Posted on 08/04/2006 12:59:47 PM PDT by churchillbuff
Variety reviewer Robert Koehler (formerly of the L.A. Times) recently reviewed a new documentary titled "Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater." The main driver behind the project is his granddaughter, C.C. Goldwater, and it's scheduled to air on HBO on September 18. The list of interviewees underlines it's not a big right-wing project: it includes Walter Cronkite, Ted Kennedy, Al Franken, Helen Thomas, James Carville, Bob Schieffer, Andy Rooney, Julian Bond, Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, John Dean, and erstwhile Goldwater Girl Hillary Rodham Clinton. A few righties appear (Richard Viguerie, George Will) and some more centrist GOP types do, too (John Warner, Sandra Day O'Connor).
Here's how Koehler sums the film up: "Pic reflects on a contempo religious GOP right wing that would have profoundly alienated Goldwater, who rarely brought God into his politics."
Koehler extolled the film for showing "some of the contradictions of Goldwater, who opposed expansion of civil rights for African-Americans in the '60s and -- as various family anecdotes illustrate -- was tolerant toward gays and lesbians as well as female reproductive rights. (Daughter Joanne tells of her abortion as a young woman, and gay grandson Ty speaks warmly of him.)"
At first, Koehler seems unhappy there's not enough angst toward the religious right: "Even with an impressive roster of journos and political sharpies (including Hillary Clinton, who was a Goldwater Girl in '64 and a devout conservative in her teens), little is made of libertarian Goldwater's differences with the right-wing Christian movement that swept into the GOP in the 1980s. John Dean, whose new book, 'Conservatives Without Conscience,' began as a collaboration with longtime friend Goldwater, articulates best how Goldwater's straight-talking politics was rejected by his Bush-era party."
But he later concludes: "Response to the pic from GOP pundits and opinionmakers will provide a telling indicator of the current political climate. Walter Cronkite overstates the case that the older Goldwater turned liberal, while George Will is more on point, noting that what changed wasn't Goldwater but the GOP's extreme shift toward moralistic conservatism."
It will be interesting to hear if that's exactly how it sounds out of the mouth of Will.
Then you agree that the 2nd needs no 'interpretation', as it "flat out" says the peoples right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed?
-- Article VI, -- as well as both the 10th & 14th Amendments, -- make it clear that means no infringements by any level of gov't in the USA.
Patrick Henry did see the light. He, of course, was also a bitter enemy of Jefferson. To his shame Madison did indeed author one and Jefferson the other of those destructive Resolutions which contributed to the madness leading to Civil War.
My admiration for Madison is pretty much limited to his career prior to Jefferson's return. When a close ally of Hamilton his work was superb. After Jefferson returned he seemed to turn on his own early brilliant contribution and become just another politician. At the time of the Constitution he was more a Hamiltonian than Hamilton.
It does not mean those rights cannot be removed for criminal activity, mental incapacity or regulated so as to prevent unnecessary endangerment of others.
Senator Allen's introduction of a bill to make Conceal Carry licenses valid out of the state of issuance was a welcome act.
It should also be recognized that the reason given for the declaration was that a militia was necessary for a free people and that every able bodied person is a part of the militia.
There were historical circumstances which led to its adoption and these cannot be forgotten either.
You're a valuable resource, brother. Thank you. God Bless
As to the Anti-Masonic movement, I would differ. A major leader of the Anti-Masonic Movement in New York was Lincoln's remarkable Secretary of State, William Seward. He rose in New York in response to the infamous Morgan Affair in which a Third Degree Masonic inductee named Morgan was ritually slaughtered at Troy, New York, apparently for violating his oaths of secrecy as to the first three Masonic degrees. Investigations were apparently thwarted by Masons in New York office belonging to the reigning political party, known as The Regency. Seward and Thurlow Weed were leaders of the opposition to the perps of the Morgan Affair. I know much less about Weed but I know that Seward maintained cordial relations for several decades with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York: "Dagger" John Hughes, who was a Catholic with an attitude. (See Carl Sandburg's abridged three-volume edition of his biography of Lincoln, volume II, describing Seward as the new Secretary of State in 1861). Since the Catholic Church has regarded Masonic membership as a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunicating offense for many centuries (Leo XIII had a very angry encyclical on the subject in the 1880s) and the pope who reigned in 1305 or so took credit for convincing King Philip the Fair of France to besiege, arrest and execute by burning at the stake several Masonic Knights Templar leaders including Jacques DeMolay (This is the subject of the modern Masonic 30th Degree in which candidates plunge ceremonial knives into a mock papal tiara representing the pope in question). The Masonic Degree rituals have been published by Barnes and Noble and are available there. I suspect that there was overt political alliance between Catholics and the anti-Masonic movement of Seward and Weed.
