William F. Buckley, Jr.: What Did Goldwater Mean?

National Review Online ^ | 12/10/04 | William F. Buckley, Jr.

[wagglebee]

Phoenix — They continue to celebrate Barry Goldwater. An Institute, now 16 years old, gets in speakers, most of whom reflect on the achievements of their favorite son. Goldwater was an enormously accomplished man, indulgent of life’s amenities and challenged by its perversities. He attracted an extra-political following by cultivating pursuits not easily done by those more timorous than he. He inclined to do that which was risky, including national politics, and he emerged in the early 1960s as spokesman for the conservative wing of the Republican party. A question arose at the Goldwater Institute’s proceedings last week when the speaker dwelled, for a few moments, on the later Goldwater. The story is as follows:

A few years before his death in 1998, Goldwater started taking positions different from those of the conservative constituency at large. Conspicuous here was his defense of Supreme Court decisions involving abortion, gay rights, and the separation of church and state. Most followers of the senator were surprised, and abashed, especially at his defense of abortion. What emerged as a question, at the meeting in Phoenix, was whether his abortion position was owing to judicial ultramontanism, or to his general devotion to individual rights. It is not challenged that Goldwater defended abortion as though it were a closed issue, closed in the sense that the Supreme Court had ruled, in Roe v. Wade, that abortion was a constitutional right.

By one line of reasoning, a woman has the right to do what she chooses with her own body. That position can be taken, and was taken before Roe v. Wade came into town, by many who defended the right to abort. What the Supreme Court contributed was a constitutional validation. If abortion is a “right,” then perhaps the people who exercise that right are no more contumacious than people who write articles and take political positions. That would be a fundamentalist view of human rights, and there are those who believe that Senator Goldwater, when he affirmed the right to abort, was doing nothing more merely than affirming the exercise of human rights in general.

Other analysts believe that the senator was fooled by the respect he felt for the Supreme Court. Since the Court had ruled that abortion was okay, what more argument was there to dwell upon?

There is, of course, the difficulty that the Supreme Court is capable of judgments which, on reflection, observers are free to question, and even to oppose. The overriding question being, of course, whether in the exercise of a “right,” the right of someone else has been transgressed upon. In this case, obviously, the right of the unborn child. If the child has a right, surely it is to live. Therefore, to end his life is to go beyond the plausible limits of the mother’s right.

There were two responses to the Court in the Dred Scott decision. One of them can be characterized, roughly, as Lincoln’s. What he said, pure and simple, was that the Court had reasoned incorrectly. The slave was not “property” in the conventional sense. If so, then an owner who wished to transport that slave to another state or territory, where slavery was not institutionalized, could not do so without imperiling his title to the property.

Others defended the decision, sometimes for political reasons — states rights was a sundering national issue. Therefore great relief was wrought by the positive reasoning: If the Court said it’s okay, then it’s okay.

One visitor to Phoenix recalled that Senator McGovern, during his campaign for the presidency, was asked his views on busing. He replied, “The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the question.”

Which was true, but which did not answer the question: What were the senator’s views on busing?

On abortion, the views of some, pre-Roe and post-Roe, were that no judicial reasoning can validate the expression of freedom when it is invoked in order to obliterate another human life.

Was Senator Goldwater acting as a constitutional exegete? Or was he reasoning for himself that the right of the unborn child was irrelevant? The question was not answered, but Goldwater’s memory had provoked curiosity on the matter, and it is reassuring that how Goldwater thought on a great public question continues to concern thoughtful conservatives.

[rcocean]

I read Goldwater's biography and what struck me was how stupid the man was.

Yes, he was an anticommunist and helped revive the conservative movement. But the movement was created at the grass roots level and he was the only leader available.

He never liked Reagan and supported Nixon up and till he resigned. His '64 campaign was idiotically run and his vote against the civil rights act (well intentioned) was stupid.

As TR once said of another senator "He meant well, feebly"

[risk]

IMHO, Goldwater's greatest contribution was in laying the foundation for Ronald Reagan. Reagan took Goldwater's principles and revitalized California and later the entire nation.

