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Entry: "Never Again" Nation Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/never_again_nation#23590 Post contents: Let's be fair, and let's be clear. The neoconservatives and the far left both look on the past and see much to be ashamed and angry about. But I don't think the neoconservatives hate America. They just think America is finally hitting its stride. The left, by contrast, concludes the West and America are rotten and deserve to be destroyed, overtaken by other peoples with strange religions, her property distributed amongst the deserving Sacred Other. Neoconservatives see hope for redemption if America continues the process of jettisoning all from the American identity that is contingent, historical, European, Christian, ethnonationalist, selfish, self-regarding, and nonideological. They even dismiss our love of America's beauty and vast expanses as the "love of mud," to quote Peggy Noonan. They are loyal to a Platonic Ideal America based on a minority view that took shape at the time of the Founding--rationalist Jeffersonian liberalism coupled with moderist Hamiltonian energy. This love of a "creedal" America is amplified their perceived needs as ethnic and religious minorities. Neoconservatism clearly began as a strain of Jewish thought, but like other Jewish innovations in the field of ideas--Marxism, Freudianism--it has universal appeal and is defended in universalist and rationalist terms. Thus, neoconservatives abstract from the parochial ethnic needs of American Jews to a more generic formula that also requires interventions in places like Kosovo and Iraq. It requires Muslim immigration, for example, and the rejection of racial and religious profiling of Muslims. These other policies are embraced in the interest of ideological consistency and in the interest of publicly rejecting any American ethnic and religious identity. These policies also reject any ethnic and religious American connection with Europe that may require intervention more readily there (or immigration preferences from there) but not in the Middle East. In other words, they idealize a deracinated Platonic ideal of America: one that is internally mixed up at home and forcefully united abroad under the aegis of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. It is a land where the English language, the Christian religion, and other retrograde loyalties are subordinate to the "civic religion" of democratic capitalism. I think they really believe this stuff. I do think they're concerned with their safety and flourishing as a group--what Jewish leaders unashamedly once promoted as "What's good for the Jews"--but their actions suggest a sincere devotion to an extremely dangerous universalist ideology, a devotion so extreme they're willing to endanger Jewish Americans rather than admit their formula is wrong. (Why else do neoconservatives not support mass deportation and profiling of American Muslims?) Under neoconservative democratic and universalist logic, Israel should be something of an embrassment, as it is an obvious ethno-state. Its defensive "apartheid" policies, quite frankly, bother me no more than South Africa's did back in the day. My only concern is that we're footing the bill and taking part of the blame. It is notable, along these lines, that Israel is frequently defended by neoconservatives on the ground that it's a "democracy." Their surely is a religious and mystic connection of American Jews to Israeli Jews and Israel itself, but their public rhetoric does not make this connection. It would be embarassing and discrediting to the universalist rhetoric we here the rest of the time from neoconservatives. Unlike the Alan Dershowitzes of the world, the neoconservatives may be results oriented and have dual motives, but they take great pains to be consistent: they've erected an elaborate philosophy that requires support for Israel today and intervention in Europe (and open American borders) in 1939. Any position that deviates from these two tests is rejected. So, even facts are obscured or wilfully ignored, including Israel's various illiberal policies. But paleoconservatives should not make the same mistake in reverse. Israel's elaborate border controls, ethno-religious immigration policies,ethnic and religious profiling, widespread possession of arms, and sense of internal solidarity are things we should immitate. There's no reason to venture into Noam Chomsky territory just because we, quite reasonably, see no good reason to pay for Israel's decision to live in what their leaders rightly call a "bad neighborhood." I just don't want the aggravation, as they say in New York. But let's not ignore the universalist logic and thus the broader appeal of neoconservatism. It's quite distinct from the crude ethnic solidarity at work in the 1913 case of Leo Frank, a Jewish O.J. Simpson, whose cause celebre gave rise to the ADL. Neoconservatives are willing to hurt America's objective interests today to embrace an elaborate series of policies that, like some Rube Goldberg contraption, always yields the following three answers no matter what else they do: America should have attacked Germany in 1939 and should behave this way today towards similarly situated countries; the U.S. should have let in the St. Louis refuge ship and should behave this way to strange and broke third world immigrants today; the U.S. should support Israel and other embattled democracies today. Sent at: 2008 07 20