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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Guide Weather Subscribe Contact Us December 14, 2004 I've been right so long, it looks like left to me By Michael Dawkins Ashland It was in either high school or college when I first heard the adage that the young start out liberal and grow more conservative as one ages. Somehow, I have gone in the opposite direction. I picked up a copy in 1964 year, of Barry Goldwater's 1960 writing, "The Conscience of a Conservative," and have reread it along with his other writings several times through the years. Though I find some of his thoughts somewhat dated, I feel he was the most misunderstood politician of the last half century. Though many have given me flack for that view, few have actually read him. The tide of public opinion was enough to wash away any semblance of an open mind. Ralph Nader falls into the same category, as I have had to listen for four years to an ongoing venomous assault on his character. When, after wiping the spit from my face, I would ask the enraged ones if they had heard any interviews of Nader's lately - for instance, the interview with Amy Goodman two weeks before the election. No, couldn't be bothered in this most important election of our lifetime, if not in the history of the Republic. So, how did I get from Goldwater to Nader, and what does that have to due with the direction progressives should take? Our Constitution was a compromise between two forces in political thought. One represented by Hamilton wanted a strong central government dominated by the moneyed elite, looked down upon the multitude of common men as the "great beast." Jefferson represented the alternative that held states rights higher than federal and put more faith in the common man and democracy. In Jefferson's writings, he implies that not only we needed to have an internal revolution every generation or so, but also the Constitution could use a rewrite. My sense is that he felt he took the democratic revolution as far to the left it could go at that time, hoping that he planted enough seeds, that democracy would overcome the thought that only the men of "best quality" would rule. Goldwater was quite libertarian, did not like big government, big unions, or big business, all of which result in federalism. The Boston Tea Party was a rebellion against the repressive power of a multinational corporation; consequently, corporations were kept on a short leash after the founding of the Republic. Capitalistic forces soon overran the forces of democracy that Jefferson had so much hope for. The East India Tea Company helped give us cause for revolution, only to have its spores grow in the fertile ground of federalism. Corporations were not beholden to the citizen workers and their environment. They grew bigger and more diversified, as unions tried to keep up and the government attempted to regulate. Teddy Roosevelt and the "big stick" was a red herring that led the people to believe something was really being done about the monopolies. The only answer lay in our history a hundred years before, strict charters on what a corporation could be. Goldwater did not want to run for president, but he realized that only he stood in the way of the Republican party being totally dominated by the neoliberals (Rockefeller and friends) that had been driving the party since the end of WWII. Nader sees the same neoliberal domination in the Democratic party and how both parties have the same hegemonic agenda in the march toward world domination. Both parties close their conventions to protest, support global corporations, WTO, IMF, NAFTA. Both support a war that will destroy this country and offer unconditional support of Israel. Both parties have become little more than different sides of a Hamiltonian coin. Republicans who are uncomfortable with the direction this country is taking along with progressives tired of the lack of difference need to take our country back from the Federalists. Reunite the Dem-Rep party. Fulfill the dream of Jefferson. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Slippers Women's & Men's Slippers Ceramic Piggy Banks heloc libor rate Calenders 2005 Calender 2005 Accelerate Weightloss Products Memory Foam Mattress afsa studentloans home equity loans teleconferencing W2 Forms fasa student loans Matchmaking & Dating Scripts African Safari Conference Calls - $50/Month Security Systems student loan consolidation wholesale diamonds Currancy Exchange web conferencing Online Casinos Community Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams