[Beal]

I am a member of your club. I am what you hate too. A lifelong republican. Only dogged belief that there will come a day when I can watch the tea party and so-called libertarians loading their pickups and going home to their trailers keeps me a member of the party.

If you subtract the TEA Party members and "so-called" libertarians from the Republican Party, the only thing that is left are the bible-thumping, trailer park idiots.

I cut my teeth on Goldwater.

Barry Goldwater would have been a staunch supporter of the TEA Party and would likely be leading that "so-called" libertarian charge if he were alive today.

[Drlee]

Barry Goldwater would NOT have supported the Tea Party. He was a dyed in the wool Republican and a consummate politician.

The Tea Party favors balancing the budget on the backs of the poor. Goldwater would NEVER have done that. The Tea Party is aligned with conservative Christian groups. These Goldwater loathed and openly condemned. Goldwater did not embrace the hot-button issues of homosexuality and abortion having very publically spoken up for gay rights and a woman's right to choose.

When you say libertarian and apply it to Goldwater you have to do it with the caveat "social libertarian". Goldwater believed the government should stay out of our personal lives. The Tea Party thinks no such thing having allied itself with ultra conservative Christians.

Finally Goldwater believed in a balanced budget. To balance the budget he would not hesitate to raise taxes to the level that would support government spending. He opposed deficits like the plague. He would also favor getting government out of the social welfare business on principle and reduce government spending to the minimum acceptable. The Tea Party agrees with this but their alliance with the other groups such as fundamentalist Christians and God Forbid spend-spend-spend neocons would have separated him from them instantly.

Do not for a moment think that Goldwater opposed all social welfare programs. He did not. He thought they should be state and local programs.

Finally. Goldwater did not like the income tax much. He favored a flat tax. There is no doubt in the world that if we followed this path today it would hit the wealthy far harder than the poor.

[Rich]

All we want to do is get this little war over with. There’ve been several suggestions made, I don’t think we would use any of them. But defoliation of the forest by low-yield atomic weapons could be well done.

[Drlee]

Can you stay on topic Rich?

[oscar]

I will "distrust" the GOP for as long as they advocate policies designed to undermine the "institutions" of Social Security and Medicare. The Tea Partiers are especially guilty of this. Society has to have safety nets for it's less fortunate citizens; unfortunately, the GOP agenda seems to include efforts to ignore the poor while enabling the rich to get richer with policies based on the thoroughly discredited Supply Side economics mantra.

[nucklepunche]

Actually the Tea Party is opposed to cuts for Medicare, or any cost controls on health care. They essentially represent the interests of the elderly, but want to cut off anything that benefits the young. They think they "earned" Medicare, but actually up until the Baby Boomers every generation was actually subsidized, whereas all the generations after the Baby Boomers are actually going to be paying more than they put in.

[keso]

I believe this would be a good starting point for another thread, but I will go ahead with it here.

My understanding of Roe v Wade, the decision that ultimately allows for abortion, is that the ruling actually is the arbiter of the idea that a woman should be able to make decisions concerning her own body, as that is the extension of free will and freedom, and ultimately a right backed up by the Constitution. Abortion could also be a property issue which is so eminently important to Libertarians which is also guaranteed in the Constitution. Conservatives preach of freedom, and yet they balk at the issuance of it when it conflicts with their own set of morals. The whole abortion issues creates a merry-go-round of competing morals, but they choose to side with tradition rather than reason through it.

I mean this to offend no one, I simply site this as an example of what I believe nucklepunche means when he says "the Republican Party has ruined an intellectual tradition that I love." I get his point. The Republican party advocates tradition over simplification and progress. You can't have cake if your not at the party.

I also agree with much of what nucklepunche has said, but I disagree with a lot as well. In lieu of his excellent post, I will forgo those as they are trifles, or simply not worthy of messing up what I believe to be an excellent topic. I believe that the whole institution that is the United States government suffers from what he has described, as well as a large percent of the population. In the words of one of my favorite characters - Lynn Belvedere - "If a lot more people just sat around and thought, the world would not be in the stinking mess that it is...."

