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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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January 28, 2003
Barry Goldwater was a big ol' Heb!
Democrats made such a big thing in Y2K about how historic Joe Lieberman's nomination for vice president was, marking the first time a Jew was on the national ticket of a major party. If nothing else, the Gore campaign smashed down a barrier. Of course this claim just isn't true.
Uh, does the name "Goldwater" ring any bells? From the Washington Post obituary,
Barry Morris Goldwater was born in Phoenix on New Year's Day, 1909, three years before Arizona was admitted to the Union. He was the eldest son of Baron and Josephine Williams Goldwater, and the grandson of "Big Mike" Goldwasser, a Jewish immigrant from an area of Poland that was then ruled by the Russian czars. Although Jewish on his father's side, Mr. Goldwater was raised in the Episcopalian tradition of his mother.
It goes under the radar largely because the man himself was so profoundly individualistic in his outlook. He just wasn't about race, his own or others. He would have been absolutely the last man on the planet to ever play the race card. Indeed, he got a lot of grief for not being racially conscious enough.
Again, from the Washington Post obituary,
To many, Mr. Goldwater was a man of contradictions. He ended racial segregation in his family department stores, and he was instrumental in ending it in Phoenix schools and restaurants and in the Arizona National Guard. But he also voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, contending that it was unconstitutional, and he backed restrictive amendments to earlier civil rights legislation. Blacks voted overwhelmingly against him in 1964.
Where was there a contradiction? He didn't believe in judging people by their race, and it was wrong for government to do so. Moreover, he truly didn't think it was the most important thing, and thus would not elevate racial issues as having overriding priority over any and all others. He was more concerned with maintaining the proper constitutional separation of powers and avoiding the improper usurpation of power by the federal government. The federal government was designed to have carefully described areas of authority, with other areas under the purview of states and individual citizens. It was not necessarily the place for the federal government to usurp power from the states, even if they sometimes did bad things.
In 1964, the Republican party nominated a Jew as their candidate for president. Most people didn't even notice. That was the truly historic element of the event.
posted by Al at 1/28/2003 01:20:00 AM
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