The Liberalism of 'Conservatives'

Somebody once said that 'everyone will be blogging in a few years'. Well, it's not quite true yet, but we are definitely getting there. Now, Charlie Wolf has joined in, albeit a little sporadically.

Who's Charlie Wolf? Well, he is an Ayn Rand devotee, unemployed radio host, uber hawk and, generally, a Neoconservative extraordinaire. Unsurprisingly, he talks quite a lot of nonsense, especially about Iraq and Israel.

But even Charlie comes out with some salient points, sometimes. Take this post, in which he takes aim at David Cameron:

He said that he is not a neo-conservative but is a liberal conservative. But neo Conservatives are liberal conservatives.

Very true Charlie. Neoconservatism is liberalism, albeit right-liberalism. When Cameron professes he's a 'liberal conservative', he really means he believes in left-liberalism. The battle in modern conservatism is merely a civil war between right and left liberals. Let's not forget that Cameron still generally believes in the Iraq war, but not the way it has been prosecuted. His economic ideas are not radically different to that of the right of the party, with tax the obvious exception.

But, to support the war in Iraq contravenes fundamental conservative principles. Last week's Spectator quotes John Hulsman:

The necons have gone wrong by offering us humanitarianism on steroids. It has been false realism, as though you impose democracy at the barrel of a gun and people will like that. As though one size fits all for the world - culture and history don't matter at all. In essence, the neoconservatives are still Jacobin utopian Rousseauian Trotskyists, supporters of permanent revolution. That's their gig. And of course it's met with predictable disaster.

The traditions of conservatism go back to Edmund Burke, not to this utopian fantasy that you can make the world a Kantian paradise sometime in the near future.

Darwinian Conservatism picks up the baton:

The American war in Iraq violates such conservatism by assuming a utopian view of human nature. That explains why many American conservatives now realize that the neoconservative idealism of Bush's war in Iraq is not really rooted in conservative thought.

The American war in Iraq is foolishly utopian in at least two respects. First, it is utopian in the assumption that the institutions of ordered liberty can be nourished around the globe in every society by imperialistic wars.

Neocon Charlie Wolf, wouldn't understand that. His utopianist liberalism blinds him. That's why, later in his post, he wishes that Tony Blair would cross the House to become a 'Conservative' prime minister. Yes, anti-family, anti-liberty, anti-conventional marriage, pro-immigration, pro-taxation and pro-huge public spending Tony Blair. A conservative!!

Quite frankly, Cameron's rejection of neoconservatism, was the most salient thing he has ever said. His rejection of all neo-Jacobinist liberalism, would mark him out as fit to govern this country.