Bump! Also, I think people fail to realize that in solving the problems introduced by big government and cultural relativism poverty would diminish greatly.

I do think we need to focus on those things. We need to make sure that we aren't disadvantaging our willing American workers at the bottom of the social heap by our immigration laws, our red tape, and our taxation law.

Reagan's efforts to improve those matters translated into the boom that Clinton always claims for himself.

[William Terrell]

When I read Buckley's articles, there's at least once that I have to go to the dictionary. I thought I had this one whipped then word "exegete" go me in the last paragraph. I wonder if he does this on purpose.

If the Court said it’s okay, then it’s okay.

I hear a lot of this and it concerns me a little. All the Supreme Court can do is rule on a question according to the constitutions, laws and customs of the people. It did this in Dred Scott, regardless of Lincoln's reasoning, which was correct but only indicated a minor flaw in the law regarding the transport of slaves.

What the Supreme Court can't do is rule on the mysteries of life, like when a developing child gains a human soul. It did this in Roe.

Therefore, if the Supreme court says its so, there is a definite limit to its jurisdiction.

[gusopol3]

http://www.nationalcenter.org/Goldwater.html

Read the acceptance speech from the Cow Palace, prophesying the course of the next 25 years, then call him stupid. The truth is, he was a drunk and it got to his gray matter.

[wagglebee]

I think Buckley uses obscure words to remind the leftists that you don't have to be a liberal in order to be an intellectual snob (George Will does the same thing, although not as much).

[rcocean]

I'm not saying Goldwater was on the wrong side or wasn't right on the big issues of the 60's or didn't have good speech writers.

But when it came to judging people and events, running a political campaign, keeping ones emotions in check, etc. - the man was a dummy.

He meant well, he surrounded himself at times with good smart people, but he was himself a weak sister.

[William Terrell]

Buckley does "intellectual snob" real well; he has the intelligence for it.

[wagglebee]

From what I've heard, GWB has the intelligence (and education) to do it also; however, he realizes that his appeal is in not doing it.

[itsahoot]

No, Goldwater never changed.

I guess his child bride may have had a little to do with his changing views....

[gusopol3]

if you think Bush vs. MSM, Michael Moore, Rather and Soros was tough, you should have been there for Goldwater against "the consensus." As to the speech, I'm not referring to the phraseology , the province of the speech writers-- I'm talking about the content and the guts and vision to elucidate it.

[Spirited]

I recall people who were "on the floor" (of the Senate) at the time he was "in the cups" a lot before he took the backward turn. That's what I see of VA's Warner, too.

[foreverfree]

Goldwater was never the same after his landslide loss to LBJ in which Blacks shifted en masse from the Party of Lincoln over to the Party of FDR.Didn't that shift begin during FDR's own administration, early on therein?

ff

[KTpig]

Darn, I made it through Buckley...to have you use the unfamiliar term "in the cups." Does it mean drinking, or does it have to do with his 2nd wife (who was 30 years younger)?

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

[foreverfree]

Reformatted...

Goldwater was never the same after his landslide loss to LBJ in which Blacks shifted en masse from the Party of Lincoln over to the Party of FDR.

Didn't that shift begin during FDR's own administration, early on therein?

ff

[Spirited]

Drinking habits changed.....

[Bismark]

I liked Goldwater, but he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. He did have a good speechwriter, Karl Hess.

[nkycincinnatikid]

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

[F16Fighter]

"Buckley does 'intellectual snob' real well; he has the intelligence for it."

Lol, yes he does...But perhaps Buckley's bit too smart for his own good: An IQ of a thousand, the ultimate wordsmith, and someone of whom nearly NO ONE understands.

[F16Fighter]

"I think Buckley uses obscure words to remind the leftists that you don't have to be a liberal in order to be an intellectual snob..."

"judicial ultramontanism"

Yeah, Bill...that's the ticket....

[LibertarianInExile]

I still think Reagan was the greatest President we've had, in that he moved the country right again out of a clearly moderate funk, but we have had no President willing to get things even remotely back on the right track to limiting government since.

Goldwater would have been an ideal president.

Of course, you could have guessed that from my freeper home page. :)