And an assignment for you.
First, the quote:
I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed” before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents ‘interests’, I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.
Barry Goldwater
Your assignment is in two parts:
1. Tell me your thoughts about Goldwater. I am genuinely curious. The Samizdata Illuminatus, from whom I borrowed this quote, have called Goldwater “The Best President America Never Had”. I’ve never really thought about Goldwater, as he was before my time and way before my time in being interested in the politics around me. Which leads me to part two…
2. Reading materials on the topic of Goldwater. I’m not talking about some Reagan book that constantly talks of the influence he had on Reagan’s future politics, and I’m not talking about a bio, just the best book on Goldwater on the market.
3. Extra credit: What would America look like today, in your view, if Goldwater had served two full terms (1964 – 1973) as President? Vietnam, Gas Crunch, Stinking Hippies, War in the Middle East, Marxism spreading throughout Central America, The Cold War, etc. You can be all rose tinted glasses as you want to be, but those won’t be the interesting ones.
Feel free to leave your extra credit in a separate comment. Feel free to write a 10000 word thesis, if you think you need to. Take all weekend.
Your deep thoughts and hard work typing may get reposted next week if we get enough participation.
goldwater was before my time, I was born in 1982. Sorry can’t help you
He is EXACTLY the kind of politician we need today.
If he had been elected the USA would be a very different country today. We would be in far better shape. We need politicans like Ron Paul who will get the USA back to the exact way it was originally in about 1791 contitution wise. With a bi-metalic money system and everything.
Yeah, sorry Paul, but as much as I’d like to see a more original federalist society emerge in the US, Ron Paul is not the guy who is going to bring it about. Too much baggage behind the man, least of which was his ranting about how everyone who likes a metallic money to buy a Peruvian citizenship back in the early 90’s. The guy has a serious tendency to be almost as nuts as the last guy to run on the Lib ticket who believes that he doesn’t need a license to drive and that Zip Codes are just territory numbers for when the New World Order comes about.
Despite the fact that I don’t think that (as President) he could have prevented any of the issues you cite (although with him in the drivers seat, we’d have WON in Vietnam…unlike the guy who actually won in ’64, Goldwater understood that if you’re not fighting to win, there’s no point in fighting at all), I think we’d be in much better shape domestically (and probably internationally too, since it was Johnson and Carter that created the conditions that led to the Islamists’ belief that they can bleed us to apathy) if he’d been the guy in charge.
The hippies would still have been around, and the ex-hippies might still dominate our culture…but the really serious damage was done by bureaucrats and Johnson’s War on Poverty, not by a few countercultural nutcases blathering about how smoking pot and smelling bad were going to change the world.
He was the closest thing to a libertarian realist to ever run for President under a major party’s banner in the 20th Century (or so far in the 21st). Had he won, I have no doubt that the condition of our cities, our poor, our middle class, our budget, and our political discourse would be in far better shape today.
The USSR probably wouldn’t have fallen much earlier, though, and the Middle East would still be a mess (although that mess would almost certainly be less of a threat to us than it is today).
Good books about him? Sorry, but I can’t make any reccomendations there. I’d be interested in what others have to say about that.
But despite the fact that he’d have been out of office in ’73 regardless, and my parents didn’t even meet until ’74, I think I’d still be way happier if he’d won. 🙂
There was a paperback that came out about the time he was running. “None dare Call It Treason”. I seem to recall it had quite a lot about AuH20n64 in it. The real crux of his candidacy is that it was the first election where the meadia was so far in the tank for the democrat that the smears were right out on page one rather then just in the “editorials”.
And when the press-scum saw that they could get away with it, they just went down that hill until they got to the lowest sewer. Where today they reside on the bottom with the rest of the really heavy turds.
I do agree with Matt’s comments inasmuch as we would have won Vietnam. That alone would have changed the course of American foreign policy hence, especially where central america was concerned. Our loss in Vietnam did nothing more than embolden communist regiemes.
To speculate about anything else is a fool’s game. The President, while very powerful, still has a congress and court system to deal with. He is not a king. While I am sure a Goldwater administration would have had an effect to the better, I seriously doubt that his more libertarian ideas would have been tolerated by (certainly) the congress, and (probably) the public.
Goldwater’s greatest contribution to the Republic is that he reminded everyone just how dangerous a large intrusive government is, and in doing so, set the stage for the following Reagan revolution. This legacy must not be forgotten; while Goldwater was never elected, his ideas formented a groundswell that changed the face of history.
Reagan had the charisma and smarts that Goldwater never posessed; he understood that half a loaf is better than no loaf at all and did the best he could under that set of circumstances. We conservatives would do well to follow Reagan’s example of incremental victories that further the agenda at hand. The opposition does this all the time; look at 2A issues for starters. First, assult weapon bans, then registration of weapons, and on and on until the final goal is reached.
Many scholars and others praise Goldwater for his honest no holds barred, no compromise stance, and for good reason, all of those traits are laudable, but they do not win elections. What a Goldwater administration would have accomplished is moot; the ideas that Goldwater the candidate brought to the table is the real issue and what forms his ultimate legacy as a player on the political stage.
I wonder though, if a Goldwater presidency would’ve left room for a Reagan followup. Even if conservatism had caught fire under his leadership, Reagan wouldn’t have been the sea-change he was as it happened, he’d have been just another Republican, genuine, but one among many who’d changed their spots to fit the Goldwater ideal.
Pure speculation, of course.