo-con" such an attractive epithet for those who enjoy slinging mud?
Well, I dunno, Mr. Bones. Supposing you tell me.
For the liberal public sphere, conservatives are wrong-headed, but "neo-cons" are con men, faithless and untrustworthy. Just as they were not true to the conservative movement (as if liberals cared about that), they become figures of ambivalent loyalty in general. This rhetorical slide explains the way the critique of neo-conservatism has sometimes taken on an antisemitic tone, one rhetorical point where the nativist right and the antiwar left too often converge. This allegation of betrayal is multidimensional: because "neo-cons" departed from liberalism to become conservative, and because their conservatism was only "neo," lacking in authenticity, the insinuation of insufficient patriotism always lingers in the air, the accusation of dual loyalty.
Ultimately though the real scandal in "neo-con" is the "neo"—not the specific principles or the doctrines, with which one might agree or disagree, but the very fact that someone might rethink and come to a new position. The guardians of regimented mind-sets, across the political spectrum, fear nothing more than the haunting specter of creative thoughts.
I think the hundreds of thousands dead for no sane reason might perhaps be more germane, personally. There may be someone out there somewhere on The Left who laments that Paul Wolfowitz is a turncoat -- perhaps this is the fellow? But overall, as a Man of the Left myself (like Hillary Clinton, FDR, and Hitler), I remain unpersuaded.
This line of argument is revolting. Since when do good intentions get you a discount at the Gates of Hell ticket booth, step right on in, see all the attractions? Because you had the proper -ism, all your deep thoughts lined up in a row, it's wrong or declasse or anti-intellectual to hold you in contempt when your Grand Ideas undergird a human disaster?
You know, this class of stuff is exactly why curses were invented, and I hereby invoke them: fuck you, Russell Berman, you fucking asshole. Fuck you to Hell, you preening self-righteous shit.
I'm not going to apologize for knowing the truth of any -ism by its trail of dead.