Liberalism in the United States is a broad political philosophy centered on the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems, and the separation of church and state, right to due process and equality under the law are widely accepted as a common foundation across the spectrum of liberal thought. The main focus of modern liberalism in the United States includes issues such as voting rights for all adult citizens, equal rights, protection of the environment, and the provision by the government of social services, such as: equal education opportunities, access to health care, transportation infrastructure, basic food for the hungry and basic shelter for the homeless. Some American liberals, who call themselves classical liberals, neoliberals, or libertarians, support fundamental liberal ideals but disagree with modern liberal thought, holding that economic freedom is more important than equality of opportunity, and that promoting the general welfare of society exceeds the legitimate role of government.

Without a qualifier, the term "liberalism" since the 1930s in the United States usually refers to "modern liberalism", a political philosophy exemplified by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal and, later, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. It is a form of social liberalism, whose accomplishments include the Works Progress Administration and the Social Security Act in 1935, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Community Reinvestment Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

According to Louis Hartz, liberalism in the United States differs from liberalism elsewhere in the world because America never had a resident hereditary aristocracy, and so avoided the worst of the class warfare that swept Europe.

History

The origins of American liberalism lie in the political ideals of The Enlightenment. The Constitution of the United States set up one of the first modern republics, with no monarch and no hereditary aristocracy. However, the Constitution limited liberty by accepting slavery. The Founding Fathers recognized the contradiction, and most expected slavery to wither away. Indeed it was abolished in all the Northern states by 1804, but thanks to the demand for raw cotton by the Industrial Revolution, plantation slavery continued to flourish in the Deep South.

From the time of the American Civil War to the present day, America has extended liberty to ever broader classes of people. These extensions of liberty usually came through action of the federal government. The constitution was amended in 1865 to abolish slavery, in 1870 to extend the vote to Black men, in 1920 to extend the vote to women, in 1964 to abolish the poll tax used in many Southern states to deny the vote to Blacks, and in 1971 to lower the voting age to 18. The Jim Crow system of the South between the 1870s and 1960s relegated blacks to second class citizenship, until it was overthrown by the Civil Rights Movement and new federal laws in 1964 and 1965.

Thomas Jefferson believed that America should remain a nation of small farmers. As America became more and more a nation of businessmen, liberals began to fear threats to liberty from corruption and monopolies (called "trusts" at the time). Wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few—especially in the new fast-growing cities—raised questions whether political democracy could survive the power of the rich.

The dominance of the Republican Party for most of the era 1860-1932, the Third Party System, and the Fourth Party System, prevented any major reversal of the concentration of wealth. During the Progressive Era of the early 20th century, laws were passed restricting monopolies (the antitrust movement) and regulating railroad rates.

After 1933, modern liberals used the New Deal to provide jobs during the Great Depression. The Social Security act of 1935 provided retirement and disability income for Americans unable to work or unable to find jobs. In the Social Security Act of 1965, this was extended to provide benefits for Americans unable to work due to illness.

In the 1960s, liberals fought for the rights of blacks and women, and for protection of the environment. They split on the issue of the Vietnam War.

A reaction against modern American liberalism began with the Reagan era, starting with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. The intellectual foundations of this conservative resurgence included the works of free-market economists Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics, who argued against central economic planning, regulation of business, and Keynesian economics. Deregulation began in the mid-1970s and had broad support from both liberals and conservatives. Reagan successfully lowered income tax rates and closed many tax loopholes. He brokered Social Security reforms with a compromise that won support from liberals and conservatives. Democratic president Bill Clinton (1993–2001) worked with conservatives, against strong liberal opposition, to end some of the main welfare programs and to implement NAFTA, linking the economies of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Clinton pushed to extend modern liberal ideals especially in the areas of health care (where he failed) and environmental protection (where he had more success).

According to Louis Hartz, liberalism was the only significant political tradition in the United States. However in the 1970s, Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood and J. G. A. Pocock saw republicanism as the main political tradition. In the 1980s, J. David Green returned to Hartz's thesis, but saw two different types of liberalism in the tradition, which he called ''humanist'' and ''reform''. More recently, writers have seen a multitude of traditions, including liberalism, republicanism and protestantism.

