"THE CONSCIENCE OF A CONSERVATIVE"
Do yourself a huge favor and read Barry Goldwater's classic volume "The Conscience of a Conservative." It's a brilliant, concise work articulating several of the most important bedrocks underlying true conservative political thought as applied to the concerns of the time in which it was written (the book was written in 1960) by the late and great Senator from Arizona, who was also the Republican candidate for President in 1964.
It's rare when a book or speech encapsulates so much truth in relatively few words (recall the Gettysburg address, for instance, or any of a number of Biblical books). If there was ever a time when true Conservative ideals and principles needed to be re-articulated, deeply thought about, and seriously discussed, it is now. We might say that this should stretch on through the Presidential political debates already happening in the US and continuing on until that fateful day in November of 2008, when we choose our new "direction."
Many of my conservative friends are disgusted with the way things have unfolded over the past 7 years. We expected President Bush to hold the line on some of the more classic and fundamental conservative tenets: limited government and government spending, no "empire/nation building," etc. Because of this, I myself pulled the levers for a straight Libertarian ticket in November of 2004. I will re-visit my logic next year upon further evaluation. I do not believe that the Libertarians articulate all the "correct" answers, either, but many who call themselves "conservative" have gone over to the Libertarian camp of late for obvious reasons. I joked recently to a colleague of mine that George Bush, judging by the spending orgy of the past several years (and massive deficits), is really "LBJ reincarnated"; not a true conservative at all! (In fact, George Bush has much more of a collectivist mindset.) I know I'm not alone in this view....
Senator Goldwater's book reads today as fresh as it did back in 1960. The same issues are right before our eyes and pocketbooks. Only the names and faces have changed. In fact, in the later chapters, if you just substitute Islamic fundamentalism with the Soviet menace that Goldwater was then addressing (absolutely correctly, by the way), you'll get the same ideas and pictures, only substituting what I believe to be an even more sinister, stealthy, and virulent form of mind poisoning than the Communism of Goldwater's day.
I cannot possibly say things any better than did Senator Goldwater, so allow me to recap a few of the best highlights for your reading pleasure:
All of the other main issues raised in his book are still being hotly discussed and debated today, such as: state's rights, civil "rights," farm subsidies, the welfare state (and its collectivist mentality), the "right to work," and Goldwater's proposal for a national flat tax (as opposed to the confiscatory, graded tax schedules we have now and have had for decades).
The bottom line for Senator Goldwater was the preservation of our precious freedom, a freedom not at all common in the history of humanity (with all of its various despots, totalitarian maniacs, monarchs, et.al.). He sounds much like the eminent economist Milton Friedman in this regard, especially as he juxtaposes his free market political views with an economic scenario that we know works from empirical evidence.
Moreover, Goldwater calls into account faulty, uncritical thinking vis a vis social welfare experiments such as "forced busing." What an appalling and abysmal failure! And we deal with this type of thinking yet to this day... Collectivists refuse to realize the truth: that bad kids drag the good kids down, not the other way around (as the collectivists naively hoped). As the Apostle Paul stated two millennia ago: "Bad company corrupts good character..."
From Plato (the first communist) to Aristotle, from Smith to Marx, on to the present era, the fundamental debate has been the same, and unfortunately, ongoing. Does government have an unlimited claim on the wealth of its people? What portion of that wealth? To what extent does anyone else - if they even should at all, of course (and I think not) - hold a "mortgage" on one's life, assets, and happiness?
I will gladly close this essay with Senator Goldwater's own words, which articulate genuine conservative truth better than anyone could. (Both Democrats AND "Republicans" take note):
"Government does not have an unlimited claim on the earnings of individuals. One of the foremost precepts of the natural law is man's right to the possession and the use of his property. And a man's earnings are his property as much as his land and the house in which he lives. Indeed, in the industrial age, earnings are probably the most prevalent form of property. It has been the fashion in recent years to disparage 'property rights' - to associate them with greed and materialism. This attack on property rights is actually an attack on freedom. It is another instance of the modern failure to take into account the whole man. How can a man be truly free if he is denied the means to exercise freedom? How can he be free if the fruits of his labor are not his to dispose of, but are treated, instead, as part of a common pool of public wealth? Property and freedom are inseparable: to the extent government takes the one in the form of taxes, it intrudes on the other."
Barry Goldwater (and for that matter, Ronald Reagan and Ayn Rand) - where are you today when we desperately need you? Who could possibly fill your shoes in today's deplorable and desolate political landscape? Is there anybody left out there who has the courage to tell the truth?
The fiscal record of the current administration and the vile, collectivist rhetoric coming out of much of Washington, the U.N., and our current Presidential debates must have Senator Goldwater spinning in his grave - at the speed of neutron star...
