Quotes from Barry M. Goldwater

they propound the first principle of totalitarianism: that the State is competent to do all things and is limited in what it actually does only by the will of those who control the State. It is clear that this view is in direct conflict with the Constitution which is an instrument, above all, for limiting the functions of government, and which is as binding today as when it was written.

as the public grows more and more cynical, the politician feels less and less compelled to take his promises seriously.

But the framers were not visionaries. They knew that rules of government, however brilliantly calculated to cope with the imperfect nature of man, however carefully designed to avoid the pitfalls of power, would be no match for men who were determined to disregard them.

Throughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument for thwarting man's liberty. Government represents power in the hands of some men to control and regulate the lives of other men. And power, as Lord Acton said, corrupts men. "Absolute power," he added, "corrupts absolutely.

the material and spiritual sides of man are intertwined; that it is impossible for the State to assume responsibility for one without intruding on the essential nature of the other; that if we take from a man the personal responsibility for caring for his material needs, we take from him also the will and the opportunity to be free.

Any government which can promise you everything you want can also take away everything you have.

the Conservative also recognizes that the political power on which order is based is a self-aggrandizing force; that its appetite grows with eating. He knows that the utmost vigilance and care are required to keep political power within its proper bounds.

Let us henceforth make war on all monopolies—whether corporate or union. The enemy of freedom is unrestrained power, and the champions of freedom will fight against the concentration of power wherever they find it.

Freedom of association is one of the natural rights of man. Clearly, therefore, it should also be a "civil" right. Right-to-work laws derive from the natural law: they are simply an attempt to give freedom of association the added protection of civil law. I

The Conservative approach is nothing more or less than an attempt to apply the wisdom and experience and the revealed truths of the past to the problems of today. The challenge is not to find new or different truths, but to learn how to apply established truths to the problems of the contemporary world.

The Conservative knows that to regard man as part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery. Secondly,

Graft and corruption are symptoms of the illness that besets the labor movement, not the cause of it. The cause is the enormous economic and political power now concentrated in the hands of union leaders.

The Conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect the superior side of man's nature, and thus take precedence over his economic wants.

The same reasons apply to unions. Industry-wide price-fixing causes economic dislocations? So does industry-wide wage-fixing. A wage that is appropriate in one part of the country may not be in another area where economic conditions are very different. Corporate monopolies impair the operation of the free market, and thus injure the consuming public. So do union monopolies.

Thus, for the American Conservative, there is no difficulty in identifying the day's overriding political challenge: it is to preserve and extend freedom.

But I am here concerned not so much by the abandonment of States' Rights by the national Democratic Party—an event that occurred some years ago when that party was captured by the Socialist ideologues in and about the labor movement—as by the unmistakable tendency of the Republican Party to adopt the same course.

State power, considered in the abstract, need not restrict freedom: but absolute state power always does. The legitimate functions of government are actually conducive to freedom.

The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power they have been given.

There may be some rights—"natural," "human," or otherwise—that should also be civil rights. But if we desire to give such rights the protection of the law, our recourse is to a legislature or to the amendment procedures of the Constitution. We must not look to politicians, or sociologists—or the courts—to correct the deficiency.

It so happens that I am in agreement with the objectives of the Supreme Court as stated in the Brown decision.

For a nation that is expressing great concern over its "economic growth," I cannot conceive of a more absurd and self-defeating policy than one which subsidizes non-production.

We have seen that unions perform their natural function when three conditions are observed: association with the union is voluntary; the union confines its activities to collective bargaining; the bargaining is conducted with the employer of the workers concerned.

Is it morally permissible to take the money of a Republican union member, for example, and spend it on behalf of a Democrat?

In order to achieve the widest possible distribution of political power, financial contributions to political campaigns should be made by individuals and individuals alone.