Varieties of liberalism

Early Liberalism

The United States of America was the first country to be founded on the liberal ideas of John Locke and other philosophers of the Enlightenment, with no monarchy, no hereditary aristocracy, and no established religion. The American Bill of Rights guarantees every citizen the freedoms advocated by the liberal philosophers: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to gather in peaceful assembly, the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and the right to bear arms, among other freedoms and rights. In this sense, virtually all Americans are liberals. However, questions arose, both before and after the country was founded. In the Dred Scott decision of 1856-57, the Supreme Court ruled that these rights only applied to White men, and that Blacks had no rights what-so-ever that any White man was obliged to respect. Therefore the constitution was amended several times to extend these rights to ever larger classes of citizens, to all citizens in 1868, then specifically to Blacks in 1870, to women in 1919, and to people unable to afford a poll tax in 1964.

Classical liberalism

Classical liberalism in the United States (also called ''laissez-faire liberalism'') is the belief that a free market economy is the most productive. It may be represented by Henry David Thoreau's statement "that government is best which governs least." Classical liberalism is a philosophy of individualism and self-responsibility. Classical liberals in the United States believe that if the economy is left to the natural forces of supply and demand, free of government intervention, the result is the most abundant satisfaction of human wants. Modern classical liberals oppose the concepts of social democracy and the welfare state.

Modern liberalism

In 1883 Lester Frank Ward (1841–1913) published ''Dynamic Sociology: Or Applied social science as based upon statical sociology and the less complex sciences'' and laid out the basic tenets of modern American liberalism while at the same time attacking the laissez-faire policies advocated by Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner. Ward was a passionate advocate for a sociology which would intelligently and scientifically direct the development of society.

Another influential thinker in the Progressive Era was Herbert Croly (1869 – 1930). He effectively combined classical liberal theory with progressive philosophy and founded the periodical ''The New Republic'' to present his ideas. Croly presented the case for a mixed economy, increased spending on education, and the creation of a society based on the "brotherhood of mankind." In 1909, Croly published ''The Promise of American Life'', in which he proposed raising the general standard of living by means of economic planning, though he opposed aggressive unionization. In ''The Techniques of Democracy'' (1915) he argued against both dogmatic individualism and dogmatic socialism. As editor of the ''New Republic'', Croly had the forum to reach the intellectual community.

Changes in liberalism in the United States

The New Deal

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 – 1945), came to office in 1933 amid the economic calamity of the Great Depression, offering the nation a New Deal intended to alleviate economic want and joblessness, provide greater opportunities, and restore prosperity. His presidency from 1933 to 1945, the longest in U.S. history, was marked by an increased role for the Federal government in addressing the nation's economic and other problems. Work relief programs provided jobs, ambitious projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority were created to promote economic development, and a Social Security system was established. The Great Depression dragged on through the 1930s, however, despite the New Deal programs, which met with mixed success in solving the nation's economic problems. Economic progress for minorities was hindered by discrimination, about which the Roosevelt administration did less than subsequent administrations, but more than had been done before. The New Deal provided direct relief for minorities in the 1930s (through the Works Progress Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps and other agencies); and, during World War II, executive orders and the FEPC opened millions of new jobs to minorities and forbade discrimination in companies with government contracts. The 1.5 million black veterans in 1945 were fully entitled to generous veteran benefits from the GI Bill on the same basis as everyone else.

The New Deal consisted of three types of programs designed to produce "Relief, Recovery and Reform":

Relief was the immediate effort to help the one-third of the population that was hardest hit by the depression. Roosevelt expanded Hoover's FERA work relief program, and added the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Public Works Administration (PWA), and starting in 1935 the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In 1935 the Social Security Act (SSA) and unemployment insurance programs were added. Separate programs were set up for relief in rural areas, such as the Resettlement Administration and Farm Security Administration.