Your point is well taken that the roots of the religious Right in the South lie in the First Great Awakening of New Englanders like Jonathan Edwards. However, while the South's aristocrats were always hospitable to Catholics, and Anglicans had substantial influence, Calvinists were also widely influential. After all, what is the essence of the Scots-Irish but Calvinist opposition to Catholicism and Anglicanism for that matter? An admirable martial spirit, of course, but Calvinists are not Catholics. Upland South Carolina was one particular stronghold from the outset. Andrew Jackson was a Calvinist and very much a Mason (although kind to Catholics). Jefferson Davis was an Anglican but he was sent by his parents back to Kentucky where he was born to be educated in a Catholic school run by the Dominican Order. Stonewall Jackson was a Presbyterian elder who risked jail to teach slaves to read so that they could read the Bible in direct defiance of Virginia law and dared authorities to put him on jury trial for it. Stonewall almost became a Catholic during the Mexican War but was offended by the opulence of a major cathedral. (See Professor James I. Robertson's nonpareil biography of Stonewall Jackson for documentation of those facts) and many more including his political pre-war campaigning in western Virginia against Virginia secession.
The Southern aristocrats were also notably kind and hospitable to Jews. Judah P. Benjamin was, at one time or another, a two-term US Senator from Louisiana (pre-war), and the Confederacy's Secretary of War, Secretary of State and Attorney General. He was married to a French Catholic woman. Benjamin grew up in Cahrleston, South Carolina, where his father was an originator of a Reform Jewish Temple. Another Confederate Cabinet member was Catholic Stephen Mallory of Florida who was Confederate Secretary of the Navy. The Klan is NOT the South and vice versa.
In the more Hamiltonian North, wealth often ruled until Catholics and low church Protestants of modest means formed urban machines like Tammany Hall. The alternative was to be ruled ruthlessly by their employers/bosses, politically as well as financially. In years gone by, it was joked that the Catholic Church was the Democratic Party at prayer. No more (to say the least). People who attended daily Mass and received the Eucharist every day included AFL-CIO boss George Meany, Chicago's elder Mayor Rochard Daily, Al Smith and many others.
More to follow.
Unfortunately, the "kinist" movement among neo-Confederates is blatantly anti-Jewish and anti-Israel, and insists that a Southerner is a descendant of northern and western Europeans; no one else is entitled to be called by that term. They're about one degree removed from the "identity" kooks as far as I'm concerned. It's sick how the loudmouths who presume to speak for the Confederate tradition (which is admittedly not my own) fulfill every negative stereotype liberals have about Southerners--Southern Abe Foxmans! In America Catholics and Masons have both been part of the old Jacksonian Democratic coalition, while northern evangelicals, Calvinists, unitarians, etc., were both anti-Masonic and anti-Catholic. I thought Seward was one of the more radical Whigs of the time? Oh well. Thaddeus Stevens was also an Anti-Mason.
BTTT
Well, this docko was on last night; did anyone see it, besides me?
What I was struck by was the near-complete lack of any true conservatives interviewed about Goldwater and his legacy. It was all family members and liberals. Sure, they got George Will in there as a token. Where was Bill Rusher, or William F. Buckley, Robert Novack, or even Pat Buchanan? All would have had significant things to say about Goldwater and his philosophical legacy.
But no, the filmmaker was intent on showing: 1) Goldwater was a "true conservative" whose legacy is being betrayed by the current crop of said species; and 2) Goldwater's version of libertarian conservatism is the true path and is now embraced by "liberals" (who all happen to be Democrats, e.g., Hillary Clinton, Al Franken, Walter Cronkite, Ben Bradlee, Ted Kennedy.... a virtual Who's-Who of Democrat scum).
What the film failed to mention is that in the 70's and 80's, it was the Democrats who cracked up -- they embraced an extreme form of McGovernism and have tried to stamp out the Scoop Jackson wing of the party, a trend which they continue to this day (see Joe Lieberman). Goldwater was (more or less) consistent, except in a couple of instances. I found out from last night that his pro-choice stance stemed from his daughter's abortion in the early 60's and his pro-gay stance in the 80's stemed from the coming out of his grandson. So his "liberal" stances" all come from personal, family events, rather than from a philosophical re-orientation.
What the film also failed to mention was that Goldwater's conservatism was not "anti-big government" per se; it was anti-stupid big government, ala Johnson's "Great Society" (a fascinating quote in last night's film was where Lyndon says that a "Great Society is the American people's entitlement" Very telling moment.) Goldwater, like Reagan, understood that a big government was necessary to fight the USSR and the Cold War; he had no problems voting billions for defense. It was the moronic social engineering of liberals that he despised.
Funny how none of the interviewed liberals last night mentioned this.
His daughter's abortion was in 1955, and of course his wife had been involved with Planned Parenthood since the 1930's, so I think the idea that his more "liberal" (libertarian) stance on those issues was a result of the debilitations of old age is wishful thinking on some peoples' part. It seems to me he was consistent all the way through about the things that are, and are not, the government's business.
It would be interesting to know how CC Goldwater selected the people she interviewed, but we don't know that and aren't likely to. I had not known of Goldwater's personal relationship with Sally Quinn's family, but I had known of the "whistle-stop" tour that Kennedy and Goldwater hoped to do in 1964. I think that would still be a great concept - so would the idea that you can work with people with whom you disagree, without being personal enemies.
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