Firing Line With William F. Buckley: U.S. Senator Charles Percy- 'A Foreign Policy For The GOP (1967)'

Source:Firing Line With William F. Buckley- U.S. Senator Charles Percy (Republican, Illinois) on Firing Line With William F. Buckley, in 1967.

Source:The FreeState 

"Guest: Charles Percy. For more information about this program, see:Hoover Institution. 

For more information about the Firing Line broadcast records at the Hoover Institution Archives, see:OAC. 

"September 11, 1967: Senator Percy is a bit given to the stump-speech mode ("I truly believe that we will fight Communism just as effectively, if not more so, [by not] fighting it just in Havana and in Hanoi. We have to fight Communism in Watts; we have to fight it in Newark, and we have to fight it in Harlem; and we have to fight it by building a better America there, and not giving any chance for a Communist society to point to the hypocrisy of America and say that the American dream is only available to some people"), but we do come down to earth periodically, with concrete observations about, e.g., Yugoslavia, Poland, and Red China."  

From the Hoover Institution 

From Firing Line With William F. Buckley

Source:Firing Line With William F. Buckley- U.S. Senator Charles Percy (Republican, Illinois) on Firing Line With William F. Buckley, in 1967.

When this show aired, this was before even President Richard Nixon was President. In 1967 Progressive Democrat Lyndon was still President. Had Senator Barry Goldwater defeated President Johnson in 1964, the Republican Party probably would've had a consistent message when it came to foreign policy. 

But pre-1969, the Republican Party was completely out-of-power in the Federal Government and had fairly small minorities in Congress (House and Senate) so what Bill Buckley was trying to do here with this interview with Senator Chuck Percy (Republican, Illinois) was to try to get an idea where the Republican Party at that point stood when it came to foreign affairs and national security. Which is a tough task for anyone, especially a junior senator which is what Senator Percy was at this point, even a junior senator an U.S. Military veteran like Senator Percy.  

What Senator Percy seems to be arguing here is that for America to have credibility abroad and be taken seriously abroad and be a true beacon of freedom (that Conservatives seem to want us to be) that we need to be strong as home as well. That the best way to fight communism and Communists at home, is to have to strongest society and freedom for as many Americans as possible at home. Which is why he was talking about poverty in Los Angeles and other places in America.

Senator was arguing that the best argument for Communists, is all the poverty and lack of individual freedom for so many Americans at home. Which I believe is a very solid Progressive Republican argument. 

Firing Line With William F. Buckley: Ann Scott and Phyllis Schlafly- The Equal Rights Amendment (1973)

Source:Amazon- Firing Line With William F. Buckley Jr.

Source:The FreeState 

"Taped on March 30, 1973 The Equal Rights Amendment was on its way to ratification, when a funny thing happened: one of the states (to be followed by others) that had ratified it rescinded its ratification. The rescission had been mobilized, as Buckley puts it, not "by sexist males but by women, many of whom on second blush are discovering in the amendment implications they regard as inimical to the best interests of American women." Like what? Like, replies Mrs. Schlafly, the draft. Wait a minute, says Ms. Scott: "if women are to be citizens and citizens are to be subject to the draft, then women should take the responsibilities as well as the rights of citizenship." Swords flash as we move from the draft to employment opportunities to child support. Whether or not our two guests will ever agree on anything, we do learn where the battle lines are drawn." 

From Amazon

"Guests Phyllis Schlafly and Ann Scott debate the Equal Rights Amendment. Schlafly insists the ERA will subject women to the draft and impact custody cases. Scott asserts such criticisms are misleading.

In this Battle of the Feminists episode, conservative Phyllis Schlafly and liberal Ann London Scott debate the consequences of passing the Equal Rights Amendment. Schlafly was the National Chairman of the STOP ERA campaign, while Scott was Vice President for Legislation for the National Organization for Women. Schlafly insists the ERA will subject women to the draft and impact custody cases. Scott asserts such criticisms are misleading. Scott died of breast cancer two years after this episode." 

Source:Firing Line With William F. Buckley Jr- debating the Equal Rights Amendment in 1973.

From IMDB

I believe all good Americans across the political spectrum believe in equal rights for all people. That there’s now a consensus that’s still growing as we get younger and more liberal as a country that we shouldn’t be allowed especially the public sector, to be able to discriminate against anyone based on their race, ethnicity, gender, color, creed, nationality, religion and now even sexuality. That in a liberal democracy like America, free people meaning free people not a particular type of people, have the constitutional right to live freely and not be harassed by government.

No American under the U.S. Constitution can be discriminated for the reasons I just laid out by the public or private sectors. That it says in the U.S. Constitution that all men meaning people, not just men, have the constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That these are constitutional rights.

