Shut up he explained

The collective, numbing, drone of the NeoCons notwithstanding, much is terribly amiss with contemporary American foreign policy.

NeoCon pundits everywhere hasten to slap disparaging labels on anyone who questions the wisdom of spending billions of dollars plundered from American taxpayers and their progeny to "liberate" a nation from its despotic leader.

Or was it to "preempt" an "attack" -- via a fabled cache of "weapons of mass destruction" -- from that unsavory despot?

Or is it an imperialistic expression of NeoCon frustration over Osama bin Laden's successful evasion, vented out on the nearest available substitute?

It seems that at any given moment, the purpose of this taxpayer-funded "nation-building" adventure depends on which one is least indicted by a lack of empirical corroboration in the speaker's recent memory.

But while cycling through their list of justifications, NeoCons persist in neglecting the U.S. Constitution, rejecting out-of-hand any objections raised on the basis of the rule of law, the absence of which has rendered that document a relic of a bygone republic. They aim to silence such objections, burying them under a heap of patriotic-sounding slogans.

What's more, these same NeoCons have the nerve to presume that their brand of unabashed, unequivocal collectivist statism alone is patriotic, and anyone who differs (say, by suggesting that the present administration's conduct is well beyond the lawful limits of the Constitution) is ipso facto branded "anti-American."

NeoCons would do well to recognize that a patriot loves his country -- not the government. Their belief system -- not unlike any other -- merits a healthy dose of objective critical analysis, lest they find themselves unwittingly marching down the same unfortunate road as many a self-styled "conservative" or "patriot" of past generations (and nations).

In the absence of such introspection now, we (and our progeny) are doomed to a needlessly unhappy repetition.