Goldwater Democrats?!?

[ElboRuum]

I'm starting to think I am one... not that this is a bad thing.

You know, there was a time in this country when the words liberal and conservative were only used as adjectives. They needed a noun along for the ride to make them make sense. Of course, this is now, and now is not then. Through the washing machine of political "discourse" such as it is, properly washed, rinsed and spun, one is a pejorative noun, and the other one is fast becoming a pejorative noun.

I had the distinct pleasure of watching the biopic on Barry Goldwater, the first true conservative (non-pejorative form) as we've come to know the general ideology. It offered a chance to reflect on conservatism at its root in comparison to the "new conservative" form we see today. Democrats would find that they generally have a great deal in common today with old-school conservatives. Barry believed in the repudiation of the machinations of governmentally-based societal engineering, put short, the government needed to get out of our personal lives, the acceptance of personal responsibility, the separation of church and state, and a general sense of libertarian views. Government based upon the rule of law and policy making in the full view of and sensitive to the criticism of pragmatism and plain old common sense.

Where we would differ is in economic policy, which would adopt a similar laissez-faire attitude as conservative modernity. However, I'm not sure that the true conservative of old would embrace the supply-side model at this point, even though they may have championed it at first. The model has been proven faulty. Empirically. Twice. An old-school conservative would value the pragmatism of reevaluation, and use common sense to say, "Hey, maybe I was wrong here. Let's adopt a more controlled model and rein in some of this insanity." What is the likelihood of your modern-day conservative ever admitting faulty logic, let alone make the statement that they were wrong?

Goldwater himself made statements to the effect of 'Hey, I don't like where this is going.'

No, the new conservatism took everything that was good about conservatism, flushed it down the crapper along with the pragmatism and common sense it espoused. In its place, it adopted an at-gunpoint foreign policy, pandered to this country's most intolerant viewpoints to secure its power, and will do anything, including fracturing the electorate along ideological lines, to maintain that power.

True conservatives cannot afford the policies of their faux-conservative brethren, and from what I've seen in my daily interactions with them, have serious and fundamental ideological differences that a liberal brain could find leverage in conversation. They're just as tired as we are of making silly wedge issues the bill-of-sale you receive for your vote. What do any of these things have to do with life as we know it, except to allow a small, ideologically-rigid sliver of our population to feel like they have the right to impose their own sense of cultural homogeneity and judgment on the rest of us?

I think that the true conservatives are finding more and more common ground with the so-called progressive views, because you can only ignore the emperor's "new clothes" for so long. If this is true, then we have quite a lot of positive things to look forward to in the next few years.

[jhrobbins]

1. I've said this before(about Goldwater) and got screamed at here, but...

I agree that an old school conservative would not recognize the conservative party today. It is no where newar the same and I agree with the poster that many of the old values of the original conservative party are not too far off of what I believe. If they would move their social values to the left soem, I would concur.

[acmejack]

2. You're kidding, right?

You better have a heart to heart with a couple of them, they hate the ground you stand on.

[ElboRuum]

6. No. They don't.

A true conservative is a pragmatist. So am I.

[acmejack]

8. How sad.

You see I believe in totally different things from Mr. Goldwater, I want equality for my fellow citizens. For you to praise him here is pretty reprehensible in my estimation just as is the mere mention of the troglodyte Curtis Lemay, George Wallace's running mate. I want to help my less advantaged fellow men, the mere thought of which was anathema to Barry. I want to spend on education, I want to spend on infrastructure, I want single payer health care.

To hell with laissez faire capitalism and to hell with embracing true conservatism.

You so casually dismiss his racist stance, well it was par for the course. I say Bullshit with a capital B! You call yourself a pragmatist, well there are a nu ber of less complimentary terms that could also be used. Barry Goldwater Democrat indeed. That is just sad, my friend!

[talk hard]

9. you don't understand Goldwater

hes Libretarian and closer than you think to Democrats than Republicans

[acmejack]

10. Tell me about his social programs.

Tell me about his integration plan, tell me about bombing Vietnam into the stone age- he liked Lemay, I do know about him, my Dad was stationed at a SAC base in that era.

Please explain to me why Goldwater is an ideal Democrat. I am eager to hear about what he brings to the table other than integrity, which I do not question. I do believe he was a typical American muscular military power projecting, segregationist from Arizona. Is that in correct? He was not into extracting the mineral wealth from the environment while disregarding the consequences to the planet?

[talk hard]

12. didnt say he was an ideal Democrat

just that he was closer to Democrats then Republicans, but I should say on social issues. I blame LBJ for Vietnam and lying as much as Goldwater for his stupid commnets about using small nukes.

[rniel]

3. Except

Goldwater was against the civil rights act.

[ElboRuum]

7. But, why specifically?

Not that I agree with that stance, and like I said, there are differences between true conservatism and progressivity, obviously, or we wouldn't draw any distinctions, would we?

From what I've been able to ascertain of the man's ideas, it had more to do with a general suspicion of social engineering efforts than any personal feelings about it one way or another, although I'd say it might have factored into that stance somewhat. To say that the people of the time harbored prejudice is like saying the sky is generally blue.