Recovery was the goal of restoring the economy to pre-depression levels. It involved "pump priming" (deficit spending), dropping the gold standard, efforts to re-inflate farm prices that were too low, and efforts to increase foreign trade. New Deal efforts to help corporate America were chiefly channeled through a Hoover program, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC).

Reform was based on the assumption that the depression was caused by the inherent instability of the market and that government intervention was necessary to rationalize and stabilize the economy, and to balance the interests of farmers, business and labor. Reform measures included the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), regulation of Wall Street by the Securities Exchange Act (SEA), the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) for farm programs, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance for bank deposits enacted through the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) (also known as the Wagner Act) dealing with labor-management relations. Despite urgings by some New Dealers, there was no major anti-trust program. Roosevelt opposed socialism (in the sense of state ownership of the means of production), and only one major program, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), involved government ownership of the means of production.

In international affairs, Roosevelt's presidency was dominated isolationism until 1938, followed by an increasingly central role in World War II, especially after America's formal entry into the war in 1941. Anticipating the post-war period, Roosevelt strongly supported proposals to create a United Nations organization as a means of encouraging mutual cooperation to solve problems on the international stage. His commitment to internationalist ideals was in the tradition of Woodrow Wilson, architect of the failed League of Nations, and led to his support for the establishment of the United Nations, with the proviso that the U.S. would have a veto power.

Liberalism during the Cold War

U.S. liberalism of the Cold War era was the immediate heir to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal and the slightly more distant heir to the Progressives of the early 20th century. Sol Stern wrote, "Cold War liberalism deserves credit for the greatest American achievement since World War II — winning the Cold War."

The essential tenets of Cold War liberalism can be found in Roosevelt's Four Freedoms (1941): of these, freedom of speech and of religion were classic liberal freedoms, as was "freedom from fear" (freedom from tyrannical government), but "freedom from want" was another matter. Roosevelt proposed a notion of freedom that went beyond government non-interference in private lives. "Freedom from want" could justify positive government action to meet economic needs, a concept more associated with the concepts of Lincoln's Republican party, Clay's Whig Party, and Hamilton's economic principles of government intervention and subsidy than the more radical socialism and social democracy of European thinkers or with prior versions of classical liberalism as represented by Jefferson's Democratic-Republican and Jackson's Democratic party.

In the 1950s and '60s, both major U.S. political parties included liberal and conservative factions. The Democratic Party had two wings: on the one hand, Northern and Western liberals, on the other generally conservative Southern whites. Difficult to classify were the northern urban Democratic "political machines". The urban machines had supported New Deal economic policies, but would slowly come apart over racial issues. Some historians have divided the Republican Party into liberal Wall Street and conservative Main Street factions; others have noted that the GOP's conservatives came from landlocked states (Robert Taft of Ohio and Barry Goldwater of Arizona) and the liberals tended to come from California (Earl Warren and Paul N. "Pete" McCloskey), New York (Nelson Rockefeller), and other coastal states.

Opposing both communism and conservatism, Cold War liberalism resembled earlier "liberalisms" in its views on many social issues and personal liberty, but its economic views were not those of free-market Jeffersonian liberalism nor those of European social democrats. They never endorsed state socialism, but did call for spending on education, science, and infrastructure, notably the expansion of NASA and the construction of the Interstate Highway System. Their progressive ideas continued the legacy of Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Most prominent and constant among the positions of Cold War liberalism were:

Support for a domestic economy built on a balance of power between labor (in the form of organized unions) and management (with a tendency to be more interested in large corporations than in small business).

A foreign policy focused on containing the Soviet Union and its allies.

The continuation and expansion of New Deal social welfare programs (in the broad sense of welfare, including programs such as Social Security).

An embrace of Keynesian economics. By way of compromise with political groupings to their right, this often became, in practice military Keynesianism.

At first liberals generally did not see FDR's successor Harry S. Truman as one of their own, viewing him as a Democratic Party hack. However, liberal politicians and liberal organizations such as the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) sided with Truman in opposing communism both at home and abroad, sometimes at the sacrifice of civil liberties. Hubert Humphrey, for example, in 1950 put before the Senate a bill to establish detention centers where those declared subversive by the President could be held without trial. It did not pass.

