Sometimes I try to figure out what the hell is going through Rush Limbaugh's mind.
See, the people on the right aren't dumb, and they aren't religious zealots. Ralph Reed is a fucking genius, and the lord knows he doesn't know the lord, and still was head of the Christian Coalition at 28. Bill Kristol isn't an idiot, even if what he proposes is idiotic. Dick Cheaney showed during the debates that he knows his shit.
Yet in light of all of these obvious failures, they press on unfettered, still calling for more invasions. Is it stubborness, or as I suspect something more sinister? That the intellectuals are thinking longer term...
The rank and file right are driven by wedge issues, I got that. But these people at the top, they have to know that to work it, and still believe in the cause. You can't tell me Karl Rove gives a shit about Guns, Gays and God the way he plays that fiddle. So what is the plan?
My first thought is that neo-conservatism is actually just old school imperialism. It's the next level of manifest destiny, but you can't say empire anymore. That's like saying communism, no matter what you think, you can't say such things. But Ann Coulter said it clearly in a moment of candor following September 11th. "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
I think the neo-conservatives believe in Western Exceptionalism. Make no mistake, this has nothing specifically to do with American values, per say. If it did they wouldn't run roughshod over the constitution. Rather it is a belief in white american cultural and ethnic, superiority, driving them to seek to "westernize the savages."
Why else would they be so fixated on invading Iran? Because Iran is democratically elected. Iran has legitimate historical reasons to distrust us, and Iran is less of a threat to us then North Korea as a nation-state, and far less than either Saudi Arabia or Pakistan as a source of terrorist attacks.
But, much like God, Guns, and Gays, this is one they think they can win. This is an expansion they thinks they can achieve, a tiger they can poke at until it attacks and we can shoot it in self defense.
Why? Because the right believes in diplomacy at the point of a gun, and that we can do a better job as an empire than Europe, because they simply lacked gumption. They believe in the superior race, and it's rights to all that it surveys. They ironically are out to prove Darwin while condemning him for political expediency. Just like they will use the catholics to get out the anti-abortion, anti-gay vote.
Because they must civilize the savages...or wait...maybe that is where they think Europe went wrong...trying to civilize savages...why for the intellectual right that would be madness, like educating people in the ghetto...why bother on such inferior beings they would say...so maybe it isn't neo-imperialism at all...can anyone say neo-facism?