I've been confused lately about the way NeoCons do business. In the past, both parties realized that they had to work together to accomplish things. Compromise to get needed votes was commonplace on both sides of the aisle. Politicians were relatively cordial to each other (at least in public) because they knew that they might need a favor some time in the future. They didn't want to get too extreme, especially in an election year, for fear of turning the public off. But the NeoCons don't operate that way. They act as if they can't be turned out of power, refuse to compromise, and they won't even look at what the other guys want - let alone vote for it or negotiate. They openly say they want to see the end of the Democratic Party. And they didn't even campaign to anyone but their base constituency.
None of that made sense to me. The best theory I could come up with is that they really had hacked the voting process and were positive of winning every election from now on. But yesterday, I got a glimpse of something else that made me wonder.
Now my boss is as neo-conservative as they come. He openly talks about how necessary it is to torture people and how bad the "ragheads" are and how we need to go to war with more countries. He thinks that nothing is too insulting to say out loud. He'll stand in front of me and tell me that women aren't smart or tell a Muslim employee that he is a terrorist threat. (Note to self: Never, ever again will I work for a privately-owned company. Who would have thought I'd miss having an HR department?). All liberals are Communists, taxes are evil, unregulated capitalism is the only possible way to govern, etc.
We got into this conversation the other day where he said that in order to know the correct moral position on anything, you had to look at the extremes and that would tell you what was the best thing to do. So he says, what would happen if everyone did something. Ok if everyone murdered people, yeah we'd run out of people fairly quickly. But then he uses leaving a following distance between vehicles as an example. If everyone did this then traffic would come to a halt. I counter with tailgating and the fact that if everyone tailgated, then traffic would come to a halt due to all the car wrecks. He says tailgating can't be defined. Clearly there is no arguing with this man as he doesn't listen to any opinions except his own. He once spent 20 minutes arguing about why a particular book could not have the title it had (HTML Complete) because it wasn't complete because it didn't cover a related subject (CSS). In his mind, if you don't agree with him, then your position must be at the other extreme end of the scale. Apparently he has no concept of shades of gray or middle of the road.
For the last couple of days, he's been all in arms about the Schiavo debacle in Congress. He can't believe the Republicans are taking such a Communist, Liberal stand. Sometimes I think I've stepped into the Twilight Zone, I still can't understand how this is either Communist or Liberal (which are not the same thing, but he thinks they are). And it is driving him crazy that another Conservative in the office is not as outraged that the Republicans might be doing something immoral. And it's always wrong for Congress to act just to protect one individual. The other guy isn't exactly happy about Schiavo either, but he is an old-fashioned conservative. He knows that both parties pass these kinds of laws affecting one person all the time. He pointed that out and my boss just freaked. Came totally unglued, even for him. After he left my office frothing at the mouth, the second guy looked at me and said, "You what his problem is? He doesn't understand that there can be perfectly good, morally upright people who don't agree with him on every issue."
And that, to me, summed up exactly what the NeoCon mindset is about. People who don't agree with them aren't just misguided or have different priorities; they are evil. And it would be morally wrong to compromise with them. No wonder they don't behave the same way that others in the political arena have always behaved.
So how do you fight that attitude? I haven't a clue, but maybe someone here has some better insight. The only thing I can think of is maybe we need to help the real Republicans take back their party. Maybe we should all join the Republican party and vote the NeoCons out in the primaries.
So that's my insight into the mindset. This is my first diary, so I haven't a clue if anyone else will find something of value in it or whether I'm just talking to hear myself talk. Fell free to be as scathing in your comments as you want; I have a thick skin.
