Gyroscopic Investing

Simonjester wrote: on the original question about what the neocons will do, i think they are already globalists, so no change there.. the interesting thing may be what happens during the next election cycle. if Hillary is prosecuted and her emails and corruption take down a good sized chunk of the democrat party with her, it might be the end of the democrat party as we know it.. if at the same time a populist, nationalist, tea party movement with trump providing the wedge splits the republican party or takes control of it, then you might see former democrats leftist and neocon republicans joining up in one party, and the non neocon republicans being in another...

moda0306 wrote:I'm still trying to figure out a really good consistent definition of neoconservative.

I don't consider Trump to at all be a reliable non-interventionist. I believe the markets agree with me, after seeing how well the military industrial complex firms performed today compared to the rest of the market.

From the looks of it to me, pretty much all post-WWII political activity involved in very heavy foreign intervention by the establishment of both parties. The "Truman Doctrine" carried all the way through the cold war, and even after that they just found new excuses to maintain a muscular intervention position.

His VP is a neo-con. I say he essentially adopts a different form of interventionism. Just like Bush II did. He ran as a non-interventionists (no more nation building), then decided that we'd build democracies in the Middle East. That was just applying a finer polish on our neo-con turd. Rather than supporting dictators like we had been for decades... we'll just kick them out and establish democracies.

As usual... soldiers lose, taxpayers lose, citizens of countries we fight lose, other issues lose (distracted by war), but somehow the military industrial complex wins.

I think we won't see a whole lot different going forward. But I've been bad at predicting so it should be interesting. I just know I'm deeply skeptical of our government in ways I've never been before. That's surely not trumps fault... well not entirely anyway.

TennPaGa wrote:

clacy wrote:One clear indicator is if you're constantly talking tough towards Russia/Syria and discussing setting up no-fly zones against a nuclear armed country (Russia), in one of the seemingly endless supply of useless Middle East countries (Syria) that we (US) have destabilized in the last 15 years, then you are probably a Neo-Con.

I like the Jeff Foxworthy vibe.

Simonjester wrote: if --Oceania is at war with with Eurasia:... Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia
if -- Oceania is at war with Eastasia:.... Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
then you might be a neocon....

Simonjester wrote: if you believe that breaking a bunch of windows will stimulate the economy...

you might be a neocon

Simonjester wrote: if protecting the constitution, and the freedom it guarantees is so important to you that you will destroy both to protect them from our enemies...

you might be a neocon

Simonjester wrote: if you got your job as a lobbyist for the military industrial complex because it is directly related to a political appointment that you recently held....
if you got your political appointment because it is directly related to a job as a lobbyist for the military industrial complex that you recently held.....

you might be a neocon

moda0306 wrote:I'm still trying to figure out a really good consistent definition of neoconservative.

I don't consider Trump to at all be a reliable non-interventionist. I believe the markets agree with me, after seeing how well the military industrial complex firms performed today compared to the rest of the market.

I think we won't see a whole lot different going forward. But I've been bad at predicting so it should be interesting. I just know I'm deeply skeptical of our government in ways I've never been before. That's surely not trumps fault... well not entirely anyway.

moda0306 wrote:It just seems like a sloppy term. It all just seems like different versions of armed intervention to me. If Trump allies with Russia, changes some of our relationships with dictators, continues to sell them weapons, bombs the $hit out of ISIS, and invades the Iraqi oil field with troops to get the oil out, is that "neoconservatism?"

Neoconservatism draws on several intellectual traditions. The students of political science Professor Leo Strauss (1899–1973) comprised one major group. Eugene Sheppard notes that, "Much scholarship tends to understand Strauss as an inspirational founder of American neoconservatism."[39] Strauss was a refugee from Nazi Germany who taught at the New School for Social Research in New York (1939–49) and the University of Chicago (1949–1958).[40]

Strauss asserted that "the crisis of the West consists in the West's having become uncertain of its purpose." His solution was a restoration of the vital ideas and faith that in the past had sustained the moral purpose of the West. Classical Greek political philosophy and the Judeo-Christian heritage are the essentials of the Great Tradition in Strauss's work.[41] Strauss emphasized the spirit of the Greek classics, and West (1991) argues that for Strauss the American "Founding Fathers" were correct in their understanding of the classics in their principles of justice. For Strauss, political community is defined by convictions about justice and happiness rather than by sovereignty and force. He repudiated the philosophy of John Locke as a bridge to 20th-century historicism and nihilism, and defended liberal democracy as closer to the spirit of the classics than other modern regimes.[42] For Strauss, the American awareness of ineradicable evil in human nature, and hence the need for morality, was a beneficial outgrowth of the premodern Western tradition.[43] O'Neill (2009) notes that Strauss wrote little about American topics but his students wrote a great deal, and that Strauss's influence caused his students to reject historicism and positivism. Instead they promoted a so-called Aristotelian perspective on America that produced a qualified defense of its liberal constitutionalism.[44] Strauss influenced Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, editor John Podhoretz, and military strategist Paul Wolfowitz.[45][46]

...

During the early 1970s, Socialist Michael Harrington was one of the first to use "neoconservative" in its modern meaning. He characterized neoconservatives as former leftists – whom he derided as "socialists for Nixon" – who had become more conservative.[10] These people tended to remain endorsers of social democracy, but distinguished themselves by allying with the Nixon administration with respect to foreign policy, especially by their endorsement of the Vietnam War and opposition to the USSR. They still endorsed the welfare state, but not necessarily in its contemporary form.

Irving Kristol remarked that a neoconservative is a "liberal mugged by reality", one who became more conservative after seeing the results of liberal policies. Kristol also distinguished three specific aspects of neoconservatism from previous types of conservatism: neo-conservatives had a forward-looking attitude from their liberal heritage, rather than the reactionary and dour attitude of previous conservatives; they had a meliorative attitude, proposing alternate reforms rather than simply attacking social liberal reforms; they took philosophical ideas and ideologies very seriously.[76]

During January 2009, at the end of President George W. Bush's second term in office, Jonathan Clarke, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, proposed the following as the "main characteristics of neoconservatism": "a tendency to see the world in binary good/evil terms", a "low tolerance for diplomacy", a "readiness to use military force", an "emphasis on US unilateral action", a "disdain for multilateral organizations" and a "focus on the Middle East".[77]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism