Botkin of the Yard: JonBuck: Good article overall, though no mention of Barry Goldwater. I trot out this Goldwater quote whenever this topic comes up because it bears repeating:

On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.

I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?

And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."

Speech in the US Senate (16 September 1981)

Glad you posted that. If I remember correctly, Goldwater was pro-choice, in favor of at least some gun control, and thought gays and lesbians should be able to serve openly in the military. He also believed in conservation and environmental protection. How many republicans hold any of these positions anymore? Scott Brown comes to mind on a few, but I can't think of too many others.

The GOP used to be a very good counterweight to ...

Unfortunately, it was Goldwater's candidacy that brought a big chunk of the Bible Belt into the GOP, laying the ground for the Southern Strategy. He may not have held their beliefs, but he certainly appealed to them.

1964 Election results:



Bible Belt:

AntiNerd: I really would like to hear more about how Al Franken made fun of a paralyzed soldier. I would bet money he really didn't do that.

I knew Franken liked to make fun of paralyzed people in general. To say that he is specifically targeting this humour to paralyzed soldiers is a little unfair.

Seriously though, this is one of the dumbest claims I have ever seen on Fark. Fan fiction is not a proper citation.

Botkin of the Yard: HighOnCraic

I don't know if it was so much that Goldwater appealed to them as it was anger over civil rights. Johnson convinced a lot of southern democrats to sacrifice their careers to do the right thing. Goldwater made a libertarian argument for voting against the Civil Rights Act. I think he made a mistake there but his record on race appears to have been pretty good. Especially for its time. The NAACP in Arizona didn't view him as an enemy, as I recall.

I certainly don't want to excuse the GOP for the Southern Strategy, but Goldwater seems to have been a responsible politician.

The line that scared the hell out of everybody in 1964, "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" doesn't bother me in the least. In fact, I wish more people would take it seriously. Maybe then we wouldn't have majorities in both of our pathetic political parties supporting things like the Patriot Act. I don't believe for a moment that Goldwater, or any number of the old republican establishment, would have supported that thing.

Not sure if the Arizona NAACP still supported him after the vote on the Civil Rights Act. Here's what Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote about Goldwater in his autobiography: "The Republican Party geared its appeal and program to racism, reaction, and extremism. All people of good will viewed with alarm and concern the frenzied wedding at the Cow Palace of the KKK with the radical right. The best man at this ceremony was a senator whose voting record, philosophy, and program were anathema to all the hard-won achievements of the past decade."

Having read Goldwater's views in "The Conscience of a Conservative," I think his record on race was horribly shallow. He claimed to support integration, but his solution was to have black people overturn Jim Crow laws by getting involved politically at the local and state level. He kinda ignored the fact that at the time, most blacks in the South weren't allowed to vote--it took Federal action (five years after his book came out) to make that happen. I don't think he supported segregation; he just opposed using Federal power to end it. Even conservative icon William Buckley admitted that was a big mistake.

Link

How Ronald Reagan Caused the AIDS Epidemic

By Michael Fumento

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Lol. That's your boy, libs.

OK, Saint Ronnie's a liberal now?