Defying labels
: Dean Esmay gets this off his chest about labeling people neocon. He starts with a history of the term and then says:
What’s bizarre is that, since 9/11, angry left-wing critics have started dubbing just about everyone who disagrees with them on defense matters a “neocon.” Democrat, Republican, socialist, capitalist, it doesn’t matter. If you supported the effort to liberate Iraq, you are a “neocon.”
People who’ve considered themselves conservative Republicans their whole lives, like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, are now routinely called “neocons.” Democrats who support the war effort get called “neocons.” People who voted for Gore who think Iraq was the right thing to do are called “neocons.” Pretty much anybody who thinks that America needed to take out Saddam Hussein and start the process of reforming the thug-regimes of the Middle East, or who thinks the liberal democratic state of Israel has a right to exist and is not the moral equivalent of Yassir Arafat’s terrorist-regime, is now dubbed a “neocon.”
There is also a subtle undercurrent among some (not all, but some) who use the term that a “neocon” is really someone who’s either Jewish, or secretly influenced by Zionist thinkers.
He’s right but I find just as frequently that just supporting the war gets you labeled “right-wing.” It all sinks to the level of a playground argument.