And if you’re a Constitutional Constructionist like U.S. Justice Antonin Scalia, you take those words to mean exactly that. Even though our Founding Fathers when they wrote the U.S. Constitution didn’t mean those constitutional rights to apply to everyone. And things like laws attempting to block people from eating, voting, working, going to school, just because of their race, just to use as examples, are unconstitutional on their face. Because they violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The question is how best to enforce these constitutional rights. How best for government to enforce them. To me those enforcements are already there in the U.S. Constitution. And thanks to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Fair Housing Law of 1968, Federal, state and local government’s, can no longer get way without enforcing these constitutional rights for everyone.

The problem during the civil rights debates of the 1950s and 60s wasn’t our Constitution. The problem was that not everyone and several states weren’t enforcing our constitutional rights equally. But those laws cleared that up and now if people are unfairly discriminated against, they can take legal and civil action against that.

People are unjustly discriminated, now have recourse with either the executive or judicial branches, they can file a complaint with either or take the people who they believed unfairly discriminated against them to civil court and get their case heard. And if they win be rewarded at the expense of the defendant, for the discrimination they suffered.

The reason why I’m not in favor of an Equal Rights Amendment, even though I’m a Liberal Democrat, because it’s not needed. It would simply be an addition to what’s already there under the U.S. Constitution. All men and women have to be treated equally under law. The law can’t discriminate based on gender or race as well as the other distinctions.

Firing Line: Firing Line With William F. Buckley- Wilbur Cohen and The Great Society in 1967

This piece was originally posted at FreeState Plus : Firing Line: Firing Line With William F. Buckley- Wilbur Cohen and The Great Society in 1967

One of the things if not the main thing that united the Republican Party in the mid and late 1960s, was President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society agenda and all the social insurance programs that came with it. Similar to President Clinton in 1993-94 with his deficit reduction plan, crime bill and failed health care reform attempt. Conservatives in America saw the growth of the Federal Government in the 1960s as a threat to individual freedom. Which is why they united behind Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964 and conservative candidates for Congress in 1966 and 68. And why they united behind Richard Nixon for President in 1968.

The GOP saw the Johnson Administration wanting to make America like Europe with a large welfare state. With things like Medicare and Medicaid, Head Start, Public Housing, increasing public education funding from the Federal Government, etc. And conservatives in America like Bill Buckley and others saw all of these programs as unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment. And didn’t like the new tax hikes that came from Medicare, especially since America was a fairly low tax country. Pre-FDR New Deal, LBJ Great Society and still a low tax country today compared with Europe. But Classical Conservatives and Libertarians, still believe that America is still overtaxed as a country.

American Conservatives wanted to get behind candidates and politicians who would work to downsize or eliminate the New Deal and Great Society. And they saw the Johnson Administration and Secretary Wilbur Cohen of the Department of Health, Welfare and Education, as people who wanted to make America more like Europe from the Federal Government. At the expense of individual freedom and state and local governments and try to centralize the power with the Federal Government.

This is how Barry Goldwater, Ron Reagan and other Conservatives got into to power. And how Dick Nixon got back into power in 1968 and how more Conservative Republicans got elected to Congress in the late 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s. And how the Republican Party became relevant again in the Federal Government and across America. By running against the New Deal and Great Society and saying that they want to change it and still try to solve the same problems. But do it in a way that gives the people more individual freedom in how they solve their own problems.

In some ways the Goldwater defeat in 1964 and the LBJ Great Society was great for the Republican Party. Because it brought them together and united them behind the same agenda. And why you saw more conservatives run for Congress and get elected especially in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Like Trent Lott, Ted Stevens, Orrin Hatch, Al Simpson, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney and may others. Because the Republican Party came together behind the same agenda. And how the Rockefeller faction of the party almost faded away.

Firing Line: William F. Buckley Interviewing U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield- Was Barry Goldwater a Mistake?

This piece was originally posted at FreeState Plus : Firing Line: William F. Buckley Interviewing U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield- Was Barry Goldwater a Mistake?

By the time the 1964 presidential campaign came around, the Republican Party was already in bad shape. They lost the presidency in 1960, Democrats controlled Congress with huge majorities. And even added to those majorities in 1962 and the classical conservative base of the Republican Party, felt the needed to fight back and take control of the party as they did in 1964. After what they saw as moderate leadership from the Eisenhower Administration in the 1950s. And they saw Vice President Richard Nixon as a moderate presidential candidate.

This is how Senator Barry Goldwater became the 1964 Republican presidential nominee and one reason why Dick Nixon didn't run for president in 1964 and why Governor Nelson Rockefeller was treated so badly at the 1964 Republican Convention. Because a new political faction was in charge of the GOP. That believed the Kennedy-Johnson Administration was moving the Federal Government too far away from federalism. And growing the Federal Government too rapidly with the Great Society and they felt the need to step up and nominate someone who they saw as a Classical Conservative and a Constitutional Conservative. Who would bring the Federal Government back in line with the U.S. Constitution.