Ignoring your response to what I wrote, I agree with what you said about nucklepunche. He consistently makes excellent posts, and I'd like to see him make some posts critical of the left also. While I am more liberal than conservative, I can honestly say that his well-thought out conservatism is what the USA needs more of.

[Beal]

Barry Goldwater would NOT have supported the Tea Party. He was a dyed in the wool Republican and a consummate politician.

The Tea Party favors balancing the budget on the backs of the poor. Goldwater would NEVER have done that.

Seriously? Barry Goldwater opposed the New Deal, opposed progressive income taxation, and ran against Johnson on a platform opposing his Great Society proposals. What, exactly, do you think "balancing the budget on the backs of the poor" means, if not repealing the social welfare state, cutting taxes on higher income earners, and potentially even raising taxes on lower income earners? Your mistake is that you can't differentiate the media-labeled right-wing conservative who is in fact very closely aligned with libertarianism from the modern right-wing conservative, who is a bible-thumping moron. Goldwater opposed the bible thumping morons, just like Libertarians do. Goldwater opposed the social welfare state, just like Libertarians do. Goldwater opposed the civil rights acts for the same reasons as Libertarians. Because of this, Goldwater was wildly misunderstood, just like Libertarians are.

The Tea Party is aligned with conservative Christian groups.

I will grant you that sadly, many social conservatives have made inroads trying to co-opt the movement, however any such alignment is still more tenuous than it is between the Repubican Party and conservative Christian groups.

These Goldwater loathed and openly condemned. Goldwater did not embrace the hot-button issues of homosexuality and abortion having very publically spoken up for gay rights and a woman's right to choose.

Yes, just like Libertarians.

Finally Goldwater believed in a balanced budget. To balance the budget he would not hesitate to raise taxes to the level that would support government spending.

He would support cutting spending and taxes.

Indeed, in the industrial age, earnings are probably the most prevalent form of property. It has been the fashion in recent years to disparage "property rights"--to associate them with greed and materialism. This attack on property rights is actually an attack on freedom...Property and freedom are inseparable: to the extent government takes the one in the form of taxes, it intrudes on the other.

Goldwater embraced a strict interpretation of the Constitution, believing that much of what it was doing and what many proposed that it do in 1964 was beyond Congress's mandated powers to institute. Government should have a claim on our wealth only to the point needed to enact policy in line with its constitutionally-mandated powers. Anything more exceeds its right to tax:

When the federal government enacts programs that are not authorized by its delegated powers, the taxes needed to pay for such programs exceed the goverment's rightful claim on our wealth.

Moreover, to the extent that he believed the government should have the power to tax, he also opposed progressive taxation:

What is a "fair share?" I believe that the requirements of justice here are perfectly clear: government has the right to claim an equal percentage of each man's wealth, and no more...The idea that a man who makes $100,000 a year should be forced to contribute ninety percent of his income to the cost of government, while the man who makes $10,000 is made to pay twenty per cent is repugnant to my notions of justice. I do not believe in punishing success.

...The graduated tax is a confiscatory tax. Its effect, and to a large extent its aim, is to bring down all men to a common level.

He opposed deficits like the plague.

He didn't oppose them like the plague, he just opposed them. He disagreed with the policy of "starve the beast" because he felt there was a better, less destructive way to oppose what he truly saw as the plague: the expansion of government.

[keso]

What is a "fair share?" I believe that the requirements of justice here are perfectly clear: government has the right to claim an equal percentage of each man's wealth, and no more...The idea that a man who makes $100,000 a year should be forced to contribute ninety percent of his income to the cost of government, while the man who makes $10,000 is made to pay twenty per cent is repugnant to my notions of justice. I do not believe in punishing success.

My god, what a beautiful example of a straw man argument.

The man who makes 100k per year has to contribute 90k to the government...

Where do you guys find this stuff?

[oppose_obama]

ok, how about 50-60 percent?

[Beal]

My god, what a beautiful example of a straw man argument.

