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Amazing, Back in the day, 'BombNam' Barry was a synonym for the Looney end of US political life. Now he sounds moderate.
Yep. I remember cringing at the thought he might be elected back in the early Cold War days. Now, (if I was a Yank) I might have a tough time choosing between him and Hillary.
God bless America. Poor Barry wouldn't even qualify to be a Republican these days. Neither would Ronnie. Nice catch.
I was a better dead then red guy. 'Till my first born. Then I thought, ah, what's a flag. They come and go. Regan's first term was the only time I saw a real America in my life time. I took down my USA flag and put up a state flag. And a little bitty American one under it. Because that's what we are, little bitty Americans. The 1969 generation running the show is a joke. the gap between the flower druggie and the, jock, and straight cut guys exist in our government today.
In 1964 the Democrats prevailed by painting Goldwater as too far to the right. I recall an ad where they used one of Goldwater's campaign slogans "In your heart you know he's right" where they ran the ad and then added "...extreme right."
There was also a very controversial LBJ tv ad "Daisy" which featured this impossibly cute two year old girl in a garden, trying to count the flowers. Her voice is replaced by a male counting down from nine. When he reaches zero, the screen goes black for a second and then you see a nuclear explosion and mushroom cloud. Then you hear the narrator.
"These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die. Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home."
The implication of course was that if Goldwater was elected, he would soon have us involved in a nuclear exchange.
Back then Nelson Rockefeller was viewed as the liberal wing of the Republican Party and Goldwater was the opposite extreme. Nixon was the mushy middle ground.
Goldwater was the extreme right of the Republicans with a platform which if promoted today, would horrify the fundamentalists.
I so enjoyed cupper3's photo and quote that I looked up BG on the internet. He had a whole lot more to say than that one quote. Here are a few right from Wikipedia:
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Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.
Acceptance Speech as the Republican Presidential candidate, San Francisco (July 1964)
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I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass.
Said in July 1981 in response to Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell's opposition to the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connorto the Supreme Court, of which Falwell had said, "Every good Christian should be concerned." as quoted in Ed Magnuson, "The Bretheren's First Sister," Time Magazine (20 July, 1981)
According to John Dean Goldwater actually suggested that good Christians ought to kick Falwell in the "nuts", but the news media "changed the anatomical reference."
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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)
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Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.
Said in November 1994, as quoted in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience (2006)
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The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating against people just because they're gay. You don't have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. And that's what brings me into it.
Having spent 37 years of my life in the military as a reservist, and never having met a gay in all of that time, and never having even talked about it in all those years, I just thought, why the hell shouldn't they serve? They're American citizens. As long as they're not doing things that are harmful to anyone else... So I came out for it.
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 didn't claim faith to be a pathway to truth. I claimed it is a motivating factor for ME! I have no idea what motivates you, and have no desire to impose on you what I believe. What I do believe is not founded in empirical logic nor in any fact that can be "proven."
But if my faith leads me toward kindness and mercy and acceptance of my fellow man, why would you stand in opposition to that? To be "right?" I don't understand that. My purpose is to be effective in terms of my beliefs, and that is the only effective empirical evidence of spiritual change in ME, anyway. Most likely I'm wrong about plenty on a spiritual level just because their is no empirical evidence.
Neither do I view you as "enemy of my enemy is my friend." I know you're not. But neither do I require your affirmation. What I do hope to accomplish is to let agnostics/atheists know that not every Christian proposes to cram beliefs down their throats.
And when you post something that is of importance to my spiritual life, I'm going to weigh it very carefully without consideration of the source, something I'm not sure you are capable of reciprocating. I don't mean that negatively, I mean it is the very nature of your own unbelief. You've made a conscious decision to accept nothing but empirical evidence. That's why I don't offer you any. It's not about empirical evidence to me.
Where the fundamentalists get clobbered by atheists/agnostics is that they really believe they can take something of a spiritual nature and make logical sense of it. That's why they have to start with the foundation of an idol, the Bible which becomes their lens for viewing everything in the world and making judgments about those things. I trust in a revelatory experience to which the Bible is a sometimes faulty witness. I don't have any need to judge others about their lack of belief, but I will take on people who CLAIM to know God and then do everything in their power to deny the efficacy that God should be about love, forgiveness, and acceptance.
I suppose I just assumed that, like many of us, you would want to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible, as Matt Dillahunty would say. As you seem to imply, all we can know for sure that is true is what can be proven by empirical evidence. Believing based on faith would seem to be antithetical to this ideal.
Certainly, if all Christians behaved as you, this world would be a much more pleasant place to be. I don't begrudge you this point. Still, this doesn't hinder me from pointing out where I believe you are missing a point. If you were not a Christian would you not be free from having to worry if the fundamentalists were driving young people away from Christianity, as you expressed to Jeffbase? You would see this as an improvement, rather than a detriment. Individuals can be and are being good without a belief in the Christian God and without having to emulate the actions of the Jesus character in the Bible. So, I'm not really sure what keeps you holding onto faith in an unsubstantiated story told only in a book that you admit is faulty. You can be a good person without the Abrahamic God belief, and without having to worry about keeping your fundamentalist brothers and sisters in check.
Barry Goldwater, certainly a conservative, warned about the Fundies taking over the Republican party.
Here's another one for ya!
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for me that was the Cuba missile crisis and the Korean war.
