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Thursday, May 10, 2018

Firing Line With William F. Buckley: Barry Goldwater- The Future of Conservatism (1966)

Source: Firing Line With William F Buckley- Mr. Conservative, U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, R. Arizona.
Source:The New Democrat

"Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: The Future of Conservatism. Episode 016, Recorded on June 9, 1966. Guest: Barry M. (Barry Morris) Goldwater.

From Firing Line With William F. Buckley 

"Under Arizona law, Mr. Goldwater had had to give up his Senate seat to run for the Presidency, and so at the moment he was a private citizen-though still, even after his disastrous defeat, the acknowledged leader of the conservative wing of the Republican Party. This rich conversation ranges from the specific and immediate (Medicare, the prospects for the 1968 election) to the general (Has too much power accrued to the Presidency? How can it be curbed?). BG: "I think the country has become pretty much a two-term country. So I think it's pretty much up to the President. If he decides to run again, the chances of the Republicans beating him are not excellent. However, if he keeps on with his lack of success in Vietnam, the downfall of NATO, ... the growing cost of living in our country, the chances get better. But we don't like to win on those kinds of chances." 

From the Hoover Institution

Source:National Review- Firing Line With William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater (1966)

When you have a discussion with someone like Mr. Conservative Barry Goldwater, who admittedly was the most conservative member of Congress, when he was in the Senate from 1953-65 and then later from 1969-87, you are talking about what some would call conservative libertarianism today or constitutional conservatism. Which is someone who bases their politics around the U.S. Constitution and conserving that document and all of the individual rights that come with the Constitution, including the protections that we get from government. And William F. Buckley was from that same branch on the Right in America, the Center-Right in the Republican Party. 

What Buckley and Goldwater were talking about here was how Conservatives could succeed not just in the Republican Party, but in American politics. And were talking about a movement where Republicans would run as Republicans, as Center-Right Conservative Republicans. Not as light-Democrats and as Progressive Republicans, but as Center-Right, Constitutional Conservative Republicans. And this political movement led to people like Ronald Reagan and other Conservatives in America getting elected in the future past 1966, as Conservative Republicans. Not as light-Democrats or Progressive Republicans. 

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