The man who makes 100k per year has to contribute 90k to the government...

Where do you guys find this stuff?

I found it in Mr. Goldwater's book, published in 1964. From 1946 through 1964, the top marginal rate was indeed 91% while the lowest rate was 20%.

Keso, you really need to read for context. This isn't even about whether anyone actually paid a 90% tax rate. It's about what Barry Goldwater believed. The vast gulf between the lowest rate and the top marginal rate were, if nothing else, a symbol of the contemporary government's attempts to intitute progressive taxation. Mr. Goldwater was commenting on that.

[Drlee]

The idea that a man who makes $100,000 a year should be forced to contribute ninety percent of his income to the cost of government, while the man who makes $10,000 is made to pay twenty per cent is repugnant to my notions of justice. I do not believe in punishing success.

This is a strawman. The man making $100K per year (and by the way I have a personal interest in this) is not faced with the proposition of paying 91%. If his income is derived from a business he can grow his business and become more wealthy and not be taxed on the money as income. Further. We have a two class system now. Capital gains are taxed far lower than income.

[Rich]

Another big problem with Goldwater is that his politics changed radically both before his run for President and after. Generally he became a lot more progressive Liberal as his life progressed.

Perhaps Dr Lee has followed a similar ideological trajectory.

[Beal]

This is a strawman.

Assuming it is a strawman, so what?

Another big problem with Goldwater is that his politics changed radically both before his run for President and after. Generally he became a lot more progressive Liberal as his life progressed.

At best he became more vocal about his opinions on social issues. I see little evidence that his opinions changed radically.

[nucklepunche]

In the 60s Goldwater ran on social issues, but his social issues were crime, public order, and defense. He wanted to crack down on crime and beat the commies. This was "social issues" before the 1970s and 80s. It was then that abortion, school prayer, feminism, and the like became major hot button issues.

Goldwater never really changed his positions, he simply never espoused his socially liberal positions because in 1964 they were not an issue yet. It took five to ten years for social issues as we see it now to become big.

As far as I can see, Goldwater never changed his political philosophy on anything else. He was fundamentally a moderate libertarian with some hawkish views on foreign policy. I don't think he ever talked about the gold standard or Austrian economics, but he was fairly conservative on fiscal issues, even so I don't think he would have signed the Grover Norquist tax pledge and probably would have opposed the government shutdown and debt ceiling strategy Republicans used later.

In the end if he were alive today he would be a pragmatic libertarian on domestic policy, and firmly within the John McCain/Lindsey Graham camp on foreign policy. Goldwater was always a hawk and a compromiser, so he probably wouldn't have much in common with the Paul wing of libertarianism.

[Drlee]

^^

Yes. He was also a deeply personal man and felt very strongly about privacy. When he was home in Phoenix he welcomed we local boys to see his ham radio shack. In those days you could ride up to the front door and knock.

He believed in small government. He did not believe in large social programs at a federal level! This is key to understanding small government republicans of his day. The issue is not whether taxes are theft or private property sacred. Goldwater would have laughed at the notion that taxes are theft. Pay close attention to an earlier Goldwater quote. Close attention. You will see how easy it is to get in trouble issuing broad statements about what complicated and sophisticated people believe:

Goldwater: (bold is mine) The government must begin to withdraw from a whole series of programs that are outside its constitutional mandate — from social welfare programs, education, public power, agriculture, public housing, urban renewal and all other activities that can be better performed by lower levels of government or by private institutions or by individuals. I do not suggest that the federal government drop all of these programs overnight. But I do suggest that we establish, by law, a rigid timetable for a staged withdrawal. We might provide, for example, for a 10 percent spending reduction each year in all of the fields in which federal participation is undesirable.[7]

It would be incorrect to assume that Goldwater did not allow for government public welfare programs. It is clear that he thought they ought not to be federal programs.

