A Time for Choosing
I thought perhaps we needed a reminder. Perhaps stiffen our resolve to keep advancing conservative ideals.
Given as a stump speech, at speaking engagements, and on a memorable night in 1964 in support of Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign. This version is from that broadcast.
1964
I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this.
It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, “We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government.”
This idea — that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power — is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream–the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”
The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.
Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, “What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.” But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.
Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we’re always “against,” never “for” anything.
We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments….
We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world.
We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him…. But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure….
Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector’s share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.
Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.
If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what’s at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.
They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits–not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.
Link to the site where this is found among other great pearls.
Posted by Stephanie
May 16th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Reminders are good.
For today, check this out…
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2008/05/gop-20-resuscitating-brand.html
May 17th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Stephanie,
This appears to be an edited version of the speech. The full version is here.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Dawnsblood, I know it’s an edited version. I thought it was long enough as is. Sometimes I wonder if people really read the long posts or just skim it until something sets their backs up.
Good to have the link to the full for those who would like to read all of it. Thanks!!!
suek, I’m at a point where I don’t care what the Republican Party does anymore. They don’t represent conservatives anymore and I’m a conservative first. Did you know Sean Hannity is going to register with the Conservative Party in New York? I’m not sure that’s a good move yet and I haven’t found conservative parties in other states yet, but it’s a thought. you know?
May 17th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Steph - I’m going to post something on Sunday on where I see things heading.
Always good to see something from the Gipper.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Re: Sean and the Conservative Party. I’ll have to check that out.
Do they have a presidential candidate? If Repubs jump ship at this point in time, there’s a huge chance that the Dems will win. I really think that as little as I think of McCain, either of the Dems would be disastrous…and the damage would be long lasting due to their choice of Supreme Justices.
I think - at the moment - my preferred action would be to maybe switch parties, vote for McCain this year, and start working for a Conservative nominee in 2012. It takes time to build up support - even 4 years may not be enough.
I don’t know much about the “Conservative Party”…I know that I like much of the Libertarian ideas, but they’re practically anarchists and so libertarian that they can’t get organized enough to elect someone to govern - especially since they’re not even sure they _want_ to have government!
That GOP 2.0 link is good, though - has a list of things that he’d want a nominee to stand for - I agree on all of them.
May 17th, 2008 at 11:20 am
suek, nobody knows much about the Conservative Party. I don’t think it’s national at this point.
Mo, I look forward to Sundsy’s post. Can I say ahead of time that I hope it’s optimisitc. I’m really down on McCain but conservatively speaking, I’ll survive what comes even if it’s not a pretty survival.
May 17th, 2008 at 11:37 am
If the conservitive party had started a few years back, they could have won the white house this year.
As I said before in one of my rants, we missed a golden opportunity to form a viable third party!!
May 17th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
The last time a conservative made any real inroads in bringing back conservative values was in 1992 when Ross Perot ran as the Reform Party candidate. Perot, as we know, got around 19% of the popular vote but still didn’t garner a single electoral vote in the 1992 election. Perot did, however, act as a spoiler for G. H. W. Bush who would have beaten Clinton easily in a head-to-head match-up.
This year it’s far too late to consider a third party candidate like Bob Barr and Ron Paul (Libertarians). As far as Sean Hannity goes, he and Rush Limbaugh would bring in the entire Fox News conservatives along with the approximately 20 million Ditto heads. Some of these would of course overlap with the Religious Right Evangelicals and possibly Mike Huckabee who is well liked even among conservative Democrats.
Barack Obama, for all his lofty oratory, cannot win the Bible Belt South nor can he win the mostly conservative rural voters in states like Ohio and Iowa or in toss-up states like Wisconsin and Michigan (excluding Motown).
John McCain will be the next president. But as I’ve stated here before, not much will get accomplished if disenchanted Republicans stay home and watch even more conservative Congressional candidates get steamrollered by the Democrats in November. We have seen the harbingers of that all-too-real probability in the losses of seats in traditional Republican districts and strongholds in Illinois (Hastert’s old seat), Louisiana and Mississippi.
Much is still possible between now and November if Republicans want to restore the party’s principles which were represented by the Party of Lincoln. They will not restore much of anything with a fractured party bolting to incendiary characters like Sean Hannity or Bob Barr.
Otherwise, John McCain will be a lame duck president the moment he steps into the Oval Office.
May 17th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
The last time a conservative made any real inroads in bringing back conservative values was in 1992 when Ross Perot ran as the Reform Party candidate. Perot, as we know, got around 19% of the popular vote but still didn’t garner a single electoral vote in the 1992 election. Perot did, however, act as a spoiler for G. H. W. Bush who would have beaten Clinton easily in a head-to-head match-up.
This year it’s far too late to consider a third party candidate like Bob Barr and Ron Paul (Libertarians). As far as Sean Hannity goes, he and Rush Limbaugh would bring in the entire Fox News conservatives along with the approximately 20 million Ditto heads. Some of these would of course overlap with the Religious Right Evangelicals and possibly Mike Huckabee who is well liked even among conservative Democrats.
Barack Obama, for all his lofty oratory, cannot win the Bible Belt South nor can he win the mostly conservative rural voters in states like Ohio and Iowa or in toss-up states like Wisconsin and Michigan (excluding Motown).
John McCain will be the next president. But as I’ve stated here before, not much will get accomplished if disenchanted Republicans stay home and watch even more conservative Congressional candidates get steamrollered by the Democrats in November. We have seen the harbingers of that all-too-real probability in the losses of seats in traditional Republican districts and strongholds in Illinois (Hastert’s old seat), Louisiana and Mississippi.
Much is still possible between now and November if Republicans want to restore the party’s principles which were represented by the Party of Lincoln. They will not restore much of anything with a fractured party bolting to incendiary characters like Sean Hannity or Bob Barr. Otherwise, John McCain will be a lame duck president the moment he steps into the Oval Office.
May 17th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
xsd4tex…
I live in a blue state. For that reason, my vote is unlikely to count, so I feel free to lodge a protest vote. No vote is not an option. Either I become convinced that somehow my vote _will_ count, or I’ll vote for someone of neither major party. There’s still time…who knows what will happen tomorrow!!
May 17th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
suek, you said, “I live in a blue state. For that reason, my vote is unlikely to count…” but this year could be far different because a lot of conservatives live in the states I mentioned in my post.
I lived in Ohio, a state that Democrats are taking for granted. But, Ohio is very conservative, especially the rural areas. I also lived in California most of my life before moving to Texas recently. I can tell you this: if you take the geographical coverage county by county practically the entire state of California would be red. Other states may also fall into this category too though I haven’t pored through the statistics to prove that. It’s just my observation.
John McCain is far from perfect but if he stays on message and keeps the goals of our military front and center I believe America will give him a chance. I doubt if we will see any of the Bush detritus in his administration because, stubborn as he is, he recognizes the deep wounds caused by this terrible divide we have in our country. Red state, blue state all plays to the shallow media mind-set whose 10-second attention span is on a par with the entire MTV mentality.
Before 9/11, what ever happened to Chandra Levy? RIP April 14, 1977 – May 22, 2001. How things change so quickly.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Where have all the great conservative speakers gone? SIGH!