Conscience of a conservative

To people nowadays, being a "conservative" means corporate greed, moral fanaticism and bigotry, and I would never say I am a "conservative".

But Barry Goldwater (or his ghostwriter) shows that conservatives can indeed have a conscience. Real conservatives are lover of freedom too, and from reading the book I see the great dissonance between the principles of conservatism and today's Republican party.

Goldwater was indeed a man of conscience, he stood up for what he believed even when the party abandoned him. Read the book, whether you are a liberal or a conservative, it is interesting and relevant.

 

I read The Conscience of a Conservative decades ago. All I remember was that it was a farrago of cliches. Goldwater's ghost writer defined "freedom" in such a way as to mean upper class privilege, and nothing more.

What Goldwater represented should have died with his well deserved beating at the hands of Lyndon Johnson. Unfortunately, blacks followed the civil rights legislation with a rampage of rioting and looting. During the 1960's Democrats went out on a limb to help the blacks. Blacks cut off the limb. Race wrecked liberalism.

 

YOu should check out John Dean's book Conservatives without Conscience.

 

Conservatism and Liberalism is dead. Each side can write their books all they like; doesn't add up to jack shit.

Now it's just stroking the Rockefeller crowd's penises while stroking us with bullshit wedge issues. Goldwater was the beginning of that for the Republican Party, as was FDR for the Democratic Party, albeit LBJ threw rocket fuel on it a couple decades later.

 

Let us not forget that it was republicans who pushed for the end of slavery while democrats fought tooth and nail to keep it around.

Obviously things have changed since then.

The terms "liberal" and "conservative" carry vastly different connotations than those they held 150 years ago.

The unfortunate reality is that these groups and their associated parties no longer reap the benefit of ideals. Instead, those at the top get dollars and everyone else gets what is essentially membership in one of two social clubs and give their resources to the masters, who will use them to make still more money rather than to solve problems. Or as clitorisjunkie so succinctly put it "Conservatism and Liberalism is dead."

Ideals are replaced by distractions, issues that push people's buttons but really have little bearing on any political reality. I can see, for instance, why somebody might want to defend the right to gay marriage, but the reality is nobody will die or go hungry if gay marriage is either banned or allowed. The economy will not fail miserably as it has because gay marriage is banned; nor will it rise back up to the old standard because it is permitted.

We cannot afford to waste our time on such admittedly important but relatively nominal issues when there are so many more pressing ones waiting to be addressed.

The elite could afford to patch up the real problems, but then they would not be making the largest profit possible, which is why they need to distract us with fake issues - so they can profit to the detriment of the rest of civilization.

 

Most people today think conservative means George W. Bush, who is NOT a conservative and did not do a single conservative thing while in office, other than pretend to be a Christian.

98% of people today who call themselves conservatives, or worse, Republicans, are not conservative at all. They love big government as long as it's wrapped in an American flag and promises to protect them from the "evil doers" over there.

Most of them have also been taught to worship Israel, which most certainly is NOT a friend of the American people.

 

Bush cut taxes for the rich. Advancing the economic interests of the richest 10% of the country is the only thing the Republican Party really stands for.

 

Jesus Christ, you're still tossing around your little racist posts. I thought after being made to look like a fool in my journal thread you would have given up on this...


But anyway, the libertarian model put forth by Goldwater and his ideological descendents would totally work...if corporations gave a fuck about their workers. Which they don't. So libertarianism (at least economically) can't work.

Well it might work in America, in the sense that we Americans are a rather retarded people. I mean look at us today. Half the country is being fucked in the ass by rampant corporatism and its ill effects...and their proposed remedy is MORE corporatism.

Seriously...all you need to dupe Americans into supporting a broken, illogical, and perverted system of government and economics is a hot spokeswoman (Palin), a few catchy one-liners, lots of party balloons, and division among the working classes.