This is important for our overseas friends to understand. Unlike most European countries (indeed most countries in the world) our federal government is not the branch with the most effect on our daily lives. State and local government agencies are. We have a fairly decentralized government by and large. I would favor putting more control in the hands of state and local officials. The problem now is that the federal government is such a consumer of tax money that there is a limit to what the states could do if they want to.

First and foremost Goldwater believed in a balanced budget. Taxes are and essential part of accomplishing that. Goldwater knew that. He was a practical man.

[nucklepunche]

Goldwater was a constitutionalist, in essence. Correct me if I am wrong DrLee, because I am researching him in retrospect but you met him, but he generally believed that federally run programs at the Federal level were simply unconstitutional, but he thought states should put them in place.

His views on Social Security were similar to my own, he believed that the system was fundamentally flawed and a Ponzi scheme but he recognized that it was accepted as being in place and people had built their lives around planning for it.

He was a law and order conservative, but he was not a religious fundamentalist conservative.

He wasn't a doctrinaire libertarian, but actually a bit closer to Rudy Giuliani, fiscally conservative, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, but very anti-crime, and hawkish on foreign policy.

[Drlee]

I think you are just about right about Goldwater. He was a high church Episcopalian. Just about as far from religious fundamentalism as you can get.

By todays standards Goldwater was a moderate. Here is what he said about Social Security:

SOCIAL SECURITY

Barry Goldwater wants to safeguard the "security" in Social Security.



I favor a sound Social Security system and I want to see it strengthened. I want to see every participant receive all the benefits this system provides. And I want to see these benefits paid in dollars with real purchasing power.

"Social Security is a system of basic protection for the aged. In addition, most Americans now participate in private pension plans while many have their own savings and investments Social Security was never intended to replace these voluntary programs. Its prime purpose was and is to supplement them, to provide a basic floor. I am convinced it can do this job, the job for which it was created.

"Essentially, protection against need in America depends upon a free economy which produces an ever-growing abundance and an ever-greater opportunity for all. In this framework, I believe Social Security has a vital and legitimate supporting role."

Here is what to understand about the US in 1964 when this was written. Social Security was designed as a hedge against poverty in old age. It was never intended as a substitute for employer pension programs. Remember that in 1964 virtually every employer, large or small, had a pension program. There was no such thing as 401Ks and the like. Men lived to be 66 and women almost 70. Their parents and the people who designed social security did so when 65 years old was older than the average American lived. So Goldwater's position in 1964 changed before he died in 1998. The difference between then and now? Consider this:

•Social Security benefits represent about 39% of the income of the elderly.
•Among elderly Social Security beneficiaries, 53% of married couples and 74% of unmarried persons receive 50% or more of their income from Social Security.
• Among elderly Social Security beneficiaries, 23% of married couples and about 46% of unmarried persons rely on Social Security for 90% or more of their income.

The bottom line is that American industry just stopped offering pensions. They cut wages and benefits and pocketed the money they used to spend on them. Now we have so-called libertarians calling for its end. As you can see Goldwater would be for strengthening it.
He was a pilot and general officer in the Air Force National Guard. He was for a strong defense.

He would oppose the patriot act. He would be appalled at the NSA. You nailed his position on individual freedoms.

[keso]

I found it in Mr. Goldwater's book, published in 1964. From 1946 through 1964, the top marginal rate was indeed 91% while the lowest rate was 20%.

Keso, you really need to read for context. This isn't even about whether anyone actually paid a 90% tax rate. It's about what Barry Goldwater believed. The vast gulf between the lowest rate and the top marginal rate were, if nothing else, a symbol of the contemporary government's attempts to intitute progressive taxation. Mr. Goldwater was commenting on that.

No, the funny thing is, is that you think that a 90% tax rate means that a person who earns 100k pays 90k.

That, coupled with your creative interpretation of Barry Goldwater, well, let's just say the euros look on and laugh.

[keso]

Assuming it is a strawman, so what?

It sounds like you need some basic knowledge of how to discuss things, and just what the problem with a strawman argumentation can be.

I suggest study, and critical reading.

Lots of it.

Lots, and lots, and lots.

Come back when you're done.