Liberals were united in their opposition to McCarthyism.

The liberal consensus

By 1950, the liberal ideology was so intellectually dominant that the literary critic Lionel Trilling could write that "liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition... there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in circulation."

For almost two decades, Cold War liberalism remained the dominant paradigm in U.S. politics, peaking with the landslide victory of Lyndon B. Johnson over Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election. Lyndon Johnson had been a New Deal Democrat in the 1930s and by the 1950s had decided that the Democratic Party had to break from its segregationist past and endorse racial liberalism as well as economic liberalism. In the face of the disastrous defeat of Goldwater, the Republicans accepted more than a few of Johnson's ideas as their own, so to a very real extent, the policies of President Johnson became the policies of the Republican administrations of Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford.

Liberals and civil rights

Cold War liberalism emerged at a time when most African Americans were politically and economically disenfranchised. Beginning with ''To Secure These Rights'', an official report issued by the Truman White House in 1947, self-proclaimed liberals increasingly embraced the civil rights movement. In 1948, President Truman desegregated the armed forces and the Democrats inserted a strong civil rights plank in the party platform, even though delegates from the Deep South walked out, and nominated a third party ticket, called Dixiecrat, headed by Strom Thurmond. Truman abolished discrimination in the Armed Forces, which led to the integration of military units in the early 1950s. However, no civil rights legislation was passed until a weak bill was passed in 1957.

During the 1960s, relations between white liberals and the civil rights movement became increasingly strained; civil rights leaders accused liberal politicians of temporizing and procrastinating, although they realize they needed the support of Northern lights to pass any legislation over Southern obstructionism. The white liberals believed the grassroots movement for civil rights would only anger many Southern whites and make it even more difficult to pass civil rights laws through Congress. Thereafter, in response to that concern, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. agreed to tone down the March on Washington in 1963. Kennedy finally endorsed the March on Washington, and proposed what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but he could not get it passed during his lifetime. Lyndon Johnson, who took office in November 1963, used the image of Kennedy's martyrdom to mobilize northern support, along with the black leadership community, to pass major civil rights legislation, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The result was an end to segregation, and an end to restrictions on black voting, but also a wave of black riots in the inner cities, but made for "long hot summers" in every major city from 1964 through 1970. The riots alienated much of the white working class, that had been the base of the labor union element in the civil rights coalition.

The civil rights movement itself was becoming fractured. On 8 March 1964, Malcolm X stated he was going to organize a black nationalist organization that would try to "heighten the political consciousness" of African Americans. By 1966, a Black Power movement had emerged; Black Power advocates accused white liberals of trying to control the civil rights agenda. Proponents of Black Power wanted African-Americans to follow an "ethnic model" for obtaining power, not unlike that of Democratic political machines in large cities. This put them on a collision course with urban machine politicians. And, on its edges, the Black Power movement contained racial separatists who wanted to give up on integration altogether — a program that could not be endorsed by American liberals of any race. The mere existence of such individuals (who always got more media attention than their actual numbers might have warranted) contributed to "white backlash" against liberals and civil rights activists.

Paleoliberalism

As the civil rights and anti-war protesters of the late 1960s and early 1970s began to organize into a recognizable school of thought known as the New Left, many "anti-Soviet liberals and social democrats in the tradition of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey and Henry ("Scoop") Jackson… preferred to call themselves 'paleoliberals'", according to historian Michael Lind.

Lind also notes that some of these people became ''neoconservatives''. , although paleoliberals such as Peter Beinart exist to this day.

Liberals and Vietnam

While the civil rights movement isolated liberals from their erstwhile allies, the Vietnam War threw a wedge into the liberal ranks, dividing pro-war "hawks" such as Senator Henry M. Jackson from "doves" such as Senator (and 1972 presidential candidate) George McGovern. As the war became the leading political issue of the day, agreement on domestic matters was not enough to hold the liberal consensus together.

Vietnam was part of the strategy of containment of Soviet Communism. In the 1960 presidential campaign, the liberal Kennedy was more hawkish on Southeast Asia than the conservative Richard Nixon. Although it can be argued that the war expanded only under the less liberal Johnson, there was much continuity of their cabinets.

