Whether you're a "neoconservative" or an "authentic American conservative" or any other kind of statist doesn't affect my desire to convert you to libertarianism, if possible, or at least give you the opportunity to examine the issues involved in an unbiased manner, if not.
Let me see if I have this straight. According to you, any advocacy of the need for government amounts to
"statism". Is that correct? According to my dictionary, however, the word
statism means
the practice or doctrine of giving a central government control over economic planning and policy, so you could not mean that, as this is the very opposite of conservatism, which is about preserving and/or restoring free-market capitalism. Last I checked, central economic planning and free market capitalism were precisely opposite to oneanother. Are you sure you haven't confused your terminology?
Perhaps, however, you are alluding to Mr Nock's definition of the state, which is a governing authority that is parasitical in relation to society, i.e., always (by its nature) seeking to expand at society's expense. But he distinguishes this from
government, does he not? Government is that system which restrains the power of the state and maximizes the power of society. It does this by strictly limiting the scope and degree of the governing authority's power in relation to society to that only which society is unable to do without a governing authority. Government is a necessary instrument of justice, while the state is a perversion of government. The
state, in Nock's terminology, exists when governmental power is used to benefit some (i.e., those with political connections) while disadvantaging others (i.e., the rest of society).
Perhaps, however, you have some other meaning in mind. At any rate, I am not aware of any definition of "statism" which is in any way compatible with conservatism.
