Barry Goldwater and extremism in the defense of freedom
He is the forgotten father of the conservative right, in that America where it is really worth calling oneself "conservative". The human and political story of Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) has always been studded with a single objective: to preserve the constitutional freedoms of individuals and local communities, protecting them from the abuses and from the fiscal and decisional bullying of Washington.
In this sense, Goldwater is the true heir of the constitutionalism of the origins and of those founding fathers who defined the principles of US exceptionalism, limiting the government to a few functions and constant accountability towards citizens.
He is the libertarian republican of the 1960s whose greatest merit was not winning elections, but sowing fertile ground that would only bear fruit with Ronald Reagan's victory in the 1980 presidential elections. It is thanks to Goldwater's intellectual work that America in the 1980s rediscovered with Reagan the values that had made it great in the eyes of the world.
Born and raised in his beloved Arizona, Goldwater spent most of his life in the Senate, representing his state from 1953 to 1965, then returning from 1969 to 1987. He was an emblem of the Conservatives, but of the libertarian ones. Unlike the traditionalism of many colleagues, Goldwater's line was in fact much more liberal on issues such as abortion and homosexual rights. If there was something on which he could not accept compromises, it was freedom in all its facets: it does not need any public legitimation, as it is inherent in ourselves, and therefore inviolable. Famous is his phrase “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue " .
This being radical, not in the methods, but in the strenuous defense of freedom, has often led him to be unique even within the party. Certainly his era offered Republicans closer to the core and establishment like rival Nelson Rockefeller, but Goldwater is never interested in that. He had no fear of being unpopular or distant from the elites, as demonstrated by his opposition to the confiscating excesses of the New Deal . This was his liberal radicalism: not to retreat from principles, even at the cost of losing the biggest game of one's life.
And he lost it in 1964, defeated by the presidential elections which saw Lyndon Johnson reconfirmed. We are in the hot age of Martin Luther King jr's claims. and the civil rights movement. His original sin, as Marco Respinti recalled, was that of having challenged the consensus of the time, that is the different declinations of statism: the western social democratic one and the totalitarian one of the communist world.
For Goldwater, that electoral campaign was also an opportunity to reiterate, by virtue of the 10th Amendment, that states must be able to decide for themselves, without the federal government intervening in their affairs, even if moved by the best of intentions.
His opposition to the Civil Rights Act of that year cost him the victory and the worst accusations of racism, also in light of the numerous acclaim he had obtained among the Southern Democrats, who had interpreted his position in a segregationist key. While it is true that Goldwater never approved the law in question, in particular Titles II and VII, it was certainly not for racial reasons. For him it was unconstitutional and would have violated the freedom of individual states to decide independently on the issue of desegregation.
Anyone who knows the human story of Goldwater knows that everything can be said except that it was racist. We recall in fact that he voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and that he was a fervent supporter of desegregation at the federal level: in fact he fought so that his African-American assistant Katherine Maxwell could have lunch freely with her white colleagues in the Senate canteen. Also, his running mate in 1964 was William E. Miller, co-author of the civil rights legislation of the 1950s. What's more: he was openly in favor of desegregation in Arizona, which incidentally became illegal in Phoenix as early as 1953. He fought for racial equality within the Arizona National Guard, and became an active supporter of the branch. local of the NAACP (National Association for the advancement of colored people). Too bad that the Democratic counterpart could not demonstrate its aversion to the racist universe with the same transparency.
Contrary to any form of segregation, at the same time Goldwater believed in a voluntary process of desegregation, local and not forced by the federal government, as he stated during the election campaign in Chicago:
"No law can make one person like another if it doesn't want to. Government can do little more than offer moral leadership and persuasion. The ultimate solution lies in the hearts of men ".
His opposition to the affirmative action programs undertaken by the Democrats in the name of equity is therefore discounted.
In Goldwater we rediscover America as it was conceived, in the coexistence of individuals created equal by God despite their diversity, independent and responsible, without anyone pretending to decide for them or to impose limits on personal property and wealth. Limits which, if exasperated, would have inhibited the cohesion and generosity inherent in voluntary cooperation, in the name of a fallacious coercive redistribution. It is the fresco of a nation proud of its values, made up of people who do not wait for government or society, but who prefer to do it for themselves, as Goldwater himself recalled at the 1964 Republican Convention:
"We do not seek to lead anyone's life for him – we seek only to secure his rights and to guarantee him opportunity to strive, with government performing only those needed and constitutionally sanctioned tasks which cannot otherwise be performed. […] Those who seek to live your lives for you, to take your liberties in return for relieving you of yours, those who elevate the state and downgrade the citizen […] 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 ".
It is good to reiterate that Goldwater's granite coherence is almost unique even in the American political landscape, and perhaps only traceable in figures such as with the former Congressman Ron Paul.
The title of his memoirs, “With no apologies” , could not have been more apt: no excuse or afterthought for a life lived in the absence of compromises. Perhaps his can be seen as a counterproductive obstinacy, but if we look closely, the radicalism in defending the individual should teach those who prefer the inconsistent meaning of "moderate" or "centrist", with which often you fill your mouth, almost as if you are afraid of professing to be "right" in the name of freedom.
He was the right man at the wrong time or, as the Heritage Foundation called him, "the presidential loser who won the future" . And how he won it, preparing that ideological fusionist humus for Ronald Reagan's arrival at the White House, who also supported him in that distant 1964 with the famous endorsement "A Time for choosing" :
“We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny ".
If freedom had a name, it would certainly have that of Barry Morris Goldwater.
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL https://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/barry-goldwater-e-lestremismo-nella-difesa-della-liberta/ on Wed, 22 Dec 2021 03:56:00 +0000.