The biggest problem with the neocons is their sheer aggressive stupidity. There is no reasoning with them. They refuse to see that militant Islam - not the Slavic world - is the real threat to the US, and that there is no way to carve out a sphere of influence within the Muslim world or to spread any form of republican government or civil society there. Allowing Muslims to gain influence in the US is tantamount to raising up vipers within our nation's bosom. The price we will someday have to pay for their folly is incalculable.

I guess it comes down to this ... I have yet to find anyone come up with anything better than our founders did. I have yet to find a political "intellect" that can truly match the intellect of Thomas Jefferson.

And in terms of today's "intellects" ... Led by what has become today's "national greatness" conservatives, they've completely eliminated the thoughts of today's legions of liberty-minded intellects. Why?

For example, if the folks at National Review or the Weekly Standard were honestly in favor of liberty, they'd be quoting Mises, Rothbard, and Higgs all the time! But they don't.

In terms of intellectualism, Bill Kristol is a piker compared to these gentlemen.

Matt,

There is no Conservative way to do big government.

You are absolutely correct!

1. There is no Conservative way to do big government. The two are antithetical by nature.
2. Neocons blur the distinction between the Republcans and Democrats.

That being said, I have seen so many Conservatives drop out or stay inactive. The general consensus in this group seems to be that there is no difference between the "demicans" and "republicrats." I have to admit that I have been tempted to join that crowd, but I cannot in good conscious, do that.

I do agree with Greg in that it is not the time to have significant dissension in the ranks. That can be handled at a later time, but it must be handled at some point.

However, they were quite disturbed by the anti-Americanism of the Vietnam era, especially on university campuses. They also questioned, using sociological methodology, some of the treasured views of New Deal and Great Society progressives. They used the tools of the Left against the Left and were able to offer sophisticated critiques of policies like the "War on Poverty" and old school welfare. Some of these critiques eventually led to things like the conservative triumph of welfare reform in the 90s.

The new generation of "neocons" as exemplified by Bill Kristol and many others were always Republican and always pushed a traditional, social conservative agenda while being more muscular abroad (hence Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan's late 90 Foreign Affairs article on "neo-Reaganite" foreign policy and the Project for a New American Century or PNAC).

While I agree that "neocons" are not conservative in the Burkean sense, I believe they remain allies against the excesses of radical progressives and post-modernists in the realms of academia.

They do espouse more faith in government, but I think they also point to a serious challenge that conservatives of a more libertarian stripe have.

This is the challenge of how to keep government under control, but allow it to do some things that may well be necessary in a new and vastly complex world of interdependence, economic intertwining, and proliferation of technology that allows small groups to wreak the damage previously necessitating fully armed states or ravaging hordes.

I do not think we can go back in time and resurrect some gold standard of the past. As I recently blogged,

"We need people to respect their traditions from a position of intellectual (not merely emotional) strength while also recognizing the vast differences of the world beyond our borders.

We need leadership that is conservative, but not trogdolyte. We need a leadership that is visionary, but not utopian. We need a leadership that can educate, but not scold. We need something that no current political figure brings to the table and we need it soon."

Neoconservatives certainly overestimated our capacity to impose democracy through the barrel of a gun in Iraq. They also advocated policies that spent too much money and facilitated (though by no means caused) our continued spending binges.

Yet those mistake, as dire as they are, do not mean they cannot help us in our battle against the hard left progressivism Obama and the current Congress brings to the table.

I think criticism is warranted, but for the moment, perhaps, the criticism should remain a bit more muted as the larger threats and challenges confronted.