This is how exactly Senator Goldwater ran his presidential campaign and even had some success in the South. And won some Southern states that the Democratic Party use to own. 1964 was the start of a movement in American politics, that started to move the South from being a purely Democratic region and made it more competitive for Republican candidates. Which is one reason how Dick Nixon was elected President in 1968. And got reelected in a landslide in 1972 and how the Republican Party won 5-6 presidential elections from 1968-88. Four of those elections that they won were by landslides.

The Republican Party paid a heavy price for Senator Goldwater's landslide lost in 1964, but for only two years. From 1965-67 where the Democratic Party had the presidency and huge majority's in Congress, but it was a short two years, because by 1966, President Johnson was starting to become unpopular. And Congressional Republicans picked up 47 seats in the House and four in the Senate. Republicans were still in the minority in both chambers of Congress, but back in the ballpark, with a shot at making Congress competitive.

Because in 1968 Republicans picked up five more seats in the House to give them 192 and seven in the Senate to give them 43. So the democrats no longer had such huge majorities in Congress and be able to over run the Minority Party. Because the Republican Party now had new states and districts that were put in play for them. In some ways the 1964 general elections was a great defeat for the Republican Party.

The John Birch Society: ‘Robert Welch Predicts Insiders’ Plans to Destroy America (1974)’

Source: JBS- Robert Welch-

Source:The FreeState

The classical conservative movement didn’t start in 2009 with the Tea Party movement. Certainly not in 2000 with George W Bush, who had a neoconservative presidency, or in 1994 with the Gingrich Revolution. Or in 1980 with the Reagan Revolution or in 1964 with the Goldwater Campaign. The current thinking of classical conservatism goes back to the early 1900s or longer. That was about protecting individual freedom and constitutional rights and fiscal responsibility and having a foreign policy that’s based only on protecting our own national security. Thats centered a lot around the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which Classical Conservatives and Libertarians. Believe limits what the Federal Government can do and this movement really started to grow in the 1930s and 40s.

Thanks President Roosevelt’s New Deal agenda and then they saw the growth of the United Nations and other international organizations post-World War II and of course they didn’t like that. And then with President Johnson’s Great Society agenda in the 1960s, with the rise of Senator Barry Goldwater and his 1964 rise to the Republican Party nomination for president. And then with Congressional Republicans picking up a bunch seats in the 1966 mid-term elections. With help from Dick Nixon and of course with Dick Nixon’s Silent Majority presidential campaign in 1968. When Dick Nixon became President in 1969, Classical Conservatives, the JBS and others, weren’t very happy with President Nixon and his creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and other Federal agency’s.

The conservative movement of course is much broader than this. And there Neoconservatives as well as Religious Conservatives in it. And Classical Conservatives seem moderate to Religious and Neoconservatives, with both Political Factions. Having at least some influence on the Tea Party movement, especially Religious Conservatives, much less so with Neoconservatives. What really drives Classical Conservatives, is the limited government Movement. Restricting what the Federal Government as well as state and local government’s. In what they can do and to try to cut back the size and budgets of the Federal Governments And get behind political candidates and public officials who’ll support this agenda.

Which is also what Conservative-Libertarians in the Tea Party movement are about as well. The John Birch Society and other Classical Conservatives have influenced the Tea Party movement in a positive way. Trying to move the Republican Party past-George W Bush’s neoconservatism. And try to get the Republican Party past this and back to being about limited government. And if they don’t believe the Republican Party is about limited government, then they’ll find a party or create their own. That will do this for them.
Source:The John Birch Society

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: 'There is No Such Thing as Public Money'

Source:The FreeState- The Iron Lady Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Conservative, United Kingdom)

Source:The FreeState 

"Margaret Thatcher addresses the Conservative Party conference in 1983."  

From Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

When former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher says: “There’s no such thing as public money, but taxpayers money" she’s dead on. Unless government’s owns a business, or business’s like state- owned enterprises, all the revenue that government’s get is through tax revenue one way, or the other. And it’s generally done through multiple taxes, like income taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, corporate taxes, estate taxes, capital gains taxes, and other taxes. And many more unfortunately. (From my perspective) 

Government’s are supposed to use all of this revenue for the betterment of the country. Not for their own profits, or to make themselves rich, or waste the money. Again unless government owns their own enterprises, all the revenue it gets is through taking that money from the people through taxes and sometimes they give some of it back. Through tax cuts and tax refunds and other tax subsidy’s. Oil subsidy’s come to mind.

