The liberal, neoconservative creed.

It is safe to say that I stand second to none in my estimation of my own intelligence (and innate virtue) but, try though I might, even on my best days, I still can't tell you what a neocon is. It started out as a way of describing a liberal Jew who had finally woken up to the realities of communism in the realm of foreign policy (if not to Communism Lite here at home). Then it seemed that a neocon was simply any liberal who'd had the same economy-size epiphany.

Lately, it seems to describe someone who wants to humiliate, anger, and worry the Russians; advance the world-wide foreign policy goals of Saudi Arabia; occupy Middle Eastern lands without getting one drop of oil for the gallons of our blood; subsidize the European welfare state; build up China, our major national strategic competitor; kiss Iranian and N. Korean ass; and tolerate the invasion of the homeland to the tune of tens of millions of foreigners. I don't know what's "neo" or "con" about any of that.

To the extent that "neocon" can be said to be a shorthand term for someone who adores political fantasy, I endorse Lawrence Auster's partial elucidation of the liberal, neoconservative creed:

[O]ur liberal, neoconservative creed, . . . gives us two absolute commands: that we can and we must make other people become like us: and that we must never, ever look at the reality that certain other people are irreduceably different from us.^[1]

This insight doesn't require that U.S. troops never set foot outside the continental United States, just that if they do they not be tasked with anything other than the protection of U.S. national interests. And only those. If our interests and those of foreigners coincide, and we make friends with them as a secondary consequence of our policy, then that's great. We sure as heck shouldn't delude ourselves to the extent that we now do that one particular kind of foreigner will ever be willing to be friends with us. Auster is clearly correct on that score when he says:

[W]e know enough about Muslims to know what is in them, that they are commanded by their god never to be friendly with us. It is therefore utmost folly for us to give our hearts to them and to commit ourselves to them.^[2]

Notes
^[1] "How Yon's "hopeful" message on Iraq wins us with honest trifles, to betray us in deepest consequence." By Lawrence Auster, View from the Right, 4/23/08.
^[2] Id. (comment).