Who's a neocon?

Seems I see in the Opinion section of this paper quite often the words "neocon" or "neoconservative." I suspect my critics, when they read my letters to the editor, think of me in those terms, meaning extreme or far right.

No. 1, I can make a pretty good case that liberals and progressives simply throw out those terms when somebody disagrees with them. No. 2, I would argue that, to them, it is anybody who thinks of America as the best country ever. A neocon to them is a Christian, conservative, capitalist-thinking person who also believes strongly in our Constitution and that those four "Cs" made America unmatched in history as a country.

Liberals and progressives are all about transforming America. Obama ran on "transforming America," and still believes that America, from colonial times to 2013, promotes more evil than good. It's clear that is his thinking as one looks at his many anti-American radical associations before becoming president and even now as president. Why redistribution of wealth if that's not the case? Why all the class warfare?

Am I a neocon because I am not pro-choice, because I believe in the sanctity of life and that taking the life of the unborn is morally wrong? Am I a neocon because I believe in traditional marriage between a man and a woman only? Seems to me that's their thinking, even though most studies show families to be more stable economically and culturally where there is a man and woman in the home who are married.

I believe in smaller government, spending within our means, self reliance as opposed to dependence on government, a strong military that by its nature leads to less international confrontation, the right to work, charity from private sources as in the past and not all from big government.

I can think of many conservatives that give millions to charity, but they are called neocons. The charitable giving from private sources, mind you, is far greater on one side of the aisle than the other and that's been proven by extensive research. The anti-conservatives want to take as much of your money as they can (not any of their own) and give it to others while most of us have limits to stealing others property through taxes.

Am I a neocon because I want the Democrat-controlled Senate to establish a budget, which they haven't done for more than three years yet our precious Constitution calls for it? Our big government problem today, obviously, isn't about enough taxes. It's the spending. What does that make me to say that?

If I don't buy into man causing global warming does that make me a neocon, no matter what proof there is that man is not causing the warming, and lack of proof that man does?

As with all my letters, there's much more I would like to address but not the space for it, however, I think fair-minded readers get the picture.

Yes, there are neocons, but not as liberals generally portray us, and secondly, the real neocons (for example, white supremacists) are not embraced by Republicans like so many "far-out" groups are embraced by Democrats.

Democrats are notorious for name calling and the November national election campaign was proof of that. Those of us who didn't agree with them were (and still are) called racists, homophobes, sexists, bigots, Islamaphobes and, of course, neocons.

Take all the name calling with a grain of salt, since there isn't an ounce of truth in any of it.

Les Knoll

Victoria and Gilbert, Ariz.