Listening to chatter around the office and hearing “Neocon” repeated more than 20 times in a five minute span does more than annoy me, it proves to me that people take what they hear on the news and repeat it like parrots.

Me, being a straight shooting moderate conservative (who doesn’t necessarily share the same views of the entire party), has a responsibility to point a few things out.

1. Neoconservatism has nothing to do with military aggression – This misconception leads people to believe that the first Bush’s pulling out of Iraq during the Gulf War was a bad idea. That is completely false. Bush’s policy of not pursuing the war and driving into Baghdad had more to do with trying to keep the stable nature in a trying climate. There was, in my mind, a moral obligation to stay as we had promised the Kurds protection and in the end they were rounded up and killed because of our reneging.
2. Being conservative does not equate to neoconservatism – People can be conservative without being neoconservative, they are not the same. Please stop grouping them together.

Sorry for the rant, I just hear these things at work and my eyes roll back in my head because my brain cannot take it.