I won't hold that against him, simply because he was far from alone in that opposition, and for the time, this was de rigeur.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Start listening to the Stephanie Miller show. nt

[whistle]

5. Goldwater Democrats are welcome into the party....

...but leave your ideas of nuclear war at the door please:

My favorite politician was Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who reminded me of Tom Mix, and there wasn't any way to explain that to anybody.
—Bob Dylan

It was Berry Goldwater who in his bid for the presidency in 1964 who supported General Curtis LeMay's ideas on how to nuetralize the threat from North Vietnam. Curtis Emerson LeMay <1906–90> was quoted as having said, "... My solution to the problem would be to tell them frankly that they’ve got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression, or we’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power—not with ground forces."


<snip>
Goldwater Democrats

Well, we've had Reagan Democrats. And we've had Goldwater Republicans. Why not a new version: Goldwater Democrats? By Goldwater Democrats, I mean old-style libertarian conservatives who actually believe in fiscal responsibility, small government, prudent foreign policy and live-and-let-live social policy. After being told we are completely unwelcome among Republicans, should we shift to the Dems?

I have never thought of myself as a Democrat or left-liberal in any way. And there are plenty of people among Democrats I do not agree with at all. But it's getting to the point that the illiberal, authoritarian big government Christianism of the GOP makes me completely supportive of backing the Democrats this time around. My one reservation is, of course, spending. But at this point, could they be worse than the GOP? No Congress has been worse on spending than the current crew since FDR! The war? Again, at this point, we desperately need some check on an administration utterly without prudence or a capacity for self-correction.

And so I find myself in a very uneasy alliance with Markos Moulitsas, who writes the lead essay in the libertarian magazine Cato Unbound. Strange bedfellows. But these are strange times.

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/10/goldwater_democ.html

As for what nuclear weapons research has brought us to date, read here:

<snip>
Nuclear Weapons Stealth Takeover
5 Admirals, U.C. Regents, Carlyle Group, and Rand
LEUREN MORET / San Francisco Bay View 16sep04
"I think some of these folks would put nuclear tips on ice cream cones if they could."

U.S. Representative Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) on efforts by Bush Administration officials to repeal a research ban on low-yield nuclear weapons.

Global Security Newswire ‘Quote of the Day’ May 19, 2003

UC AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS: THE KISS OF DEATH

The top-secret Manhattan Project was laid out by Robert Oppenheimer the night Ernest Lawrence took him to the Bohemian Club during WW II. It was a part of California’s brutal rise to economic and political power, described in IMPERIAL SAN FRANCISCO: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin. In 1939, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr had argued that building an atomic bomb "can never be done unless you turn the United States into one huge factory." Years later, he told his colleague Edward Teller, "I told you it couldn’t be done without turning the whole country into a factory. You have done just that." That was after Edward Teller had stuck the knife in Oppenheimer’s back, and pulled his clearance. Teller (also known as ‘Dr. Strangelove’), went on to promote a grandiose US nuclear weapons program for decades at the nuclear weapons labs: Berkeley, Livermore and Los Alamos. The program remained under a no-bid University of California management contract for 61 years. In a stealth takeover by the Carlyle Group, facilitated by 5 Admirals, the management contract will be transferred next year to the University of Texas where the military and the Carlyle Group will have control. A new ‘ramping up’ of the nuclear weapons program is underway, with program funding at the highest level ever - even higher than during the Cold War – extending nuclear weapons into outer space, into the very atmosphere that makes life on earth possible, and with no "real" enemy in site.

ESTIMATING THE COLD WAR MORTGAGE

In 1995 dollars, according to the Department of Energy (DOE) the US spent approximately 300 billion dollars on nuclear weapons research, production, and testing. Today in the nuclear weapons complex there are 10,500 contaminated sites, 2.3 million acres under DOE ownership, and 120 million square feet of buildings. The 1995 high base cost, estimated by the DOE Environmental Management program, to clean up the environmental legacy is $350 billion. That excludes the Nevada Test Site, Hanford, the Savannah and Clinch rivers, and the Columbia river which are considered to be "national sacrifice zones" because the technology does not exist to clean them up.

That was the cost for cleaning up the environment. The damage to the human health not only of Americans, but also to the global population, was predicted by the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR), in a 2003 independent report on low level radiation for the European Parliament, to be 61,600,000 deaths by cancer, 1,600,000 infant deaths, and 1,900,000 foetal deaths. "In addition the ECRR committee predicts a 10% loss of life quality integrated over all diseases and conditions in those who were exposed over the period of global weapons fallout."
<More>
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/Moret-Nuclear-Carlyle16sep04.htm

[primative1]

11. What about Teddy Roosevelt ...

I think he was the first recognizable "conservative" in the modern era. What do TRs "conservative" ideas have in common with todays "conservatism" ? ZIPPO!
Conservative is an adjective. It implies something. Todays conservatism has none of those qualities involved. Todays "conservatism" is just plain reckless and that is not a conservative quality.
Its a shame that the words we use didnt evolve to illustrate the physical changes that have occured.
Conservatism is not necesarily a bad thing. Many of the original philosophies are quite VALID. Unfortunatly it will take some time for the mass populace to understand the actual differences and once again embrace those qualities.