Posted on 06/22/2012 6:37:39 PM PDT by Diggity
It's too bad that we don't have a Barry Goldwater for today's times.
No kidding. He’s one of my personal political heroes. Reading “Conscience of a Conservative” was a revelation: “Hey! I’m not crazy after all!”
I should read that book since you like it so well. I was too young to really remember him but of all the politicians now on the scene he is closest to how I believe.
Not on the scene of course but of all he ones that I have seen.
This Leftist film praises Goldwater for NOT being a social conservative, for being an violent enemy of Jerry Falwell, etc..
I wish there were still guys like him in our party now...He was a strong leader and a great man. He went a bit off the rails on a few social issues late in his career but I don’t hold it against him. A patriot..
I can remember going to a Goldwater rally in Montgomery, Alabama during his 1964 campaign. Ah, those were the days, when we had “A Choice, Not an Echo,” to borrow Mr. Goldwater’s phrase.
Check out “Pure Goldwater” it is a good read.Deals with his life i guess you would call it a biography.
I grew up in Montgomery. Did you? I went to REL high school and was 10 in 1964
Thanks for the info. I will check it out.
I was a high school senior in 1964, too young to vote, but I learned my political direction from Barry Goldwater in that summer and fall.
The Goldwater of the 1960s may have been conservative, but something happened to him sometime around the time Reagan was president. He suddenly became a social liberal and said some nasty things about Reagan. Nancy Reagan took issue with him turning on her husband after Pres. Reagan went to bat for him in the 1964 election.
He was the Milton Friedman of politicians.
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
And liberals/moderates still think that’s fall down, knee slapping funny.
We have a lot of work to do to save our Republic when lines like that are cause for derision.
If you recall, his ‘64 campaign slogan - “In your heart, you know he’s right” was mocked by the lefties as “In your guts, you know he’s nuts”
They never change.
Goldwater was more of a libertarian than a conservative. He was NEVER a moral conservative. That became more evident later, as the issue of abortion became more overwhelming. But it was there from the start, if you looked hard enough.
I was impressed by him at the time, but even back then it was evident that he was lacking something on the moral and religious side.
I had also read Ayn Rand at the time, including some of her earlier work. I greatly admired some aspects of her work, but she had the same problem—something was missing, namely a firm sense of moral right and wrong.
My Dad, I remember being mad and scared enough by that jacka** Cronkite let himself get tricked into voting for LBJ “I will not send American boys to do a job Vietnamese boys should be doing for themselves.” because that Goldwater was crazy and he was going to “Get us into a War.”
Famous “Daisy” Attack Ad from 1964 Presidential Election
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=dDTBnsqxZ3k
“In your guts, you know he’s nuts”
Fascinating reminiscence. Thanks.
In your guts, not your heart.
It’s always about Feelings, a Feeling of some indefinable hunger or want to the left.
No, I came down with some other college students from the Birmingham area to hear Goldwater speak.
Oh Yeah, and every Administration from FDR on shoved Detent on us because we couldn’t beat the Russians and we had to learn to Get Along with Communism, until RR broke them without firing a shot by bankrupting them.
When RR tightened the screws on Europe exporting dual use technologies to Moscow, the story goes that one of the Politburo was heard to say,
“That B**tard would ban the import of the wheel if he thought he could get away with it.”
Barry got pretty leftie in his dotage.
Barry wasn’t perfect. But if we had the 64 Election as a do over, .....
The Great Society, War on Poverty, Socialized Medicine/Medicare, and on and on.
I named my son “ Barry” after this great man. Instead we got that crook LBJ— what a decadent POC. “Guns and Butter” RAIDED MY SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND. He was a total failure as a president and ruined our beloved country with WELFARE— Free stuff for free loaders!!!
Medicare was just one of LBJ’s enduring curses. It opened the door for 40 years of Senator, Hero of the Battle of Chappaquiddick Run, Swimmer to keep reforming one entitlement after another into it until healthcare got so expensive that the country was primed for a complete Govt takeover called ObamaCare, because the average working joe just couldn’t afford it anymore.
Darn straight, something happened. He leaned lefter and lefter as he aged—not just on social issues (like abortion) but on certain foreign policy as well. He also could have helped Nixon in ‘74 but demurred. He disappointed many if not all of his original supporters—including but not confined to the entire staff of National Review (when NR actually mattered).
Bump
The Daisy ad of Moyers angered Sam Waterson so much he voted for Goldwater.63-4 was activation of what had not been tapped.
I saw M. Stanton Evans then-editor of the Indianapolis News (whom Ann Coulter called the greatest living authority on Senator McCarthy) destroy in debate Dr. Robert Risk of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union.
My YAF friends and I engaged Risk's coterie of bearded Marxists.
Dick Allen (later the major national security player) used us to organize for rallies, then on to New York to a YAF convention to Draft Goldwater.
The country wanted LBJ to take care of them, and trusted him with the prosecution of the war.
He interfered with victory to his eternal shame, wimpered like a little girl March '68 when the heat turned up, consuming Mockingbird Cronkite, King, Bobby.
Whatever disaster Moyers sought to evoke it was nothing compared to the nightmare his doomed president wrought.
Goldwater catapulted Reagan to leadership when the nation needed it--to win the Cold War.
Lincoln had McClellan until he could win with Grant.
The candidate today who removes the Islamo-Commie crack-smoking closet queen will be replaced by someone of our choosing in '16 with the correct core beliefs.
History has a way of never ending.
He was also K7UGA, and a Brigadier General in the Air national Guard. He was a straight shooter. He said what he meant, and walked the walk. He was the most un-politician like politician of our time.
What happened was that after his first wife died he met and married a younger woman...whose name escapes me. Anyway he was in thrall to her and she soon took complete control of his attitudes and comings and goings.
So in essence I feel that he said "Yes dear" a lot and was seduced by the thrill of having a much younger good-looking woman with decidedly liberal views as his "helpmate".
That's my humble opinion and I'm sticking to it.
I met Barry numerous times in the early 60’s and even visited his home once.
Later in life he remarried (I guess he wife had died) and his second wife was a flaming Liberal and Barry was getting a bit senile in his later years and started seeing things through her eyes.
I think we all understood and just let that fact slide. He was no longer active in politics.
I also heard that when he got out of reach of his wife he became the old Barry again.
There was an old saying going around in the 1960’s:
“
They told me that if I voted for Goldwater that we would get bogged down in a terrible Asian war.
Well, I voted for Goldwater anyway. And you know what? They were right.
“
In your heart, you know he’s right.
AuH2O.
Yes and people today who call him left wing don’t understand what the term really means. Not only that they only differ from the democrats in one way; how the government is to run our lives since both groups expect it tell us how to live
Barry felt that the government had no business legislating morality and that is how I feel. All the morality the founders thought the government should dictate was in the original constitution and you will find none.
It was the “moral majority” that alienated the independents and elected Carter, Clinton and Obama not to mention all of the democrats that have gave us the unbridled expansion of government over the last 40 years.
My father was k4pdx and actually spoke with him once his rig.
Goldwater was the man.
LOL, good one.
Great story. Thanks for sharing!
Yes, there was a lot about Goldwater to admire. But, regretably, he was not really pro-life, as his later statements revealed.
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