Neo-Con Agenda: Mount Vernon Statement

Today conservatives reaffirmed their fundamental belief in constitutional principles which they have spent the past 50 years undermining at every chance.  The truly ironic part of the Mount Vernon Statement is that only two of the 5 principles they present can actually be located in the constitution.  The remaining three are neo-con principles that have evolved over the past 50 years as today's republicans rested control of their party away from classical conservatives and limited government conservatives.

Here are the "Constitutional Principles" that the neo-cons have decided to stand for:

(1) It applies the principle of limited government based on the rule of law to every proposal.
(2) It honors the central place of individual liberty in American politics and life.
(3) It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in market solutions.
(4) It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.
(5) It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood, community, and faith.

Alright, so to be fair the first two are definitely constitutional principles, but lets not pretend the republicans EVER respected those principles.  Republicans have been all to happy to expand the size and role of government under their rule.  Take for instance George Bush.  On the economic front, he used to tax policy to pump money directly into the bank accounts of the rich, which by all realistic measures caused the enormous over-growth of our economy that resulted in the enormity of the economic crash of the past 2 years.  on the social front, he was happy to support the regulation of sexual practices (sodomy, which was only overthrown thanks to the liberal leanings of the court) and marriage.

As for individual liberty, I'm not sure who gets the liberty.  Certainly not gays, minorities (who are being denied higher education thanks to conservative intervention in admissions policies), women (who may soon lose control of their bodies), or the non-religious.  So who exactly gets liberty in conservative america?  oh yeah, straight white religious men.  That doesn't really sound like a good thing to me.

The second three are not even constitutional principles.  The free market was always separate from the constitution, because economic policies are irrelevant.  It was only in the 1950s during the Red Scare that liberty, democracy, and free markets were associated as a means of alienating the communists.  There is nothing necessary about Free Markets, it simply happens to be the most fitting form for our economy and also the most effective, but that is irrelevant to a discussion of constitutional principles.

Advancing freedom is also found no where in the constitution and involving ourselves in the affairs of others has ALWAYS been a suspect practice and one that has hurt us in the past.

I don't think I even need to note why family, community and neighborhoods would be irrelevant to the framers of the constitution.  As for faith, the government was never meant to defend faith it was meant to stay out of it and defend itself from faith.

Notice how the last three look a whole lot like a laundry list of policy pandering to the three powerful constituents of the republican party: Social conservatives, economic conservatives, and war hawks.  Republicans, lets not pretend that this has anything to do with going back to constitutional principles, it is a bold faced attempted to pander to your base.  Nothing more.

The results of today's declaration are nothing more than a reaffirmation that Republicans will continue to abuse the constitution to push their power-hungry agenda of religious extremist, military domination and oppression of the world, and economic incompetence.

Common Sense