# Can you enlighten me on PaleoConservative and NeoConservative ideals? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 14, 2016, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-enlighten-me-on-paleoconservative-and-neoconservative-ideals/743094 "2016-01-14T01:18:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-enlighten-me-on-paleoconservative-and-neoconservative-ideals/743094/21 "2016-01-14T18:36:34Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There are a lot of different groups under the conservative umbrella. The Paleoconservatives and the Neoconservatives are two relatively small ones. Thanks – I will study more about Conservative ideas. ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-enlighten-me-on-paleoconservative-and-neoconservative-ideals/743094/22 "2016-01-14T19:22:35Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This tells us nothing about whether liberals or conservatives are more likely to favor or oppose free speech – just that liberals are more likely to favor restricting ideas opposed by liberals, and conservatives are more likely to favor restricting ideas opposed by conservatives. Makes perfect sense. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-enlighten-me-on-paleoconservative-and-neoconservative-ideals/743094/23 "2016-01-14T19:37:27Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > Thanks – I will study more about Conservative ideas. Start [here](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/PoliticalIdeologies). Click on the folder labeled “Conservatism – For Tradition, and Skepticism!” In answer to your question, the best time to paleocons is perhaps the 1950s, before the Civil Rights movement and all that . . . or perhaps back before the New Deal . . . or before the Federal Reserve and the federal income tax . . . or even before the Civil War in some cases. The neocons’ ideal time is some time in the **future,** after democracy and capitalism have swept the whole world and we’ve reached [the End of History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man). [The neocons’ root influences include ex-communists](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoconservatism), and Marxists also tend to think in terms of global revolution culminating in some future “End of (Pre-)History.” ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-enlighten-me-on-paleoconservative-and-neoconservative-ideals/743094/24 "2016-01-14T20:34:08Z")
If there was a time that was better matched to conservative ideals it was probably the 1920s. Economically, the top marginal rates for income tax were cut in 1924 to 25%. There was little regulation, growth of government was slow, and the government debt was cut by a third. Immigration had been slowed, and abortion was outlawed. Because of this unemployment was low, standards of living were rising so fast that the decade was known as the roaring 20s. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-enlighten-me-on-paleoconservative-and-neoconservative-ideals/743094/25 "2016-01-14T20:54:04Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > If there was a time that was better matched to conservative ideals it was probably the 1920s. Economically, the top marginal rates for income tax were cut in 1924 to 25%. There was little regulation, growth of government was slow, and the government debt was cut by a third. Immigration had been slowed, and abortion was outlawed. Because of this unemployment was low, standards of living were rising so fast that the decade was known as the roaring 20s. And by the end of that decade, the smallness of that regulation allowed a massive stock market crash that kicked off a decade of Depression. Funny how your description stops short of those standards of living diving into the Marianas Trench for everyone but the Gettys, Rockefellers and Goulds. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-enlighten-me-on-paleoconservative-and-neoconservative-ideals/743094/26 "2016-01-14T20:56:40Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > If there was a time that was better matched to conservative ideals it was probably the 1920s. Economically, the top marginal rates for income tax were cut in 1924 to 25%. There was little regulation, growth of government was slow, and the government debt was cut by a third. Immigration had been slowed, and abortion was outlawed. Because of this unemployment was low, standards of living were rising so fast that the decade was known as the roaring 20s. Unemployment was low because abortion was outlawed?! ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-enlighten-me-on-paleoconservative-and-neoconservative-ideals/743094/27 "2016-01-15T17:06:34Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > And by the end of that decade, the smallness of that regulation allowed a massive stock market crash that kicked off a decade of Depression. Funny how your description stops short of those standards of living diving into the Marianas Trench for everyone but the Gettys, Rockefellers and Goulds. The stock market crash and the great depression had nothing to do with a lack of regulations. It was caused by currency deflation that resulted from bad government policy here and abroad. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-enlighten-me-on-paleoconservative-and-neoconservative-ideals/743094/28 "2016-01-15T17:49:10Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The stock market crash and the great depression had nothing to do with a lack of regulations. It was caused by currency deflation that resulted from bad government policy here and abroad. [There are several theories.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression#Causes) Yours appears to be the Monetarist theory. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-enlighten-me-on-paleoconservative-and-neoconservative-ideals/743094/29 "2016-01-15T20:24:52Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There are a lot of different groups under the conservative umbrella. The Paleoconservatives and the Neoconservatives are two relatively small ones. Well, I dunno about that – the neocons were always an academia-and-think-tank phenomenon with no mass base, but paleocons are a bigger deal electorally. See [this article](http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/74221/return-middle-american-radical) by John Judis on “Middle American Radicals” or “MARS.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-enlighten-me-on-paleoconservative-and-neoconservative-ideals/743094.md?page=1)