Barry Goldwater Thread

>>1830475
he would have been a good pragmatist, he was really a centrist in the true essence.

>America is 238 years and it got a mulatto as president before a Jew

Feels weird man

>>1830475
>Like him? Love him? Hate him?
I disagree with most of his positions, but I like and respect how he never backed down from his views, despite the alarmism. Americans do deserve a choice, not an echo. I'm not a fan of the "extremism/moderation" quote, but overall you can't overstate the effect he had on the course of the Republican party.
>What would It take for him to have won in '64?
Kennedy not dying, the economy being worse, and tempering his nukes talk (Daisy ad).
>How would he have performed as President?
Impossible to say for certain. It sounds like he would've gotten us even more into the Vietnam pit, so counterculture probably still happens. His loose rhetoric regarding nuclear weapons was very, very troubling (imagine him at the helm of a Cuban Missile Crisis scenario). I think letting the Civil Rights issue fester too much in the name of states' rights would've caused even worse riots and social unrest among niggers.

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>>1830475

>Humanity is tormented once again by an age-old issue—is man to live in dignity and freedom under God or be enslaved—are men in government to serve, or are they to master, their fellow men?

>We will reconsecrate this nation to human liberty, assuring the freedom of our people, and rallying mankind to a new crusade for freedom all around the world.

>We Republicans, with the help of Almighty God, will keep those who would bury America aware that this nation has the strength and also the will to defend its every interest. Those interests, we shall make clear, include the preservation and expansion of freedom—and ultimately its victory—everyplace on earth.

>We do not offer the easy way. We offer dedication and perseverance, leading to victory. This is our Platform. This is the Republican way.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25840

Well, I just skimmed through his platform, and I can say that it is the most boisterous and aggressive sound of any of the platforms I've read, other than Trump's. You can take that however you want to. This guy was laying it on thick.

>>1830662

>but overall you can't overstate the effect he had on the course of the Republican party.

Elaborate on this. What exactly did he do?

>>1830475
Best president America never had.

>>1830641
How many treasury secretaries have been Jewish though?

Purse strings hold the power, the president has none.

>>1830475
woulda voted for him desu

>>1831564
Yeah hut even Britain and France have had Jewish politicians as heads of state.

>>1831564
Who hires and fires the treasury secretary?

>>1830475
It would have probably looked a lot like the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who endorsed him during his campaign. Reagan's endorsement is what got him national political attention - his "Rendezvous With Destiny" speech is the Cold War equivalent of the "Cross of Gold" speech.

Peace through strength would probably have been a Goldwater thing instead of a Reagan thing. Also, we probably wouldn't have escalated the conflict in Vietnam had he been president. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a complete sham.

>>1832380

>Also, we probably wouldn't have escalated the conflict in Vietnam had he been president.

You don't think a committed anti-communist who was building his entire campaign around how much he hated commies would escalate a war against commies?

>>1832395
People look at the escalation like it was just the natural course of history and the reason was to halt Communist expansion.

The expansion could not have happened without the Gulf of Tonkin incident. This was done in 1964, a year after LBJ became President. But it likely wouldn't have gone through if LBJ was going to lose the election and his position as President wasn't secure.

>>1832406

Didn't Goldwater actually suggesting using nukes against North Vietnam, though? Isn't that a big part of how he ended up losing his campaign, because Johnson was able to capitalize on those comments to point Goldwater as a warmonger?

>>1832415
You miss the point of peace through strength. People thought Reagan was a warmonger, as well. Trump, trying to be in the same vein as Reagan, is also regarded as a warmonger.

The point of peace through strength is to make policy propositions that take the conflict to a place that the enemy does not want to go, so they back down. If we had a president who advocated using nuclear weapons on strategic targets in North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, the North Vietnamese would likely have honored the separation at the 17th parallel. The enemy is much more likely to fight if we promise them that we will fight on their terms. This complete forfeiture of strategic initiative is what caused the Vietnam war to end in failure, anyway. A search and destroy campaign isolated to South Vietnam was the best case scenario for North Vietnamese leadership.

>>1832415
>Didn't Goldwater actually suggesting using nukes against North Vietnam, though?

You can make the case that it was a threat, and just a threat. If there is even a tiny chance that your enemy is willing to annihilate you over a transgression, you will think long and hard before you make any move.

That said as a negotiating tactic it is ballsy. Unless you follow up on your threat, the first time your "line" has been breached, you become a sham and world opinion of you drops even farther than if you had never said the threat in the first place.

>>1832788
the north vietnamese were already being annihilated, they were 100% committed to victory at any cost

and the cost was indeed for them extremely high, I don't think even nukes would have changed things

>>1832788

That's the thing. If you threaten nukes and then don't use them, then you compromise the viability of nukes as a deterrent. You need to enemy to understand that you see nukes as a last-resort, but if you need them, you WILL use them.

>>1831564
Jews were de facto barred from the government until the New Deal.

>>1833177
Except in the glorious Confederacy of course. (Judah Benjamin)

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We should have listened.

>>1831548

thats a weird way of saying Bobby Kennedy

>>1830475
He was a weird mix of borderline minarchist with a fetish for the military.
He would certainly have been better than Johnson, but that's not saying much.

The movement he tried to make has partially been co-opted by Reagan, but the latter was incompetent and opportunist compared to Goldwater. Reaganism feels like the consensual, inconsistent, inoffensive sidekick of the ideology of Goldwater.

In terns of actual change compared to reality, I see three main things.
The financial sector would have probably much less power than it does today. Jamaica accords about going full monetary madness would probably have been blocked somehow, or at least changed.
Also there is a far from negligible probability that the 1965 immigration act would not have passed in its actual form. Basically, America would be much whiter than it is now.
Last, states rights would be a thing, the US would be less centralized.

