Posted on 06/20/2005 8:33:23 PM PDT by gusopol3
Now, we Americans understand freedom. We have earned it; we have lived for it, and we have died for it. This Nation and its people are freedom's model in a searching world. We can be freedom's missionaries in a doubting world. But, ladies and gentlemen, first we must renew freedom's mission in our own hearts and in our own homes.
During four futile years, the administration which we shall replace has -- has distorted and lost that vision. It has talked and talked and talked and talked the words of freedom, but it has failed and failed and failed in the works of freedom.
Now, failures cements the wall of shame in Berlin. Failures blot the sands of shame at the Bay of Pigs. Failures mark the slow death of freedom in Laos. Failures infest the jungles of Vietnam. And failures haunt the houses of our once great alliances and undermine the greatest bulwark ever erected by free nations -- the NATO community. Failures proclaim lost leadership, obscure purpose, weakening will, and the risk of inciting our sworn enemies to new aggressions and to new excesses.
And because of this administration we are tonight a world divided; we are a Nation becalmed. We have lost the brisk pace of diversity and the genius of individual creativity. We are plodding along at a pace set by centralized planning, red tape, rules without responsibility, and regimentation without recourse.
This is an excerpt from Goldwater's '64 acceptance, found @http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barrygoldwater1964rnc.htm
He wasn't the smartest conservative of his time, but he said waht needed to be said and he said it well.
there is an on-going debate on FR whether Nixon was a "conservative," because, supposedly, only his anti-communism made him so. And, the argument goes, so were Kennedy, Johnson, Kennan, etc., etc. ONLY TO REVISIONISTS.
It was said, by Hamilton among others, that Washington wasn't the brightest either. BTW, didn't Kerry say the same about Bush?
But he did start a revolution. What many of us know as the Reagan Revolution should rightly be considered the Goldwater Revolution.
Conservatives were a lot more outnumbered and had far less access to media in Barry's heyday than is the case today. He was plenty bright -- not an eloquent speaker -- but a man of action and great common sense. As he got older, he began flirting with liberals more often -- I have seen this attributed to the influence of his second, much younger and much more liberal wife, and also to the onset of Alzheimers. Whatever it was, Barry in his prime was as inspiring and true blue of a libertarian-leaning Conservative as any we have ever had in a leadership position.
Re: latter day Goldwater brain: I suspect alcohol.
how soon we forget
Hard to believe that Hellary was a Goldwater girl.
Hadn't heard that theory, gusopo13. I do know that the Goldwater of the 1980s was not the same guy he was in the 1960s, and seemed to spend more time attacking Conservatives than Liberals. But he was so important to the beginnings of the modern Conservative movement that I prefer to focus on the early Goldwater, the one who took the vicious and lying hits from the Liberal media and political establishment.
"But he did start a revolution. What many of us know as the Reagan Revolution should rightly be considered the Goldwater Revolution."
From what I understand Goldwater was just the figurehead in the 1964 election... the "revolution" was started by Buckley, Friedman, etc... (IMHO)
The Hildebeast's father was a right wing Republican. She would have still been a teenager in 1964 and so was probably still influenced by his politics. But not for much longer, as we know to our chagrin.
Goldwater's problem in '64 was that he was ahead of his time.
"The Hildebeast's father was a right wing Republican."
Hillary volunteered for Goldwaters campaign I think. Not sure when or why she changed so drastically.
She would only have been about 17 or so at the time. Her brainwashing at Wellesley or wherever it was had not yet set in.
Somebody had to say it.
I believe it began when she started dating Angela Davis, or maybe it was Cin-Que, then again it could have been Che's ghost, though, not much before or after Billy illegally went to the USSR, for 40 days.
The overwhelming electoral defeat of Barry Goldwater was a turning point in our Nation's history. One which was marked by taking the wrong fork in the road.
Who knows where that road not taken might have led. No Tet '68, no Hanoi Jane or John F'n Kerry. No anti-war movement, and thus very few hippies. And very few collectivists around today. (You can't eradicate them completely, someone is always going to make political hay promissing a free lunch, even though TANSFAFL.) The Great Society, with all the negative fallout that it has created, would have nipped in the bud.
You express knowledge of those critical times- how could the tide have been turned? I would truely love to examine such wisdom.
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