Justin Green - DC

Yesterday I went on a bit of a rant regarding neoconservatism and its divorce from any conception of conservatism. At bottom, I argued, neocons more closely resemble international progressives than anything else with their utopian dreams and lack of skeptical restraint in making policy decisions.

Today’s post should bring this argument full circle as we examine the impact of such preferences on the domestic front.

What should we learn, for instance, from almost certain GOP nominee Mitt Romney? Romney promises to streamline (if not outright eviscerate) nearly every aspect of the federal government. There’s one area, however, where he vows to increase spending. That’s on defense. Romney wants to modernize our military, paying for maintenance and upgrades. Bravo on that front.

It’s just that he also vows to expand our role internationally. Somehow, having hundreds of foreign bases, half the aircraft carriers in the world, the most powerful air force ever known to man, and a defense budget that dwarfs the next ten nations combined isn’t enough for neoconservative hawks. That’s because the neoconservative vision is limitless. It forsees a world held to heel by American power. It advocates not for the judicious use of American might, but rather a blank check to overthrow dictators, fight boogeymen, and wage the wars of the past.

Today that vision comes home to roost. In the most ambitious budgetary reform in years (parts of which, incidentally, I fully endorse), the Paul Ryan plan seeks to dramatically shift the federal government’s balance books away from the unaffordable entitlement plans better suited for the demographics of the baby boom. He wants to allow people to save for retirement on their own and embrace the private market. His budget is one that revisits the federalism so essential to our national project.

It’s just that in one area it’s so baffling that only neoconservatism can explain the dissonance. That’s in “defense” spending. Forgive the italics, but how else can we call something defense when we haven’t been attacked by a foreign military anywhere near home in decades? I’m not alone on this. The American Conservative also expresses concern with what amounts to a blank check for foreign incursions.

Here’s Jordan Bloom’s take:

Ryan’s budget isn’t perfect. Most egregiously, it fails to scrutinize Defense Department spending with nearly the same rigor as he brings to domestic reforms–defense spending goes up, when it’s higher in real terms than during the Reagan years. It’s not fair to say Ryan wants to throw granny off a cliff, but it is fair to say he would throw granny off a cliff before he’d scrap the Joint Strike Fighter.

So while our national infrastructure decays, our commitment to fiscal responsibility is laughed away, and we send more young men and women off to experience the horrors of unnecessary fights, we keep on building more planes and ships to fight the boogeymen of the Cold War.

We frequently hear Ronald Reagan’s name invoked in favor of such action. What these people forget is that it isn’t 1980 anymore. There is no match on Earth for our military might. It’s not even close. Building the means of convention warfare in anticipation of someone catching up in a few decades isn’t cautious or pragmatic. It’s absurd.

Look, I’m far from a principled isolationist or pacifist. There are plenty of times when war is justified and America’s military arsenal should be put to use. Ridding Afghanistan of the Taliban in the early parts of the last decade, for instance, was one of those. So too was the first Desert Storm. But eventually we must realize there are limits to America’s military might. Our founding fathers, who my GOP so gleefully loves to invoke, were extraordinarily cautious about becoming over-involved internationally. They recognized the problems associated with policing the world. Hell, they saw Mother England experiencing just those problems as early as the 18th century.

This isn’t a dichotomous choice. We don’t have to decide between being strong or not. But we should practice caution and skepticism over hubris as this nation’s conservative movement. Call it what you will, but neoconservatism shares nothing but the name with conservatism. I recognize the roots of anti-communism in our party, but there’s one problem. Communism, at least in the sense we think of it today, is gone from the international nation state scene. The last bastion of pseudo-Marxism, North Korea, is more a joke than anything else.

So come home, neocons. This is no longer 1980. It’s also no longer 2003. The longer it takes to embrace caution and skepticism is the closer we’ll teeter toward insolvency and ruin. I agree with Mitt Romney that this is the American Century. But let’s collectively hope it’s for different reasons than unending war and mounting casualty counts.

My friend Squashed has written on the predicament now faced by Ron Paul supporters. It’s fairly clear that he won’t be winning the GOP nomination. It’s also quite clear that he won’t decide to be a third party candidate this go-round. His son Rand, a Senator from Kentucky, has a bright future in the GOP and I doubt Ron wants to damage his son’s political future.

So what are professed Paul supporters, myself included, supposed to do in his absence? As I stated months ago, I can’t support Mitt Romney. He appears a competent political leader and a decent man but, like Obama, his foreign policy is a deal breaker for me. I cannot in good faith vote for a man who prefers security to liberty. Perhaps that’s too high a standard for the leader of the free world, but it’s one I feel no shame in presenting. Until a presidential candidate has the courage to support drawing back the American Empire, he or she won’t be receiving my vote. Basic rights are far more important than nationalism or international prestige.

What’s more, any guilt over such a choice fades when we consider the minimal distinctions in domestic policy between the two major parties. Despite the flowery rhetoric, the GOP has yet to actually scale back major parts of the government. Symbolic cuts like ending earmarks don’t count. They’re trifles at best and callous distractions at worst.

But that doesn’t require voters to abstain from the ballot. The real action’s in Congress. Control the House and you can change the scope of the welfare state. Take back the Senate and you dictate nominees to the cabinet and Supreme Court. Having control of Congress makes feasible the idea of pushing back against the imperial presidency.  

So I can’t speak for other supporters of Dr. Paul, but it’s quite unlikely I’ll vote for President in November. If I do, Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party has the best chance of earning said vote. 

Let’s hear it, Paulites. Who do you support in the absence of Paul?

Apparently Barack ate dog. He didn’t seek out, kill and eat a dog. He ate dog meat as a young boy. The fact that it’s treated as a breaking scandal is especially silly considering that Barack wrote about it in his autobiography. But that this is considered scandal is his own fault.

Frankly, I don’t care if he ate a dog or a horse or a baby seal. Those things are considered taboo for human consumption in America, but we’re hardly the world’s norm creator for food.

This is only scandal worthy because Obama’s campaign remains fixated on a fake scandal involving Mitt Romney, a dog, a car and a vacation. Neither campaign really wants people to think deeply about these “issues.” They’re far more interested in painting the other as weird and unfamiliar to certain voter constituencies.

David Axelrod and ilk think Romney’s dog problem makes him look cold and removed from the everyday struggle of Americans. It’s a ludicrous connection, but politics these days are hardly reasonable. 

Romney’s cheerleaders (or Obama’s detractors, to be precise) believe highlighting Barack’s childhood story of eating dog will horrify American voters. Never mind that this story is almost certainly apocryphal.

Never mind that this entire show is political theatre. When talking about taxes and foreign policy fails to excite the voters, accuse your opponent of hating man’s best friend. If you don’t love and want to protect dogs, common sense says, you’re a bad American. (Of course, the fact that this is a reversal of why humans domesticated the dog is of no importance whatsoever.)

I’m not one to say democrats aren’t politically savvy. Axelrod of all people is a mastermind on this front. 

It’s just for once, it appears Barack might have bitten off more than he can chew.