Comments on: Clarke declares Blairism dead

By: E.D. Kain

E.D. Kain — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:07:28 +0000

And in the United States, I would say the Democrats need to shake the Leftist enviro-hysterical anti-corporate, anti-free trade crowd, while the GOP would do well to shake the anti-Freedom religious right.

Enter the Centrists–pro-market, pro-defense, secular, and vastly outnumbered…

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:01:03 +0000

Thanks for the positive feedback. It is indeed hard to say where neoconservativism ends and other outgrowths of classical liberalism may begin. The question is also very different in the U.K. from the U.S.A. In Britain, although neoconservatism is, if anything, more closely associated with Blairite Labour than the Conservative Party, there are probably no members of the Labour Party (Blair included) who would identify themselves as neocons. As you suggest, this is partly because to do any such thing would be political suicide.

On the other hand, we would not describe ourselves as neocons either, although we would neither regard the label as an insult nor reject it outright. On the contrary, we regard neoconservatism as essentially a liberal creed, although as distinct from what passes for liberalism in the United States as from what passes for conservatism in the U.K. We consider that we are here to rescue liberalism from the left and conservatism from the Tories. We have chosen the label “progressive” to set ourselves apart from both.

By: E.D. Kain

E.D. Kain — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Rational political thinkers in the UK and the US can learn a great deal from Blair and his policies at home and abroad.

As an American, I have what is likely a much different vantage point on the Blair years. I admired (and still admire) his international policies, and believe that he was far more in tune with the principles of globalism and international democracy than our current President ever was.

The Bush administration was made up primarily of the non-interventionist realists than it ever was of neoconservatives, and in many respects the events of 9/11 forced their hand; whereas Blair had already been swept up in the tide, as it were, during the 90’s.

On Domestic matters, however, I have been less attuned, though with the recent spate of libel suits against Harry’s Place, and other complaints surrounding restrictions of free speech especially in the matter of Islamism, this has become a more dire issue.

In any case, I love the Journal. Your statement of principles nicely mirrors my own political beliefs and I am intrigued by the notion of “new progressive” as opposed to “neoconservative” though by all accounts they are the same thing minus the stigma attached to the latter….