Among the conser-vative politicians of the 1950s through the 1980s, few stand out as vividly as the late Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.
In 1964, when Barry Goldwater was the Republican candidate for president running against Democrat Lyndon Johnson, I was just a kid in high school with little understanding of politics. I recall almost nothing about that campaign and election, only that Goldwater lost big-time. One thing I do remember, however, is that Goldwater’s opponent and the news media cast him as a reckless wild man in sharp contrast to Lyndon Johnson’s carefully fabricated media image as a self-restrained and reasonable leader.
History records that Lyndon Johnson, upon his election to the presidency, immediately launched a massive program of social spending that he termed “The Great Society.” Looking back on it now, the only thing that was great about it was that it was a great mistake, for what it actually did was transform an already great society into a mediocre one. It accomplished this by inviting hundreds of thousands of wholly unproductive and semi-productive Americans to become wards of the state, which they were all too happy to do. So I ask you, from today’s perspective, “Who turned out to be the most reckless candidate? Who steered us further away from the safe course set by our Founders and drove us more deeply into the barbed-wire enclosure of government control?”
I suppose as a whole present-day Americans aren’t even as politically astute as the generation that was hoodwinked into choosing Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater in 1964. Nevertheless, I offer a few of Senator Goldwater's beliefs and insights on the proper role of government in the hope that someone, somewhere might recognize their value and take heed.
What follows are random quotes drawn from Barry Goldwater’s book, first published in 1960, entitled The Conscience of a Conservative.
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Surely the first obligation of a political thinker is to understand the nature of man.
The Conservative looks upon politics as the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
We shall return to proven ways--not because they are old, but because they are true.
The framers of the Constitution had learned the lesson. They were not only students of history, but victims of it: they knew from vivid, personal experience that freedom depends on effective restraints against the accumulation of power in a single authority. And that is what the Constitution is: a system of restraints against the natural tendency of government to expand in the direction of absolutism.
The Tenth Amendment is not "a general assumption," but a prohibitory rule of law. The Tenth Amendment recognizes the States' jurisdiction in certain areas. States' Rights means that the States have a right to act or not to act, as they see fit, in the areas reserved to them. The States may have duties corresponding to these rights, but the duties are owed to the people of the States, not to the federal government. Therefore, the recourse lies not with the federal government, which is not sovereign, but with the people who are, and who have full power to take disciplinary action.
Nothing could so far advance the cause of freedom as for state officials throughout the land to assert their rightful claims to lost state power; and for the federal government to withdraw promptly and totally from every jurisdiction which the Constitution reserved to the states.
Government does not have an unlimited claim on the earnings of individuals. One of the foremost precepts of the natural law is man's right to the possession and the use of his property. And a man's earnings are his property as much as his land and the house in which he lives. Indeed, in the industrial age, earnings are probably the most prevalent form of property.
Socialism-through-Welfarism poses a far greater danger to freedom than Socialism-through-Nationalization precisely because it is more difficult to combat. The evils of Nationalization are self-evident and immediate. Those of Welfarism are veiled and tend to be postponed.
The effect of Welfarism on freedom will be felt later on--after its beneficiaries have become its victims, after dependence on government has turned into bondage and it is too late to unlock the jail.
The long range political consequences of Welfarism are plain enough: as we have seen, the State that is able to deal with its citizens as wards and dependents has gathered unto itself unlimited political and economic power and is thus able to rule as absolutely as any oriental despot.
The truth, of course, is that the federal government has no funds except those it extracts from the taxpayers who reside in the various States. The money that the federal government pays to State X for education has been taken from the citizens of State X in federal taxes and comes back to them, minus the Washington brokerage fee. The less wealthy States, to be sure, receive slightly more than they give, just as the more wealthy states receive somewhat less. But the differences are negligible. For the most part, federal aid simply substitutes the tax-collecting facilities of the federal government for those of local governments.
My view is that if State X possesses the wealth to educate its children adequately, but has failed to utilize its wealth for that purpose, it is up to the people of State X to take remedial action through their local and state governments. The federal government has neither the right nor the duty to intervene.
Conservatism, we are told, is out-of-date. The charge is preposterous and we ought boldly to say so. The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline. The principles on which the Conservative political position is based have been established by a process that has nothing to do with the social, economic and political landscape that changes from decade to decade and from century to century. These principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation. Circumstances do change. So do the problems that are shaped by circumstances. But the principles that govern the solution of the problems do not. To suggest that the Conservative philosophy is out of date is akin to saying that the Golden Rule, or the Ten Commandments or Aristotle's Politics are out of date. The Conservative approach is nothing more or less than an attempt to apply the wisdom and experience and the revealed truths of the past to the problems of today.
I have been much concerned that so many people today with Conservative instincts feel compelled to apologize for them.
Every man, for his individual good and for the good of his society, is responsible for his own development.
If the Conservative is less anxious than his Liberal brethren to increase Social Security "benefits," it is because he is more anxious than his Liberal brethren that people be free throughout their lives to spend their earnings when and as they see fit.
Who will proclaim in a campaign speech: "I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' 'interests,' I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can."
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I sincerely hope that some or all of these words have stirred your soul a little. I know they stirred mine. We are way off track, my friends, and I don’t know what it will take to get us back to where we ought to be. But I know this: We won’t get back on course if we remain cowardly and ignorant. Make no mistake about it--any government that is steadily amassing power, as ours is, is doing so by robbing the people of their inherent rights and freedoms, no matter how benevolent or innocent that government pretends to be.
We have before us a stark reality: Push the federal government out of our lives or be overtaken by it. Delay strengthens the enemy. Take a stand today!
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