TTC
It's rare when a book or speech encapsulates so much truth in relatively few words (recall the Gettysburg address, for instance, or any of a number of Biblical books). If there was ever a time when true Conservative ideals and principles needed to be re-articulated, deeply thought about, and seriously discussed, it is now. We might say that this should stretch on through the Presidential political debates already happening in the US and continuing on until that fateful day in November of 2008, when we choose our new "direction."
Many of my conservative friends are disgusted with the way things have unfolded over the past 7 years. We expected President Bush to hold the line on some of the more classic and fundamental conservative tenets: limited government and government spending, no "empire/nation building," etc. Because of this, I myself pulled the levers for a straight Libertarian ticket in November of 2004. I will re-visit my logic next year upon further evaluation. I do not believe that the Libertarians articulate all the "correct" answers, either, but many who call themselves "conservative" have gone over to the Libertarian camp of late for obvious reasons. I joked recently to a colleague of mine that George Bush, judging by the spending orgy of the past several years (and massive deficits), is really "LBJ reincarnated"; not a true conservative at all! (In fact, George Bush has much more of a collectivist mindset.) I know I'm not alone in this view....
Senator Goldwater's book reads today as fresh as it did back in 1960. The same issues are right before our eyes and pocketbooks. Only the names and faces have changed. In fact, in the later chapters, if you just substitute Islamic fundamentalism with the Soviet menace that Goldwater was then addressing (absolutely correctly, by the way), you'll get the same ideas and pictures, only substituting what I believe to be an even more sinister, stealthy, and virulent form of mind poisoning than the Communism of Goldwater's day.
I cannot possibly say things any better than did Senator Goldwater, so allow me to recap a few of the best highlights for your reading pleasure:
- "The challenge to Conservatives today is quite simply to demonstrate the bearing of a proven philosophy on the problems of our own time."
- "Conservative principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation. "
All of the other main issues raised in his book are still being hotly discussed and debated today, such as: state's rights, civil "rights," farm subsidies, the welfare state (and its collectivist mentality), the "right to work," and Goldwater's proposal for a national flat tax (as opposed to the confiscatory, graded tax schedules we have now and have had for decades).
The bottom line for Senator Goldwater was the preservation of our precious freedom, a freedom not at all common in the history of humanity (with all of its various despots, totalitarian maniacs, monarchs, et.al.). He sounds much like the eminent economist Milton Friedman in this regard, especially as he juxtaposes his free market political views with an economic scenario that we know works from empirical evidence.
Moreover, Goldwater calls into account faulty, uncritical thinking vis a vis social welfare experiments such as "forced busing." What an appalling and abysmal failure! And we deal with this type of thinking yet to this day... Collectivists refuse to realize the truth: that bad kids drag the good kids down, not the other way around (as the collectivists naively hoped). As the Apostle Paul stated two millennia ago: "Bad company corrupts good character..."
From Plato (the first communist) to Aristotle, from Smith to Marx, on to the present era, the fundamental debate has been the same, and unfortunately, ongoing. Does government have an unlimited claim on the wealth of its people? What portion of that wealth? To what extent does anyone else - if they even should at all, of course (and I think not) - hold a "mortgage" on one's life, assets, and happiness?
I will gladly close this essay with Senator Goldwater's own words, which articulate genuine conservative truth better than anyone could. (Both Democrats AND "Republicans" take note):
"Government does not have an unlimited claim on the earnings of individuals. One of the foremost precepts of the natural law is man's right to the possession and the use of his property. And a man's earnings are his property as much as his land and the house in which he lives. Indeed, in the industrial age, earnings are probably the most prevalent form of property. It has been the fashion in recent years to disparage 'property rights' - to associate them with greed and materialism. This attack on property rights is actually an attack on freedom. It is another instance of the modern failure to take into account the whole man. How can a man be truly free if he is denied the means to exercise freedom? How can he be free if the fruits of his labor are not his to dispose of, but are treated, instead, as part of a common pool of public wealth? Property and freedom are inseparable: to the extent government takes the one in the form of taxes, it intrudes on the other."
Barry Goldwater (and for that matter, Ronald Reagan and Ayn Rand) - where are you today when we desperately need you? Who could possibly fill your shoes in today's deplorable and desolate political landscape? Is there anybody left out there who has the courage to tell the truth?
The fiscal record of the current administration and the vile, collectivist rhetoric coming out of much of Washington, the U.N., and our current Presidential debates must have Senator Goldwater spinning in his grave - at the speed of neutron star...
TTC
posted by thoughtful conservative at 7:32 PM
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