Barry Goldwater Explains How Neither Kennedy nor Johnson were "Staunch Anti-Communists"

Americanrhetoric website | 1964 | Barry Goldwater

[nickcarraway]

Kennedy was more anti-communist than Nixon was.

[mowkeka]

But he did start a revolution. What many of us know as the Reagan Revolution should rightly be considered the Goldwater Revolution.

True. Except, Goldwater was more liberal on social issues.

[dfwgator]

Conservatives don't implement wage and price controls, like Nixon.

[dfwgator]

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.

[durasell]

Pretty big talk for a guy who wasn't even born in America...

[dfwgator]

? How could he run for President if he wasn't born in the US?

[durasell]

A special act of congress to allow people who were born in Territories to run for President.

[soundandvision]

I almost know that speech by heart. But I wasn't even born until 12 years after it was delivered at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.

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.

[soundandvision]

Listening to that speech, it's clear why the collectivists and power seekers, some of them in the thrall or pay of foreign enemies, had, had to demonize Goldwater. They could not have him as President.

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).

[Prophet in the wilderness]

I think the hippies, the 60's , and the liberals at that time had a negative effect on a lot of people....

[oblomov]

I always liked the reasoning Goldwater used as to why he picked John Miller as his running mate.

"Because he drives Humphrey nuts"

[AZ_Cowboy]

What many of us know as the Reagan Revolution should rightly be considered the Goldwater Revolution.

Right you are.

[CarlEOlsoniii]

LBJ took the IRT
Down to 4th Street USA
When he got there
What did he see?
The youth of America on LSD

[Doctor Stochastic]

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.