Politicize a Dead Woman

chin up bernie, at least no one will ever mistake you for or call you McGentrix... Laughing

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All liberals are not insulted by the term, however, and I don't know any conservative who is insulted by being called a conservative.

The difference is that conservatives using the term 'liberal' with no qualification are often accused of flaming.

Liberals rarely use the term conservative without attaching some negative uncomplimentary adjective to it, but if they do, it is considered a compliment by most conservatives.

The dynamics of this are really interesting if you think about it.

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I had no idea you were so sensitive and easily hurt...

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Lash wrote:

Yeah. One side. All bad. One side. All good. No thinking, reading or listening necessary.

__________________________

Make sure you shut your eyes and put your hands over your ears, if you're a liberal.

In the 1950s, while Republican President Dwight Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce the Supreme Court's school-desegregation ruling, Senator John Sparkman of Alabama (Democrat presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson's former vice-presidential running mate) protested this desegregation decision by signing the congressional "Southern Manifesto" attacking the court's ruling.

I think you neglected to note how I was talking about "white conservatives" (being no fans of King), not "white Republicans".

They werent always synomymous, so your point here seems to be kind of irrelevant.

Well, like Thomas said. (Even if he needed a second post to get it right ;-)

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Can anyone briefly summarise Barry Goldwater's attitude/position vis-a-vis Martin Luther King (and the civil rights movement)?

I understand that he, rather than the far too consensual/centrist Eisenhower, is generally considered the pioneer or inspirer of the currently dominant school of conservatives.

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Goldwater definitely opened the door that Reagan walked through.

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King accused Barry Goldwater of "Hitlerism." He believed that Goldwater advocated a "narrow nationalism, a crippling isolationism, and a trigger-happy attitude." On domestic issues he felt that "Mr. Goldwater represented an unrealistic conservatism that was totally out of touch with the realities of the twentieth century." King said that Goldwater's positions on civil rights were "morally indefensible and socially suicidal."

King said of Reagan, "When a Hollywood performer, lacking distinction even as an actor, can become a leading war hawk candidate for the presidency, only the irrationalities induced by war psychosis can explain such a turn of events."

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nimh wrote:

Can anyone briefly summarise Barry Goldwater's attitude/position vis-a-vis Martin Luther King (and the civil rights movement)?

I understand that he, rather than the far too consensual/centrist Eisenhower, is generally considered the pioneer or inspirer of the currently dominant school of conservatives.

nimh

wikipedia is pretty good on Goldwater. But when you have the time, take a look at the piece linked below on George Wallace. I think it will help you get some bearings on the transition from the period before King to the period after within the conservative movement and more broadly in the country.

http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v19n3/carter_wallace.html

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nimh wrote:

Can anyone briefly summarise Barry Goldwater's attitude/position vis-a-vis Martin Luther King (and the civil rights movement)?

Goldwater's politics changed somewhat between the 50s and his death in the 90s. The fairest brief summary I can give is that he was a staunch libertarian and a just-as-staunch federalist. I expect that as a libertarian he sympathised with King's political goals of ending discrimination and racism, though I have no reference to back it up with. As a federalist, he opposed the 1964 civil rights. He feared that the federal strong-arming it involved would cause mayhem in the South, thus undermining the end it was intended to serve. Wikipedia has this to say about his record on civil rights during the `King era':

Wikipedia, in today's entry on 'Barry Goldwater', wrote:

Goldwater had a controversial record on civil rights. Locally he was a supporter of the Arizona NAACP and was involved in desegregating the Arizona National Guard. As a Senator, he was a supporter of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and 1960. However, he opposed the much more comprehensive Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the grounds that it was an inappropriate extension of the federal commerce power to private citizens in order to "legislate morality" and restrict the rights of employers. Although conservative Southern Democrats were the main opponents to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and previous civil rights legislation, his opposition to the Act strongly boosted Goldwater's standing among white southerners.