As opposition to the war grew, a large portion of that opposition came from within liberal ranks. In 1968, the Dump Johnson movement forced Democratic President Johnson out of the race for his own party's nomination for the presidency. Assassination removed Robert Kennedy from contention and Vice President Hubert Humphrey emerged from the disastrous 1968 Democratic National Convention with the presidential nomination of a deeply divided party. The party's right wing had seceded to run Alabama governor George Wallace, and some on the left chose to sit out the election rather than vote for a man so closely associated with the Johnson administration (and with Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley). The result was a narrow victory for Republican Richard Nixon, a man who, although a California native, was largely regarded as from the old Northeast Republican Establishment, and quite liberal in many areas. Nixon enacted many liberal policies, including the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, normalizing relations with Communist China, and starting the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks to reduce the availability of ballistic missiles.

Nixon and the liberal consensus

While the differences between Nixon and the liberals are obvious – the liberal wing of his own party favored politicians like Nelson Rockefeller and William Scranton, and Nixon overtly placed an emphasis on "law and order" over civil liberties, and Nixon's Enemies List was composed largely of liberals – in some ways the continuity of many of Nixon's policies with those of the Kennedy-Johnson years is more remarkable than the differences. Pointing at this continuity, Noam Chomsky has called Nixon, "in many respects the last liberal president."

Although liberals turned increasingly against the Vietnam War, to the point of running the very dovish George McGovern for President in 1972, the war had, as noted above, been of largely liberal origin. Similarly, while many liberals condemned actions such as the Nixon administrations support for the 1973 Chilean coup, it was not entirely dissimilar to the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 or the marine landing in the Dominican Republic in 1965.

The political dominance of the liberal consensus, even into the Nixon years, can best be seen in policies such as the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency or in Nixon's (failed) proposal to replace the welfare system with a guaranteed annual income by way of a negative income tax. Affirmative action in its most quota-oriented form was a Nixon administration policy. Even the Nixon "War on Drugs" allocated two-thirds of its funds for treatment, a far higher ratio than was to be the case under any subsequent President, Republican or Democrat. Additionally, Nixon's normalization of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and his policy of ''détente'' with the Soviet Union were probably more popular with liberals than with his conservative base.

An opposing view, offered by Cass R. Sunstein, in ''The Second Bill of Rights'' (Basic Books, 2004, ISBN 0-465-08332-3) argues that Nixon, through his Supreme Court appointments, effectively ended a decades-long expansion under U.S. law of economic rights along the lines of those put forward in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly.

Liberal consensus, 1970 to the present day

During the Nixon years (and through the 1970s), the liberal consensus began to come apart. The alliance with white Southern Democrats had been lost in the Civil Rights era. While the steady enfranchisement of African Americans expanded the electorate to include many new voters sympathetic to liberal views, it was not quite enough to make up for the loss of some Southern Democrats. Organized labor, long a bulwark of the liberal consensus, was past the peak of its power in the U.S. and many unions had remained in favor of the Vietnam War even as liberal politicians increasingly turned against it. Within the Democratic party leadership, there was a turn of moderation after the defeat of arch-liberal George McGovern in 1972.

Meanwhile, in the Republican ranks, a new wing of the party emerged. The libertarian Goldwater Republicans laid the groundwork for, and partially fed in to the Reagan Republicans. In 1980, Ronald Reagan was the Republican party's Presidential nominee. More centrist groups such as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) were on equal footing with liberals for control of the Democratic Party in this time. The centrist-liberal alliance of the federal level Democrats lasted through the 1980s, but declined in the 1990s when more conservative political figures sided with the Republican party.

The voting maps to the right show the outcome of the 2008 presidential election, in which Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, became the first African-American to be elected to the White House.