>>1830475
By the way this was a terrible slogan.
It sounds more like what you would say years after loosing.

>in your guts, you know he's nuts

>>1831531
>literally calling for a crusade

Of course you fucking LARPing faggots pretend to like him.

>>833390
Sounds like the hero America needed.

>>1833204
>implying anyone could have stopped it

The rise of Christian fundamentalism as a political force was an inevitable result of the changes in American society's treatment of social issues like abortion, divorce, homosexuality etc from the '60s onward, and I don't think there's anything anyone could have done to stop it.

>Goldwater
>gold water

bahahahah

>>1833390
Holy shit, sounds like paradise.

>>1832415
>Didn't Goldwater actually suggesting using nukes against North Vietnam, though
That's not what he said. He said that if we were there then we should mull the possibility of tactical nuclear weapons. However, he didn't think we should be there. There's a major distinction.

He accurately predicted the decline of the GOP, caused by religious fringe voters.

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>>1833940
Not decline, rather take over.
Or that's what I get out of it.

>>1833961 Sorry, missed this.

>>1833204

>>1833966
>implying it wasn't a decline

America is literally where it is now because he religious conservatives thought they could win a culture war.

The Republican Party usually does incredibly well in elections, and it only stopped now because of the fact that their social views are now seen as backwards. (And they started doing well again when they didn't talk about social issues)

Goldwater's (rightful) opposition to the civil rights act on the principle of freedom of association was the moment when Democrats realized they should abandon the "Solid South" and start howling that "Republicans are the real racists".

>>1834007
>>1833961
>>1833940

When would you say the Religious Right started taking over the Republican Party. I do not know a thing about Goldwater's religious beliefs but I feel like Reagan was fairly strong with his beliefs, granted I can't really say for sure how much it impacted his policies.

>>1830475

The Five Pillars of Conservatism are:

>Individual Rights
>Limited Government
>Free Enterprise
>National Defense
>Traditional Values

Barry Goldwater stood for all of these. He was the president that we needed but never got.

>>1834588
Not those posters, but from the '60s/'70s onwards evangelicals and fundamentalists increasingly started to enter politics, mostly in response to Roe vs Wade and the general liberalisation of social views.

As I mentioned above, it was probably inevitable

>>1834769
What am I if only want the first three on this list?

>>1834782
Ron Paul libertardian

>>1830475
Want to see what the world had been with him in charge of the US, don't want to necessarily live in it though. Very curious to what would have been.

>>1835378
Dammit

>>1833888
nice trips

but christian fundamentalism as a political force growing isn't reactionary like i think you're saying.

they have been trying to run the country forever. it wasn't just hippies in the 60s triggering them.

>>1835378
what about the first 4?

>>1833888
>implying the fundies didn't invent problems when there was none

>>1835580
Depends on how far down the national defense rabbit hole you go. Probably a minarchist based on a nightwatchman state.

>>1833888

Fundies have always existed man. It's just that the Republican party figured out that they could get their preferred candidates selected by pandering to special interest groups rather than your average Republican off the street.

>>1830475
Probably shit.

>>1830475

It is mildly amusing that he has the same nickname as Obama.

>>1830475
Not as good as Adlai Stevenson in the 50s.

>>1834007
>it only stopped now because of the fact that their social views are now seen as backwards. (And they started doing well again when they didn't talk about social issues)

That's a crock of bullshit. The truth is that Republicans in their modern form can't win elections unless evangelicals turn out in droves. Evangelical are their core demographic and have been that way since Ronald Reagan.

Rand Paul tried to run a "let's ignore social issues and focus exclusively on economic issues" platform and got btfo in the primaries. He didn't even make it to the big kid's debate. His daddy Ron Paul ran a far more principled campaign and couldn't even win a single state in the Republican primary.

Most conservatives simply don't care that much about economic issues despite what libertarians and the business elite think and that's why they're flocking to Donald Trump, who is running on a platform of white identity and whose support of Christian morality and free market ideology is paper thin.

>>1839044

I want to say your full of shit, but I recall a conversation with my father-in-law, a sheriff, regarding our expenditures on prisons for low level drug offenders.

I asked him if he felt comfortable flushing money down the toilet just to keep some pot head in jail. He said he wished we'd spend more.

I think you are right that the concept of small government is dead within the GOP.

>>1834588
I think it was the latter half of the 70s when the evangelical Christians started to become visible in politics. The US actually had an evangelical President: Jimmy Carter. However, the Democratic Party (not necessarily its voters, moreso its politicians) came down pretty firmly on the pro choice side of the abortion debate (and gravitated, to a less firm extent, towards other social movements like feminism and gay rights). Given how polarizing abortion was, especially to Christians, this deeply alienated the evangelical Christians from the Democratic Party, and in fact politically agitated them to the extent that they became a core constituency of the Republican Party.

>>1835577
>>1835592
>>1835620
I'm not saying fundamentalism only arose in the '60s, I'm just saying that they became more organised as a political force as the consensus governing social issues like abortion, sodomy laws, etc began to fall apart from the '60s onwards.

Also, from the '50s onwards the importance of the generally-liberal mainline Protestant churches (in influence, membership, and attendance) started their long decline

>>1839065
>I think you are right that the concept of small government is dead within the GOP
Not really. You're conflating increased policing which often comes with private prisons with big government which isn't really what conservatives mean by big government. Big government means: economic interventionism, bloated bureaucracy, and state organizations like the PATRIOT Act. Essentially just the state overstepping their bounds. Policing is considered a primary role of the state by even the biggest promoters of the smallest amount of government possible: minarchists. American conservatives generally believe that the federal government should be involved in 3 areas: Policing, defense, and trade (though the extent to which they are involved in trade varies between individuals). That's it.