Meaning that what government does with our money, they have to spend it wisely. Not waste it and spend our money on things that will be keep our country great and make it better. Spend our money to do things that we can’t do for ourselves. Like national security, public safety, regulating the economy, infrastructure investment and a few other things. But not try to do for us what we can do for ourselves and do better. And not try to protect people from themselves, but protect innocent people from the abuse of people who would do them harm.

So to have the most efficient government possible (if that’s possible) it would help to lay out exactly what government should be doing. And can do well and that gets to what government can do for people that they can’t do for themselves, or what government can do as well. And provide as much competition for the private sector as possible. Or do as well to be as efficient with our money as possible. 

And this gets to areas like national security, public safety, regulating the economy, being efficient with tax revenue, keeping debt and deficits down, or eliminate them. Keeping tax rates down so there’s as much money in the economy as possible.

Keep taxes down, so the people have plenty of revenue to take care of themselves. So they are not dependent on public assistance just to survive. 

Public education, for most of the population that can’t afford private schools, K-12 as well as higher ed. 

If government’s just concentrated in these areas instead of trying to have a piece of every pie that’s made, then they would have less to manage and would waste less money. Because they would only be working in areas that they are efficient in. And not doing too much and being a drag on the economy. 

When people say government’s money, or public money, they are actually talking about taxpayer money, or our money. Money that they take from us that’s not volunteered to them. So with this being these case, they need to be efficient with our money as possible so they waste as little of it as possible.

CP Harding: U.S. Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen- 'The Difference Between a Democrat and Republican in (1967)'

Source:CP Harding- interviewing Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (Republican, Illinois) in 1967.

Source:The FreeState

“Everett McKinley Dirksen (January 4, 1896 September 7, 1969) was a Republican U.S. Congressman and Senator from Pekin, Illinois. As Republican Senate leader he played a highly visible and key role in the politics of the 1960s, including helping to write and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Open Housing Act of 1968, both landmarks of Civil Rights legislation. Dirksen served in the Senate from 1951 to 1969 and was seen quite often on the evening television news shows. His banter with newsmen Walter Cronkite and Roger Mudd and his unmistakable “raspy” voice made him famous throughout the country and the world.

This video was shot in Southern Illinois in 1967 or 1968 and features a young reporter (CP Harding) from WSIU Television (Southern Illinois University) asking Senator Dirksen just one question for a proposed children’s news program. Toward the end of the interview the reporter becomes concerned because he was getting a signal that they were almost out of film….and Senator Dirksen just kept talking.” 

From CP Harding

Former U.S. Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (1959-69) explained it perfectly what it means to be a Conservative and what conservatism is (or as perfectly as it can be explained in a three-minute video) when he said a Conservative is someone who believes in conserving freedom and our values.

Conservatism, is about fiscal responsibility. Not spending more than you take in and not spending money on things that you shouldn’t be funding.

Conservatism when it comes to politics, the government not spending money on things that could be spent and run better by others. Conserving constitutional rights and individual freedom and individualism.

Without Minority Leader Dirksen, the 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights Acts as well as the 1968 Fair Housing Law ,doesn’t become law, because he convinced several Republican Senators to vote for those laws and not to block them. But voting for cloture which is a Senate term and how the Senate cuts off debate and votes on legislation.

Minority Leader Dirksen, didn’t believe in civil and constitutional rights for some, but for all. Actually, more Congressional Republicans voted for the civil rights laws than Congressional Democrats.

Minority Leader Dirksen was a big part of the passage of the civil rights laws on the 1960s, because he was a Republican that would work with Senate Leader Mike Mansfield (1961-77) and President Lyndon Johnson. (1963-69) They had to work with the Senate Minority Leader on civil rights issues, because of the Southern Caucus, which was a Far-Right voting block in Congress that would block and vote against civil rights legislation. Those Democrats would probably be Neo-Confederate or Tea Party Republicans today, like Senator Jim DeMint and others.

Because even Minority Leader Dirksen was the leader of a small minority in the Senate in the 1960s, because of the Southern Caucus he had leverage to use against the Senate Democratic Leadership and the Johnson Administration, conservatism, on foreign policy is about, yes a strong defense that can not only protect our country, but vulnerable allies who can’t defend themselves against large aggressors, but only using our military to protect our national interest not force democracy around the world. Which is what Neoconservatives believe in, or abusing constitutional rights to protect the country. But protecting those rights to keep the country safe.

There are still some Classical Conservatives in the Republican Party today: Senator Rand Paul, Senator John McCain, Representative Jeff Flake and a few others. But in a lot of ways Everett Dirksen represents what the Republican Party used to be before religious conservatism and neoconservatism came onto the scene in the Republican Party in the late 1970s.

But before that the Republican Party was almost purely a classical conservative party, with a progressive Northern wing. That until Barry Goldwater and Ron Reagan came onto the scene wasn’t able to convince enough voters to put them in power. But when those people and others came in, they’ve been a pretty powerful party ever since.