So...I did kinda wanna make this after thinking about the foreign policy metric I made yesterday, and how people might dispute what is "left" and what is "right.
Most specifically, people might dispute the placement of 4 and 5 on that scale, 4 being liberalism and 5 being paleoconservatism.
I put the scale as I made it because it's how I see right vs left. Paleoconservatives are more moderate right wingers, while liberals are something else altogether. But some leftists might think paleoconservatism, due to its non interventionism, is left of liberalism. Liberalism supports the same "imperialist" system as neocons and imperialists do in their mind, and also, liberals are very moderate socially. And some people might see the scale as imperialist to non imperialist. But this is a left right spectrum, and I don't see it that way.
Here's the thing, liberalism and neoconservatism are different ideologies. Neocons are concerned about the exercise of raw power and unilateralism in how they govern the world. Liberals are a totally different ideology focused on multilateralism and a rules based order.
While 3 (non interventionists) and 5 (paleocons) are both non interventionist, their reasons differ greatly. Often times, paleocons have the same ideology as neocons. They just believe that because we are in a position of superiority, that we can rest on our laurels and do nothing.
I mean, take after the cold war with the berlin wall falling. In the 1990s, the US had a pretty interesting foreign policy debate pre 9/11 about what the rule of foreign policy should be in a post cold war world. Liberals wanted to be more interventionist and use their powers for good, while conservatives adopted a more paleocon perspective of wanting to pull out of the UN and be nationalist and all. Liberals wanted to intervene in humanitarian crises like somalia, rwanda, and serbia, while paleocons wanted us to remain out of it as it didn't concern us.
Bush, in 2000, before 9/11, was a paleocon, he basically captured that zeitgeist and early in his first term pulled out of a bunch of nuclear missile treaties with russia. Why would they do that? Because they didnt want a rules based order in which we multilaterally disarm, he wanted us to built as many nukes as we wanted.
And then after 9/11, he became a neocon.
And that, right there, is the true nature of a paleocon on foreign policy. Their perspective is driven by a sense of isolationism and no clear threat being presented to the US. The second a threat presented itself, he went bugnuts and flipped to being a neocon overnight. And it's not just bush. take trump. Trump kinda wants to pull out of nato and crap. But, he also is psychotic on israel encouraging them to finish the job. He encouraged moving the embassy to jerusalem and recognizing it as the capital of israel. He assassinated Iranian generals and pulled out of the whole Iran deal Obama signed. This wasnt out of some real humanitarian "we shouldnt be involved in stuff" mindset. He did it mostly to snub the democrats, and because he wants us to intervene on our own terms. And that's what makes paleocons paleocons. They're still right wingers, they believe all the same things the right does, they just tend to be a bit more restrained about it.
Meanwhile liberalism is a different ideology entirely. And that brings us to the 3s, the non inteventionists on the left. Here's the thing. 3s are weird. They also are afforded by a perspective of the US can just sit back on its laurels and do nothing and be safe. But if a conflict breaks out, what does a 3 do? Well, more moderate liberal ones like myself will become 4s. We saw that as we shifted from iraq and afghanistan being the big conflicts of the day to ukraine and israel. I support backing our allies, leading from behind, etc. but a lot of non interventionists are becoming LEFTISTS. They're flat out saying we're imperialist and evil and blah blah blah. They categorically oppose intervention overseas, and see it as a categorical evil. Now, can you see paleocons and leftists on the same page here? No. They're total opposite ends of the spectrum. One side is fiercely nationalistic and patriotic and would tell the other side to "get a job, hippie" and the other side, are....the literal 1960s flower children and hippies. They can't be more opposed. So even if they get to similar results, they tend to come at it from polar opposite ideologies.
The scales I made arent always linear. Economics is, a straight line from capitalism to communism, but socially, we had a horseshoe with the liberal/libertarian folks in the middle and the left being woke and the right being conservative. The extremes on both sides become very authoritarian in opposite directions. And then you have foreign policy, where you get 3 brands of conservatives, 2 brands of liberals, and 2 brands of leftists. And ironically, the 1s get so anti america they end up simping for our enemies, because that's a thing sometimes. While 2s and 3s might genuinely be for non interventionism, the 1s would end up sympathizing with and embracing america's foreign enemies. So yeah, the spectrum is gonna be disjointed on foreign policy, but it's a scale that makes sense, and i think making paleocons to the left of liberals is counter intuitive. Some of the weirdo leftists who end up wrapping around to finding common ground with the right might end up sympathizing with it, but mostly, no. I think my scale makes sense and I just wanted to write this little addendum to my main post yesterday designing my choices for it.
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