Most of today's political labels serve as smokescreens for big government, though it's not readily apparent from their definitions.  For example, here's how dictionary.com defines neoconservative: "An intellectual and political movement in favor of political, economic, and social conservatism that arose in opposition to the perceived liberalism of the 1960s: 'The neo-conservatism of the 1980s is a replay of the New Conservatism of the 1950s, which was itself a replay of the New Era philosophy of the 1920s' (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.)."

Clear, isn't it?  What does this tell us about a neoconservative's convictions?  Would he or she support free trade?  Abolition of the income tax?  The government's war on terrorism?  Are they simply disillusioned liberals who turned to conservatism?

We might expect the neoconservative.com web site to clear up the matter of who they are.  Neoconservatism, they tell us, "is committed to cultural traditionalism, democratic capitalism, and a foreign policy promoting freedom and American interests around the world."  [1]  Their explanation includes two terms dripping with warmth and vagueness--cultural traditionalism and "democratic" capitalism--and an explicit contradiction--promoting freedom and America's interests.

As Aristotle explained 23 centuries ago, when our premises contain contradictions, any conclusion will follow.  Anything goes, in other words.

Perhaps we should step back a little and ask: What is a conservative?  Is it someone "favoring traditional views and values" who tends "to oppose change," as dictionary.com says?  Do conservatives also support that great ideal of "democratic" capitalism, or is that a monopoly of neoconservatives?

"When labels confuse rather than clarify, they should be dropped," writes Mark Skousen, president of the Foundation for Economic Education, who concluded that "the political spectrum has become a rhetorical version of Abbott and Costello's 'Who's on first?' routine."  [2]

But confusion is necessary for some people.  Few Americans would ever support dictatorships outright.  They must be led to believe they're voting for "democratic" progress or "new" freedom or "traditional American values."  Sadly, few Americans would support liberty directly, either.

The Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries produced the doctrine of man's rights, which declared that the only justification for government's existence was as protector of man's life and property.  Since the freedom each man is born with can only be violated by other men, human beings form societies as a means of common defense.  Through a constitution they give government written orders to defend their right to live free.  

People who adhered to this view of the state were once known as liberals.

Over time, the liberals, who generally prevailed in the early years of our republic, became conservatives, as ones resisting change. With Lincoln's election, the Hamiltonian view of the state took over, and government became the agent of special interests and the engine of corruption.  After the North's victory in the war, the government stepped up its meddling in the economy, creating bank failures, recessions, bankruptcies, and other forms of wrong-doing.  Throughout the latter half of the 19th century, it stayed close friends with business tycoons, some of whom found government's monopoly on coercion useful for exploiting markets and stifling competition.

By the close of the century, many Americans saw the abuses of American mercantilism, called it capitalism, and decided the cure was socialism.  With the precedent firmly established that government's compulsory apparatus was up for grabs, the Democrats, once the champions of free markets but now the home of the burgeoning socialist movement, wanted to use state power to empty the pockets of the rich.

As state aggrandizement got rolling, politicians of both major parties found it necessary to barter political favors in exchange for votes.  The disasters they engineered could only be fixed if they stopped meddling, but they never did.  Their goal was not simply power, but a system that generated it.  Mercantilism, the American System, interventionism--the various labels given to state control of our lives--was building more and more government muscle under the banner of freedom.  What the people were getting was dictatorship on the installment plan.

The fight between left and right has been mostly over how much money to confiscate and where to spend it--not on whether confiscation or government spending is justified.  The bloodbaths and ruinous economic and foreign policies of the 20th century have been brought to us by "compassionate" conservatives and liberals alike.

Most of the political labels infesting our language are semantic disguises.  If we look at what their advocates have created, we find the almighty state demanding sacrifice, obedience, and money.

In today's world, the antidote to state growth appears to be libertarianism.  But even that term is aligned with socialism in some circles.  [3]  And the Libertarian Party policy, though it claims to promote free trade, supports government funding through tariffs and excise taxes alone.  This is nothing, of course, compared to the wrenching system of taxes we're burdened with today, but it does represent a concession to government compulsion.  It reduces the blaze of state violations to embers, but enough is left burning to re-ignite the inferno.

There is one term remaining that even makes some libertarians squirm: laissez faire.  There's no mistaking its original intent--hands off!  When the 18th century French minister Colbert asked a group of businessmen what government could do to help them, one man, Legendre, replied, "laissez faire nous"--leave us alone.  No one has ever stated the philosophy of liberty more succinctly.  Subsequent French writers expanded the phrase to "laissez faire, laissez passer"--leave matters alone, let the goods pass through.

"Today the term laissez faire has come to mean: leave the people alone, let them be, in their economic activities, in their religious affairs, in thought and culture, in the pursuit of fulfillment in their own lives," writes historian Ralph Raico. [4]

As Ludwig von Mises observed over a half-century ago, we have essentially two choices in politics, and need only two labels: freedom or slavery, laissez faire or dictatorship.  [5]

References

1.  Neoconservatism online, http://www.neoconservatism.com/

2.  No More Political Labels, Please, Mark Skousen, http://www.mskousen.com/Books/Articles/labels.html

3.  A history of "libertarian", Bob Bickford, http://www.daft.com/~rab/liberty/history/

4.  Quoted in "A history of 'libertarian,'" Bickford

5.  Laissez Faire or Dictatorship, Ludwig von Mises, http://www.mises.org/fullarticle.asp?printFriendly=Yes&control=814