12 June 2012

Barry Goldwater, old-school conservative Republican


I remember not liking him when he ran for President in 1964 but the prediction above is interesting, as is this comment from the Reddit thread:
Jewish father, Protestant mother, he hated the mixing of religion and politics. He was totally different than the Republicans of today. From Wikipedia: "In response to Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell's opposition to the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, of which Falwell had said, "Every good Christian should be concerned", Goldwater retorted: "Every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass." (According to John Dean, Goldwater actually suggested that good Christians ought to kick Falwell in the "nuts", but the news media "changed the anatomical reference.")

Goldwater also had harsh words for his one-time political protege, President Reagan, particularly after the Iran-Contra Affair became public in 1986. Journalist Robert MacNeil, a friend of Goldwater's from the 1964 Presidential campaign, recalled interviewing him in his office shortly afterward. "He was sitting in his office with his hands on his cane ... and he said to me, 'Well, aren't you going to ask me about the Iran arms sales?' It had just been announced that the Reagan administration had sold arms to Iran. And I said, 'Well, if I asked you, what would you say?' He said, 'I'd say it's the god-damned stupidest foreign policy blunder this country's ever made!'"."

Some of Goldwater's statements in the 1990s aggravated many social conservatives. He endorsed Democrat Karan English in an Arizona congressional race, urged Republicans to lay off Bill Clinton over the Whitewater scandal, and criticized the military's ban on homosexuals: "Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar." He also said, "You don't need to be 'straight' to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight."

A few years before his death he went so far as to address establishment Republicans by saying, "Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you've hurt the Republican party much more than the Democrats have." In 1996, he told Bob Dole, whose own presidential campaign received lukewarm support from conservative Republicans: "We're the new liberals of the Republican party. Can you imagine that?" In that same year, with Senator Dennis DeConcini, Goldwater endorsed an Arizona initiative to legalize medical marijuana against the countervailing opinion of social conservatives."

12 comments:

  1. My own father was a card carrying Republican for most of his life. But when they sold out to the religious right in the 1980's, he quit them. After that, he couldn't stand them.

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  2. Interesting about the Christians being unable to compromise because they think they're acting in the name of God; it sounds like some other religion.

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    1. It sounds like any religion. When you believe you have the god-given truth of moral authority, empathising with a different point of view becomes not just difficult, but morally impossible.

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    2. Miller, I admire your effort to censor the ethnocentric observation of Alexov, but I don't quite agree with the argument. As I understand it, not every religion believe that there are god-given truths; only the institutionalized ones use this argument, in order to amass power. From this point of view, your position is as bad a generalization as his. What do you think?

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  3. From a British perspective, it's like watching a slow-motion rail crash, but with the awful addition that it might be skidding our way.

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  4. 1964 was my first Presidential election, and as a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, I felt that Goldwater was a right-wing extremist whom I could not support. I supported Nelson Rockefeller. I, too, left the Republican Party in the 1980s. I'm glad my father and Abraham Lincoln didn't live to see what became of the Grand Old Party.

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  5. Truth to Power from a Repub I'd be happy to vote for- how often do we get that from any politician of any party these days? The Republicans dictate, the Democrats whimper and obey...

    How far has Mr. Goldwater's predictions come to pass? To the point of absolute prepubescent ridiculousness...

    http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2012/06/the-mountaintop-mining-kiddie-porn-smear-the-photo-must-be-seen/

    http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120616/OPINION01/206160313/Rep-Lisa-Brown-Silenced-House-floor-using-correct-body-terms?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p

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  6. I can't help but notice that, as the Republican Party has become more and more dominated by evangelicals, they've also become more and more comfortable with flat-out lying and hypocrisy.
    Apparently, if you're religous ENOUGH, you can get away with breaking commandments.

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    1. You can't be religious ENOUGH, but, when He speaks to you it isn't really lying (God, as you know, works in mysterious ways). Republicans (to elucidate on part of my previous comment) are like the brother (or sister) who is constantly thinking about and conniving about your future inheritance, while you, poor sentimental sap that you are (who might just possibly have at least a fondness for your father (or mother, whomever) prefer not to think about such things; and then that day comes and you've been fucked out of your fair share and a glaring rationale from your sibling. Have you noticed that many of these religion mongers (Republicans politicians in general) who have a tendency to deride the theory of evolution are also the greatest proponents of survival of the fittest!? The new Republican motto should be, "Pull up the ladder Jack, I got mine!"

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  7. As my father was wont to say, "Show me a religion and I'll show you a war." Or was it the other way round? The Republicans seem to be so entrenched in their McCarthy-esque furor they've chosen a candidate THEY don't really like. Why? because the rest were even crazier than he is. The good thing about Romney being Mormon is that it's such a nutty religion (i.e., nuttier than the rest and not nearly vicious enough for Republican liking)too few people want to hear anything much about it except to laugh at it, so Mitt can't and wont talk about it (or its "virtues" should there be any). Lee Atwater repented near the end of his life but its effect was hardly felt or altered and in fact was enhanced by the likes of Karl Rove, Norquist Fox News et al. My hope is that Romney will get elected because either of two things will happen; the Republicans will stop with their childish behavior and the economy will improve or it wont and the fucking Republicans will be blamed for being the lying shits they are. Not that, should the latter be the case, I have any doubt that any failure on their part wont be attributed to the horrendous failings of the Obama administration. My analogy though, as regards the economy, is that its like a supertanker the requires a full 7-1/2 miles, in full reverse, to come to a full stop. The Bush admin. say, at about 3 miles out suddenly realized it had to come to a full stop, but things being as they were, the reins were handed off to Obama without informing him that they had begun the process too late. When the tanker came plowing into harbor it didn't stop at the pier but plowed on through and the Republicans want to deny physics and say to Obama, "Why can't you stop this thing?" Why do we give Israel so many billions of dollars each year (a lot of which goes to armament)? because Israel got tired of being decent towards people who think they should be wiped off the face of the Earth and would do so without the deterrent. This precisely how the Democrats should behave towards the Republicans and stop trying to appease and unwieldy child. Fuck 'em! What I see is that the Republicans, as they stand today, are willing to do anything, say anything to accomplish whatever agenda(s) they have in mind. And they are always thinking this way. If they aren't absolutely forced into behaving decently, they wont. And has anyone forgotten how Karl Rove was caught making fun of the fundamentalists they so dearly coveted? I don't believe for one minute these assholes give a rat's ass about religion, they use it to appeal to the rabble who enjoy being scared about things who, guided by the likes of Karl Rove, then proceed to whatever faction they can persecute and victimize (commies, Mexicans, etc.). As for "commandments", you don't need religion to guide you through these things, common decency should be sufficient. Religion isn't used in politics to teach right from wrong but to coerce us into believing that whatever politician is of like mind and therefore acting on "our" behalf. It's the old "Niagara Falls" routine.

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    1. I had to look up the "Niagara Falls routine" -

      http://www.angelfire.com/movies/budandlou/slowly.txt

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