I agree with Dys that "Goldwater definitely opened the door that Reagan walked through", but not that he was the pioneer of the `currently dominant school of conservatives'. He was a libertarian and wanted nothing to do with the religious right. Here is a non-exhaustive list of quotes that make Goldwater one of my heroes:

I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass.
You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.
A lot of so-called conservatives don't know what the word means. They think I've turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That's a decision that's up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right.
When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.

I don't see how a young Goldwater could win Senate seats for the Republican party today. There is some chance, though, that the Democratic Leadership Council might support Goldwater II in running for the Senate. Which brings us back to Hillary Clinton.

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Adding my own observationg re Goldwater. Barry represented the "old line arizona political philosophy" much more attuned with a libertarian ideal. Then came affordable air conditioning and the ethos of arizona was inundated by "republican conservatives" from such places as L.A./Chicago/New york etc and arizona was rapidly altered from a Old West mentality of "personal rights" to the snowbird republican mentality of Party dogma. Barry would have not faired well in the new Arizona.
ps. I imagine that Barry differed with King more because King advocated communist/socialist efforts rather than because of race.

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nimh wrote:

Lash wrote:
I am finding she was quite respectable.

Is that kinda like how a white person might remark that black person A or B is actually "quite articulate"?

I guess that would be true if you begin from a point of operation that finds all blacks unrespectable and all whites respectable. Just as the articulate point, for some, begins with an obvious surprise that a black could be articulate--hence my disfavor for the sentiment.

Otherwise, it's just stupid.

If you judge each person individually, based on the content of their statements, then hopefully you can see how each individual would earn--or lose--respect.

As I have read her speeches, she has earned more respect from me. That could be said of anyone of any color.

BPB--

Yeah. I should've just laughed it off.

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While Goldwater is indeed libertarian in most of his views, he was not anti-conservative on much of anything. At least as many conservatives, for instance, are pro Roe v Wade as are not, and certainly all conservatives don't oppose gays/women/etc. in the military. And Goldwater, like all of us, became somewhat less dogmatic and radical in his views as he got older, but he did not abandon his conservative core.

Some other notable Goldwater quotes:

"Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism."

"The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government"

"Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have."

"To insist on strength is not war-mongering. It is peace-mongering"

"To disagree, one doesn't have to be disagreeable."

And Goldwater, while critical of misused religion, was a professed Christian:
"I won't say that the papers misquote me, but I sometimes wonder where Christianity would be today if some of those reporters had been Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."

On Vietnam
""I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle."

"The only summit meeting that can succeed is the one that does not take place."

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Slightly before the King Holiday was signed into law, Governor Meldrim Thompson of New Hampshire wrote a letter to Ronald Reagan expressing concerns about King's morality and Communist connections. Ronald Reagan responded, "I have the reservations you have, but here the perception of too many people is based on an image, not reality. Indeed, to them the perception is reality."

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Reagan hated communo-ideas. Martin did make communo-noise.

(I'm writing like Italgato now.)

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Lash wrote:

Reagan hated communo-ideas. Martin did make communo-noise.

(I'm writing like Italgato now.)

well yeah Martin was a commie no doubt about it, funny though as how so many neocons cereally distort Martin to make him "one of their own".

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Oh come on.

Aspects of his philosophy were unassailable.

(Just not THAT part.)

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Now we're down to the nitty gritty.

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We'll take the equality part and you take the no military, or business part.

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Lash wrote:

We'll take the equality part and you take the no military, or business part.

Yeah but the problem is, you can't cut him up into digestible parts - he had a singular impact on society precisely because of the mix that he was - advocate, revolutionary, activist, clergyman, pariah.
No more than I can just "take" Bush's aw-shucks colloquial way of talking, and leave out his imperialist tendencies.

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Thomas wrote:

The fairest brief summary I can give is that he was a staunch libertarian and a just-as-staunch federalist. I expect that as a libertarian he sympathised with King's political goals of ending discrimination and racism, though I have no reference to back it up with.

I remember from the 60's that I've always seen Goldwater as an epitome of southern conservatism.

There has been am essay in the Opinion Journal a month ago: The Goldwater Myth: He didn't become a libertarian until his twilight years.

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Politicize a Dead Woman

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