Demographics of American liberals

While it is difficult to gather demographic information on ideological groups, recent surveys by the New York Times and CBS News, between 18% and 27% of American adults identify as liberal, versus moderate or conservative. In the 2008 presidential election, exit polls showed that 22% of the electorate self-identified as "liberal." According to a 2004 study by the Pew Research Center, liberals were the most educated ideological demographic and were tied with the conservative sub-group, the "Enterprisers", for the most affluent group. Of those who identified as liberal, 49% were college graduates and 41% had household incomes exceeding $75,000, compared to 27% and 28% as the national average, respectively.

Liberalism also remains the dominant political ideology in academia, with 72% of full-time faculty identifying as liberal in a 2004 study. The social sciences and humanities were most liberal, whereas business and engineering departments were the least liberal, though even in the business departments, liberals outnumbered conservatives 49% to 39%. Generally, the more educated a person is the more likely he or she is to hold liberal beliefs.

In the 2000, 2004 and 2006 elections, the vast majority of liberals voted in favor of the Democrats, though liberals may also show support for the Greens.

See also

Libertarianism

Progressive Christianity

Progressivism in the United States

Conservatism in the United States

References

Category:Liberalism

bg:Американски либерализъм fa:لیبرالیسم در ایالات متحده آمریکا fr:Libéralisme contemporain aux États-Unis pl:Amerykański liberalizm sv:Amerikansk liberalism

{{infobox economist | school tradition

Austrian School | color firebrick | image Robert Higgs-independent.jpg | caption | name Robert Higgs | birth_date 1 February 1944 | birth_place | death_date | death_place | nationality United States | field Economic history, political economy, natural resource economics, health economics, military economics | influences Simon Kuznets, Douglass C. North, Ronald Coase, Joseph Schumpeter, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard | opposed | influenced | contributions }}

Robert Higgs (born 1 February 1944) is an American economic historian, economist combining the insights from the Public Choice, Institutional and Austrian schools of economics, and a classical liberal or libertarian in political and legal theory and public policy. His writings in economics and economic history have most often focused on the causes, means, and effects of government power and growth.

Participation in academia

He is a Senior Fellow in Political Economy at the Independent Institute (since September 1994), and is editor of ''The Independent Review'' (since 1995). He is an adjunct faculty member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.

Higgs received a Ph.D. in Economics from Johns Hopkins University, and has held teaching positions at University of Washington, Lafayette College, and Seattle University. He has also been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University. Higgs held a visiting professorship at the University of Economics, Prague in 2006, and has supervised dissertations in the Ph.D. program at Universidad Francisco Marroquín.

Writings

The Ratchet Effect

Daniel McCarthy praised Higgs and summarized his ratchet effect theory in a review of ''Against Leviathan'' that appeared in ''The American Conservative''. In the review, McCarthy remarked that,

What made ''Crisis and Leviathan'' a milestone was the rigor with which it elaborated upon the logic of James Madison's 1794 warning against "the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in government." Other political economists had studied the growth of state power during times of war, depression, and general upheaval before, but none had done so as thoughtfully and thoroughly as Higgs. He took special care in describing the "ratchet effect" — once a crisis has passed state power usually recedes again, but it rarely returns to its original levels; thus each emergency leaves the scope of government at least a little wider than before.

Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Joseph Salerno, Lew Rockwell, and other scholars have discussed the Higgs Ratchet Effect in their writings.

The Iraq War

A vehement critic of the Iraq war, Higgs wrote in the ''Los Angeles Chronicle'' in February 2008 that only a high toll in casualties or economic hardship will end the Iraqi war, not cogent arguments. Higgs continued:

It follows directly that up to this point the continued prosecution of the war has served the leaders' interests. They may say they are trying to end the war. They may have secured their election or reelection, as many of the Democrats now serving in Congress have, by promising to do whatever they can to end the war. Yet the truth is that they've sold the public a bill of goods. When the leaders have considered all the personal consequences they expect to follow from acting to end the war, they have concluded that, all things being considered, doing so does not serve their interest, and therefore they have refrained from doing so.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and social security

Higgs's 10 September 2008 article, "Ticking Time Bomb Explodes, Public Is Shocked," stated that

[t]he failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, setting in motion the biggest government bailout/takeover in U.S. history, brings a grim sense of fulfillment to competent economists.... Our political economy is rife with such catastrophes in waiting, yet the public always seems startled, and outraged, when the day of reckoning can no longer be deferred, and another apartment collapses in the state’s Hotel of Impossible Promises, loading onto the taxpayers more visibly the burden of sheltering the previous occupants.... Call it democracy in action or utterly corrupt governance; they are the same thing.

