Posted on 07/16/2005 9:38:00 PM PDT by Taft in '52
I remember it. I was 19 years old and not old enough to vote yet. He would have had my vote otherwise.
I remember standing in formation while old sarge handed out absentee ballot requests and being peeved because I wasn't old enough to get one. (Not many of us were)
Wasn't he a big reason why the South went republican and stayed that way?
Is there audio for this?
I wrote the experience up in a column entitled, "Twenty Years of Chinese Mustard." Alas, that's too old for the Internet to have heard of it. LOL.
Congressman Billybob
I was 16 and watched on TV. I was in awe of Goldwater. WHY NOT VICTORY, THE CONSCIENCE OF A CONSERVATIVE, McCARTHY AND HIS ENEMIES, MASTERS OF DECEIT, NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON, and GOD AND MAN AT YALE contained some of my early lessons.
"I don't have any respect for the Religious Right. There is no place in this country for practicing religion in politics. That goes for Falwell, Robertson and all the rest of these political preachers. They are a detriment to the country."
"A lot of so-called conservatives don't know what the word means. They think I've turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That's a decision that's up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right."
He was wrong about the following:
"If they succeed in establishing religion as a basic Republican Party tenet," he told U.S. News & World Report in 1994, "they could do us in." "When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye."
Without the evangelicals, the Pubbies have no majority so why spit on them?
The election that gave us Reagan. Goldwater was jealous of Reagan, who was NOT all talk, as AuH20 was.
"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."
I was only 8 in '64, but anyway, I like the above paragraph from his speech. Moderation, i.e., like Kerry wanting to treat terrorism as a nuisance. (Unless I misunderstand the paragraph??)
From http://www.facesofalzheimers.org/BGoldwater.html find a link to http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barrygoldwater1964rnc.htm which has an MP3 link under it.
He sounds anti Christian in those quotes.
I believe an audio version of Goldwater's speech can be found somewhere in the Internet. I have a recording of it on a 331/3 rpm audiodisc, as well as a 45 rpm recording of "Go, Goldwater," his official ampaign song, whose lyrics I posted in my commentary.
Because he's more liberterian than most of the Republican party as we know it today. He eschewed the religious right--he was far more secular in his conservatism. He believed in getting the government out of the bedroom, and out of our individual lives, and fighting communism. It wasn't a metamorphosis to liberalism with age. His positions were forever consistent. When he ran in 64, abortion was not a major political issue as it was just even ten years later. He believed it was up to the pregnant woman as an individual, and at most the purview of the states to act on to restrict or permit.
Though individuals in the party who are evangelicals are indispensable to the conservative movement, I too think it was a big mistake for us to be completely captive to the Christian Coalition and the Moral Majority. In a way it is not much different than the Democratic party being captive to Americans for Democratic Action and MoveOn.org.
There was action behind Goldwater's talk, In international affairs and on the homefront.
These quotes are from the jaded Goldwater of the 1990's, who was no longer the courageous activist of the 1950's and 1960's.
Rockefeller's not for me. He is not for GOP
He is for the welfare state; he has had more than one mate.
Rockefeller's not for me. He is not for GOP.
R-O-C-K-E-Y--Oh, you SOB!
These same books acquainted me with conservatism.
Christian Conservatives have in reality given up on the belief that they and their institutions such as the church can influence society. They have basically ceded the notion that deep faith can bring deep change. They want it in their time rather than the Lord's time. In fact, many churches have lost their own moral clarity, so they believe we must have law legislated or bibical law enfoced by our own courts.
Certainly abortion is wrong from a Christian perspective. Yet Christian leaders and their churches have lost the ability to influence the lives of their followers and those outside the church but yet would feel compelled to follow a good example. There will always be fallen individuals and individuals who will commit crimes or sin. But the average person who will follow a good example cannot find one in todays Christians or their churches.
Fantastic post. They can't influence even their followers, so want to legislate it. Which to me is a deal with the devil.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.