Is “NeoCon” now a pejorative terms in our society?In response to saying that the term "Liberal" has been turned into a dirty pejorative word I have heard acquaintances on the right say the Liberal-Left has done the same thing to the term NeoCon.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:Neoconservatism in the United States
Neoconservatism refers to the political movement, ideology, and public policy goals of "new conservatives" in the United States, who are mainly characterized by their relatively interventionist and hawkish views on foreign policy, and lesser emphasis on "small government" and restrictions on social spending, when compared with other American conservatives such as traditional or paleoconservatives.The prefix "neo" can denote that many of the movement’s founders, originally liberals, Democrats or from socialist backgrounds, were new to conservatism, but can also refer to the comparatively recent emergence of this "new wave" of conservative thought, which coalesced in the early 1970s from a variety of intellectual roots in the decades following World War II. It also serves to distinguish the ideology from the viewpoints of "old" or traditional American conservatism.
Unfortunately I think a lot a lot of these new Neocons act and behave like pit bulls fighting dogs (Ann Coulter comes to mind) and are more interested in being rude, insulting, and fighting with you (meaning us liberals) so the term does has developed a derogatory tone. I was saying just the other day that I this guy who’s a senior fellow (an economist) with a well known conservative think tank and I love talking with and listening to him (even though I don’t always agree) and I always learn something from the process. The key thing I noticed about him is he’s always courteous and shows respect for your opinions so I listen to him and think about what he has to say. Whereas by contrast there’s a neocon contractor I know and often cross paths with in the online trade forums such as the Journal of Light Construction and FineHomeBuilding’s Breaktime who is so extreme, insulting, and rude that you dismiss everything he has to say and your only choice since you can’t dialog and discuss issues with him is to fight back using the same inflammatory rhetoric
I think the neocon attack dogs have hurt conservatism and certainly helped create the extreme partisan stalemate we are in in this country.