“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
AU H2O was the bumper sticker for me when I was fourteen. It was the year Barry Goldwater took the GOP nomination from Nelson Rockefeller and the eastern establishment. It was a year that Republicans pressed the reset button. My parents were conservative, William F. Buckley conservative, but being from the Northeast they were doubtful about Goldwater. It took Ronald Reagan's half hour televised speech a few nights before the election to turn them around in spite of my urgings and the issues of the “National Review” lying on the table in the den. Ron Paul is of course my standard bearer today. His campaign is as pure as Goldwater's and it comes at another time that the GOP needs to renew its commitment to liberty.
Free market capitalism is the core value of the right. I would posit that unfettered free market capitalism is libertarian and that Adam Smith's “invisible hand” gives moral credence to individual's selfish pursuit of economic gain because the result of that independent activity by many players in a market promotes the general welfare better that if it had been directed from on high. It's a form of crowd intelligence beneficial to society. An extremely important caveat to Adam Smith's theory is that there be many players in a market system for this greater good to happen. Unfortunately Republicans have not been a trust busting force since Teddy Roosevelt and have let crony capitalist weeds overtake the garden.
Republicans resist liberty as an ideology because they think it's unelectable. Goldwater was swamped by a landslide. Ron Paul answered a question posed to him during the campaign on whether he realistically saw himself in the White House with a quiet, “not really.” This type of answer is an anathema to professional politicians who will say and do anything required to get the prize. The safe electable GOP candidate is one that answers the questions nobody asks. The Tea Party's message is of discontent with elite big government and so the party responds by nominating a Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich?
George W. Bush's administration was so poor it should condemn the Republican Party to the dog house for at least two terms to ponder their utter lack of direction. Until they understand what a danger the “W” years were for the country they have no right to demand the seat of power. In the mean time Democrats are doomed to suffer poor economic results for many years. Junior wrecked the economy so thoroughly that no amount of tinkering is going to turn it around quickly. It's a case of Republicans be careful of what you wish for because you just might get Herbert Hoover's ghost.
Goldwater's primary battle against Nelson Rockefeller was against big government and Republican's in name only. It's an unfortunate trait post FDR to creep toward the big government side of the ledger. If you define the left as pro big government then Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are Democrats! Republican's have to learn to root out these impostors. It's only a clear commitment to Liberty as espoused by Goldwater, Reagan and now Paul, that should define a true Republican leader. With the GOP rudderless, now is the time for them to embrace Goldwater again and patiently preach liberty and avoid false gods claiming to be electable.
The current Tweedledee Tweedledum difference between the two parties guarantees a third party effort. Under those circumstances Obama wins and the GOP gets pushed aside with it's infirm, intolerant and old constituency. The concentration of money, power and influence flowing towards Washington needs a counter and if Republicans let go this opportunity to seize the representation of the people for the people, then they are as irrelevant as Newt Gingrich's protestations that he is not a lobbyist.
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