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Quote of the Day: Goldwater on Government
“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 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 that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.” — Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative
Growing up in Arizona, Barry Goldwater was my senior senator for the first two decades of my life. He was a legend here, converting what once was a Democratic stronghold into the reddest of Republican states. He still looms large, with his name on lakes, mountains, and the occasional airport terminal. He even loaned his name to the state’s leading think tank, where I had the privilege to work.
If I was asked to summarize my version of conservatism, or “conservatarianism” as it were, the quote above is perfect. It’s also a sentiment far too rare anywhere in politics.
Candidates from the right and left are always telling us what they will do for us. They will pass new laws, create new agencies, and hire better bureaucrats. What I would rather hear is what laws they would remove, which agencies they would abolish, and which bureaucrats would be sent to find work in the private sector.
Published in General
Amen to that.
The reason people think we need more government is because the Fed and the government push everything around too much already. It’s idiotic.
Another great one often forgotten:
Two Voices in a Meadow – Richard Wilbur
A Milkweed
Anonymous as cherubs
Over the crib of God,
White seeds are floating
Out of my burst pod.
What power had I
Before I learned to yield?
Shatter me, great wind:
I shall possess the field
A Stone
As casual as cow-dung
Under the crib of God,
I lie where chance would have me,
Up to the ears in sod.
Why should I move? To move
Befits a light desire.
The sill of heaven would founder,
Did such as I aspire.
I cannot like this post or the Goldwater quote often enough. So I’ll just have to make do with a Triple-Dawg-Like.
Establishment Republicans pretend Goldwater lost in a landslide because of these views. No it was just bad timing. JFK had been murdered and Johnson inherited the grief vote. It’s good to try to revive these words, they elected Reagan and had both Bush’s understood them we might not be where we are now.
When I speak to a politician who is seeking my support I ask this question:
“What are three ways (the level of government you are seeking an office in) is relevant in my life today, that if you’re successful it will not even be involved with the next time you are seeking my vote?”
So far only one hasn’t looked at me like I asked him to kill his or her own mother.
41 should have gone nuts on Medicare and Social Security.
80% of government is nonpublic goods, reportedly. Absolutely amazing.
Senator Goldwater was also a Major General in the Air Force Reserve. Quite a man!
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Supposedly, the Federal Reserve knew in 1964 that LBJ’s monetary policy and fiscal policy otherwise known as “guns and butter” was going to end badly. It sure did. Barry must’ve been shaking his head the whole time.
First, is it permitted? Then, is it needed? If it doesn’t pass both of those, leave it alone.
Existential wars and central bank asset bubbles cause everyone to ignore this excellent advice. Then it all compounds and feeds back on itself. Check out Inflated by Chris Whalen.
Rare? That sentiment has gone the way of the dodo.
@iwalton What you say is true and I also believe that the left did a tremendous job of painting him as a trigger-happy warmonger.
Barry Goldwater was my senior senator for the first two decades of my life
I was stuck with Lloyd Benson for the first 20 years of my life. The second seat wasn’t as “stable.”
I just want to say that I really admire our editor in chief, Jon Gabriel, for contributing a Quote of the Day. It’s a nice way to honor what’s happening on the Member Feed. :-)
I had to look up who were the senators from California during the first 20 years of my life:
Clair Engle, Pierre Salinger, George Murphy, John Tunney(I remember him), S. I. Hayakawa (I remember him), Thomas Kuchel, and Alan Cranston (I really remember him.)
I think my father read “The Conscience of a Conservative.” I have a vague memory of a copy of it laying around the house. And my older sisters walked precincts for Goldwater’s presidential bid.
1964 Election Slogan: In your heart, you know he’s right!
Now if we could just get him involved in Group Writing. 😈
Indeed they did. The little girl plucking daises was a doozy.
So President Trump has a bit of Goldwater conservatism? Forcing reduction in the number of regulations through a simple 2:1 rule. I’m amazed no other Republican president thought of that.