Posted on 06/20/2005 8:33:23 PM PDT by gusopol3
Now, we Americans understand freedom. We have earned it; we have lived for it, and we have died for it. This Nation and its people are freedom's model in a searching world. We can be freedom's missionaries in a doubting world. But, ladies and gentlemen, first we must renew freedom's mission in our own hearts and in our own homes.
During four futile years, the administration which we shall replace has -- has distorted and lost that vision. It has talked and talked and talked and talked the words of freedom, but it has failed and failed and failed in the works of freedom.
Now, failures cements the wall of shame in Berlin. Failures blot the sands of shame at the Bay of Pigs. Failures mark the slow death of freedom in Laos. Failures infest the jungles of Vietnam. And failures haunt the houses of our once great alliances and undermine the greatest bulwark ever erected by free nations -- the NATO community. Failures proclaim lost leadership, obscure purpose, weakening will, and the risk of inciting our sworn enemies to new aggressions and to new excesses.
And because of this administration we are tonight a world divided; we are a Nation becalmed. We have lost the brisk pace of diversity and the genius of individual creativity. We are plodding along at a pace set by centralized planning, red tape, rules without responsibility, and regimentation without recourse.
Kennedy was more anti-communist than Nixon was.
True. Except, Goldwater was more liberal on social issues.
Conservatives don't implement wage and price controls, like Nixon.
I was told if I voted for Goldwater, that we would be in a long unwinnable war, and have riots in the streets. I did, and dadgum if they weren't right.
Pretty big talk for a guy who wasn't even born in America...
? How could he run for President if he wasn't born in the US?
A special act of congress to allow people who were born in Territories to run for President.
Barry Goldwater more than any other Republican politician has influenced my conservative thought and belief system. That's a lofty esteem to hold someone in, I know, but there is just something about the man that naturally earns my respect and I always think... what would Goldwater say about this or that.
Granted, I don't let it dictate my political core -- but the man, his writings and the way he conducted his life has had a profound effect on what kind of conservative I think of myself as; that much is for damn sure.
No doubt. They were so hell bent at the time on some loftier collectivist ideal -- we all know it as socialsim -- that they spared no expense in painting him into a corner.
What's remarkable is that Goldwater never backed down. He just simply was himself. That speech was written by Karl Hess (as I'm sure many of you know) and I think it's safe to say that even our modern Republican party could use a few more thinkers like Barry Goldwater and Karl Hess (who was actually a member of no party really...maybe Libertarian later on) and a few less of well.. (fill in the blank).
I think the hippies, the 60's , and the liberals at that time had a negative effect on a lot of people....
I always liked the reasoning Goldwater used as to why he picked John Miller as his running mate.
"Because he drives Humphrey nuts"
Right you are.
LBJ took the IRT
Down to 4th Street USA
When he got there
What did he see?
The youth of America on LSD
Back in the 1960s I was told by many Conservatives that "anti-communism" was the only qualification for being Conservative. We were At War and it was for The Children.
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