Saturday, 6 September 2008

"liberal conservative not neo-conservative"

Reported yesterday on the BBC Today program that Cameron is at the Republican congress calling himself a "liberal conservative not neo-conservative"; sounds good to progressive types, but it is not often realised that neo-conservatism is a progressive ideology, dedicated to destroying traditional structures in order to impose a new order based on an absolute conception of Liberty. In this it differs from Bolshevism in that the bolsheviks wanted a new order based on Equality. There is another conception of liberty which is based on the idea of civic society rooted in traditional values, a diffusion of power through institutions and a less powerful state: this is classical liberty.

The Iraq War was a liberal war - or more properly a liberal progressive war: an alliance between democratic fundamentalists on the right (neo-cons) and liberal humanitarians on the left.

This is the question about Cameron. Is he a progressive liberal or a classical liberal?

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