Letters to the Editor
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‘Would Goldwater Leave?’
Senator Goldwater’s attacks on Christian conservatives were inconsistent, hypocritical, and ironic [“Would Goldwater Leave?” John P. Avlon, Opinion, April 7, 2006].
It’s bizarre that Goldwater suddenly became alarmed about mixing religion and politics. In his own book, “The Conscience of a Conservative” (1960), Goldwater wrote that the conservative believes that man “is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires.”
Goldwater also praised the work of Russell Kirk, who defined conservatism in his classic book, “The Conservative Mind” (1953). Kirk wrote that the first canon of conservative thought was a “Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems.”
During the 1950s and 1960s, Goldwater bitterly attacked socalled “Me Too” Republicans such as Governor Rockefeller and Senator Javits, both of New York, complaining that they agreed with the Democrats on economic and foreign policy issues.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Goldwater became a “Me Too” Republican himself, agreeing with the Democrats on abortion, homosexuality, and other social issues.
Goldwater joined liberals in demonizing Christian conservatives as violent, intolerant extremists and fanatics. Didn’t liberals make these same allegations against Goldwater supporters during the early 1960s?
In my view, Goldwater was the last person to self-righteously throw stones at Christian conservatives. In 1954, he voted against censuring Senator McCarthy, who made many wild and unsubstantiated charges and deliberately ruined the reputations of innocent people.
Goldwater refused to condemn the truly extremist (but greatly exaggerated) John Birch Society because he didn’t want to divide the fledgling conservative movement.
Goldwater also drove blacks away from the Republican Party by attacking the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and arguing that the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown Et Al. v. Board of Education of Topeka Et Al. decision, which outlawed racially segregated schools, was unconstitutional.
Maybe President Johnson’s supporters had a point when they said about Barry Goldwater, “In your guts you know he’s nuts.”
DIMITRI CAVALLI
The Bronx
