Standing outside the fire

Where are you on the political spectrum?

The late journalist Joe Sobran (1946–2010) analyzed the political spectrum, thusly:

If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you're a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate. If you don't want government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist.

When it gets down to it, most folks don't want this regime intervening in any domestic affairs. Cross “liberal” off the list, for we are aware of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Sobran once identified as a conservative, and perhaps due to being unceremoniously thrown out of the conservative movement in the Buckleyite purge of the early 1990s, his idea of “conservative” here properly describes the neoconservatives.

In the neoconservative worldview, there exists a constant itch for the government to intervene in foreign wars. Rarely do they effectively scratch that itch well enough for their own good.

In this young century alone, the…