In response to the thread just posted:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1927351Leo Strauss is one of the neocon gods. He died in 1973. Machiavelli of the 15th century is another. I've spent a lot of time studying what they believe and below are a couple of excerpts of things I've learned. You'll see why they wanted to keep this trojan horse a secret for as long as they could.
Also, see: Federalist Society, American Enterprise Institute, Weekly Standard (Bill Krystol), and you'll find other links a these sites. It's a good education into their thinking.
To understand the neo-conservative one must first attempt to understand something about the source of their fantasies. Shadia Drury, author of “Leo Strauss and the American Right”, explains that in Strauss’s view “deception of the citizens by those in power is critical, because they need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what’s good for them.”
Yikes ‘a frickin’ mighty! And to think that one of Strauss’s star students was Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of the Iraq war.
Unlike Plato who believed that leaders had to be people with such high moral standards that they could resist the temptation of power, Strauss thought that “those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no one morality and that there is only one natural right, the right of the superior to rule over the inferior.”
Lovely guy, Strauss. He’d make a great football coach, but Empire ruler over opinionated Americans? Ummmmmm…not so much.
“Strauss also believed (are you ready?) that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat,” said Drury. “Following Machiavelli, he maintains that if no external threat exists, then one has to be manufactured.”
Things beginning to sound familiar? You can see why it’s useless to try and debate a neocon concerning the war. While we citizens of the United States have always been at the forefront in advocating perpetual world peace, Straussians believe in perpetual war to maintain national unity.
We have to perpetuate and maintain war if we want peace? I guess when you think about it they may have a point, at least in theory. When everybody is dead, it should be damn peaceful, huh? You’re either for us, or you’re dead.
For today’s neocon a very important means to affect a desired end is the use of the ‘strategic lie’ in the interest of maintaining order amongst the masses, even if it means subverting the laws written in the Constitution. This is not careless rhetoric, fellow citizens…..this is what they believe….this is Nic and Leo 101.
Can there be anything more obvious than the low regard, and even contempt, the the neocon’s have for our Constitution and its Bill of Rights? Take Karl Rove as a perfect example. As brilliant as everyone seems to think this asshole is, his lies in the Valerie Plame case are coming to light, representing yet another pulled thread that is leading to a complete unraveling.
In some ways I’m very worried. I pray these neurotic sociopaths at least have enough restraint to not try and take the country down with them. They’re becoming cornered which means they may decide to launch another war soon. In my mind they are very capable of this. So, please, google “neo-conservative, Machiavelli, Leo Strauss, politics, Federalist Society, American Enterprise Institute” and there are links to countless other areas to get a real feel for these people. Personally, I just don’t want to have to say I didn’t know.