Jonah Goldberg:

The basic problem liberals have a hard time grasping: Murray is a soaked-to-the-bone libertarian. He doesn't think the government is qualified or entitled to do much of anything. But whenever liberals hear conservatives or libertarians talk about race they automatically leap to images of Nazism or Fascism when virtually all serious or mainstream rightwing thinkers endorse, at most, benign neglect AKA colorblindness. You can take exception to such arguments, even passionate exception, but it is outrageous to suggest that Murray or Bill Bennett (remember his Freakonomics hypothetical?) or pretty much any other conservative or libertarian worthy of the label wants to use state power to oppress or eliminate minorities. It is a slanderous projection of liberal biases onto conservatives and it has been with us since the days when Herbert Spencer was demonized for being a radical liberal.

This is the same mindless jumping to conclusions that causes some people to call me a Republican, or "right winger" or "conservative," or "neo-con."

By the way, Jonah's new book looks pretty interesting.

I love the cover.

I think your foreign-policy is neo-conservative. Do you disagree? Don't you believe that democracy should be encouraged world-wide? Don't you believe that American military force should be selectively applied pro-actively, with the dual goals of spreading democracy and furthering American interests, when those interests are basically ethical ones? I think you differ with the neo-conservatives on domestic policy, where your positions are more libertarian.

The great game: figuring out how to pigeon hole Rand!

I think your foreign-policy is neo-conservative. Do you disagree?

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

In the tradition of the Kristols (father and son)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism seems to spell it out. I tried my best. Maybe you are just hard to pigeon hole.

Is your email address obvious from Google? I would like to send you one, and only one, very short, non-wacky non-anonymous note.

Abominable:

According to your definition, John Kennedy could be the poster-boy for Neo-Conservatism.

As far as I know, a neo-conservative is someone who (like Irving Kristol) is a former liberal, but was mugged by reality, at least on foreign-policy matters. In my experience, most people who bandy about the term "neocon" haven't given much serious thought to foreign policy, or much of anything else. Particularly when they call Don Rumsfeld one.

Why is it so important to you to be able to attach a label to my belief set?

It isn't important at all - and really, labels harmful because they straightjacket your thoughts. I was kidding.

I think that the way people use "neo-con" is funny, but also sad. I think John Kennedy might indeed have been a neo-con.

My email address is displayed on my blog, in the upper-left corner.

I would call such a foreign policy "plain but sane". Since the devil is in the details I bet with some proper use of hypothetical examples one could even get Kucinich to agree to it (but probably not Dr. Paul, McKinney, or the candidates from various tiny US parties).

And yes the book cover is awesome.

Today John Kennedy would be considered a moderate Republican -- and quite possibly a neo-conservative.

That cover explains socialist-liberalism quite accurately. It is smiley-face fascism.