Bush's neocons? excuse me?
I've seen the term "neocon" before. The only place I've ever seen it is on Yahoo message boards where people with more time than brains pointlessly argue with others in a similar situation but opposite viewpoint. I thought of it as yet another example of extremists on both sides (liberals and conservatives are both guilty) misunderstanding and lazily attributing a whole bunch of qualities to everyone not like them.
I guess part of my issue is what I consider the great double standard. Conservatives are constantly criticized as bigoted, uncaring, intolerant people with a rigid view of right and wrong, handed to them by some preacher from some equally intolerant church. In one conversation, I was defending a judge's right to put whatever the hell he wants on his wall, and if that's the ten commandments, so be it. I was asked, "well, what if you were being tried by a Muslim judge and the thing on the wall was some quote from the Quran?" I said that would be fine with me. I was immediately called a liar, because my answer didn't fit the stereotype. I don't believe anything a judge displays on his wall in a public forum infers that the government endorses any religion. If a judge puts a picture of Joe Gibbs on his wall, I don't think it infers government endorsement of the Washington Redskins, either. If it's a spyrograph, it's no endorsement of the toy company Kenner. The judge is there to enforce the law, not his religion. The fact that he likes something said by some representative of a religion and displays it publicly, and the fact that he may believe the tenants of that religion, have nothing to do with the case at hand or the rule of law. But I digress...
Conservatives are criticized by some for pigeonholing welfare mothers, the homeless, gang members, crack addicts, and any number of groups. We're told that we stereotype people unfairly, and everyone is different, and each person's circumstances are different, and yet, when someone else does it to us, that's supposed to be OK...because they think their stereotypes are right.
Where this rant is coming from...
Apparently this weekend I was in a news vacuum. I spent a good deal of Saturday helping the youngster study for social studies and science tests this week, and Sunday..well, there was football. I missed the news. Apparently I missed Mitch Cumstein..errr Bill Clinton going off on some Fox News interviewer. Someone showed me excerpts of the interview this afternoon. No, I didn't watch the whole thing. Twenty seconds and I got the general confrontational gist, from both sides. While I expect internet idiots to pigeonhole people like me in a group they labeled "neocons", I never exected it from Bill Clinton, who, for all his faults, is supposedly a fairly educated Rhodes scholar kind of guy. I never expected stereotype prejudices to come spewing from his mouth. Yet there he was, putting us all in a bucket called "Bush's neocons". Yeah, a lot can be learned from that twenty seconds of video. I've said plenty of times here, Bush ain't my idea of presidential perfection. I think there are plenty of better choices, but one of them isn't John Kerry-Heinz, so even today, I'd vote for him again in that election. Given better choices, maybe that wouldn't be the case. But hey, what do I know? I'm just one of Bush's neocons.
I guess part of my issue is what I consider the great double standard. Conservatives are constantly criticized as bigoted, uncaring, intolerant people with a rigid view of right and wrong, handed to them by some preacher from some equally intolerant church. In one conversation, I was defending a judge's right to put whatever the hell he wants on his wall, and if that's the ten commandments, so be it. I was asked, "well, what if you were being tried by a Muslim judge and the thing on the wall was some quote from the Quran?" I said that would be fine with me. I was immediately called a liar, because my answer didn't fit the stereotype. I don't believe anything a judge displays on his wall in a public forum infers that the government endorses any religion. If a judge puts a picture of Joe Gibbs on his wall, I don't think it infers government endorsement of the Washington Redskins, either. If it's a spyrograph, it's no endorsement of the toy company Kenner. The judge is there to enforce the law, not his religion. The fact that he likes something said by some representative of a religion and displays it publicly, and the fact that he may believe the tenants of that religion, have nothing to do with the case at hand or the rule of law. But I digress...
Conservatives are criticized by some for pigeonholing welfare mothers, the homeless, gang members, crack addicts, and any number of groups. We're told that we stereotype people unfairly, and everyone is different, and each person's circumstances are different, and yet, when someone else does it to us, that's supposed to be OK...because they think their stereotypes are right.
Where this rant is coming from...
Apparently this weekend I was in a news vacuum. I spent a good deal of Saturday helping the youngster study for social studies and science tests this week, and Sunday..well, there was football. I missed the news. Apparently I missed Mitch Cumstein..errr Bill Clinton going off on some Fox News interviewer. Someone showed me excerpts of the interview this afternoon. No, I didn't watch the whole thing. Twenty seconds and I got the general confrontational gist, from both sides. While I expect internet idiots to pigeonhole people like me in a group they labeled "neocons", I never exected it from Bill Clinton, who, for all his faults, is supposedly a fairly educated Rhodes scholar kind of guy. I never expected stereotype prejudices to come spewing from his mouth. Yet there he was, putting us all in a bucket called "Bush's neocons". Yeah, a lot can be learned from that twenty seconds of video. I've said plenty of times here, Bush ain't my idea of presidential perfection. I think there are plenty of better choices, but one of them isn't John Kerry-Heinz, so even today, I'd vote for him again in that election. Given better choices, maybe that wouldn't be the case. But hey, what do I know? I'm just one of Bush's neocons.
John put this out here at 3:02 PM
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