The article was praised and quoted on-air by several talk radio personalities, with WBEN Buffalo's Tom Bauerle stating that it was one of his favorite "all-time articles."

Books

As author

''The Transformation of the American Economy, 1865-1914'' (1971)

''Competition and Coercion: Blacks in the American Economy, 1865-1914'' (1977; paperback edition 1980) Nominated for the American Historical Association's Beveridge Award

''Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government'' (1987)

''Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Society'' (2004)

''Resurgence of the Warfare State: The Crisis Since 9/11'' (2005)

''Depression, War and Cold War: Studies in Political Economy'' (2006)

''Politická ekonomie strachu'' ("The Political Economy of Fear") (Czech language; 2006)

''Neither Liberty Nor Safety: Fear, Ideology, and the Growth of Government'' (2007)

As editor

''Emergence of the Modern Political Economy'' (1985)

''Arms, Politics, and the Economy: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives'' (1990)

''Hazardous to Our Health? FDA Regulation of Health Care Products'' (1995)

''Re-Thinking Green: Alternatives to Environmental Bureaucracy'' with Carl P. Close (2005)

''The Challenge of Liberty: Classical Liberalism Today'' with Carl P. Close (2006)

''Opposing the Crusader State: Alternatives to Global Interventionism'' with Carl P. Close (2007)

Notes

External links

Independent Institute biography

Liberty and Power Group Blog.

LewRockwell.com archive

Mises.org archive

Los Angeles Chronicle

Conversation with Higgs on the Great Depression

Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:American anarchists Category:American economists Category:American libertarians Category:American political writers Category:Anarcho-capitalists Category:Austrian School economists Category:Libertarian theorists Category:Libertarian economists Category:Seattle University faculty Category:Johns Hopkins University alumni Category:Lafayette College faculty

da:Robert Higgs es:Robert Higgs it:Robert Higgs pt:Robert Higgs ru:Хиггс, Роберт

Birthname	Barry Morris Goldwater
Image name	Barry Goldwater photo1962.jpg
Jr/sr	United States Senator
State	Arizona
Term start	January 3, 1969
Term end	January 3, 1987
Preceded	Carl Hayden
Succeeded	John McCain
Term start2	January 3, 1953
Term end2	January 3, 1965
Preceded2	Ernest McFarland
Succeeded2	Paul Fannin
Birth date	January 02, 1909
Birth place	Phoenix, Arizona Territory, United States
Death date	May 29, 1998
Death place	Paradise Valley, Arizona, United States
Spouse	Margaret Johnson (1934–1985)Susan Shaffer Wechsler (1992–1998)
Children	JoanneBarry Goldwater, Jr.MichaelMargaret (Peggy)
Alma mater	University of Arizona
Profession	Businessman, politician
Religion	Episcopalian
Party	Republican
Branch	United States Army Air ForcesUnited States Air Force
Rank	Lieutenant ColonelMajor General
Battles	World War IIKorean War }}

Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr. Conservative".

Goldwater is the politician most often credited for sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s. He also had a substantial impact on the libertarian movement.

Goldwater rejected the legacy of the New Deal and fought through the conservative coalition to defeat the New Deal coalition. He mobilized a large conservative constituency to win the hard-fought Republican primaries. Goldwater's right-wing campaign platform ultimately failed to gain the support of the electorate and he lost the 1964 presidential election to incumbent Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson by one of the largest landslides in history, bringing down many Republican candidates as well. The Johnson campaign and other critics painted him as a reactionary, while supporters praised his crusades against the Soviet Union, labor unions, and the welfare state. His defeat allowed Johnson and the Democrats in Congress to pass the Great Society programs, but the defeat of so many older Republicans in 1964 also cleared the way for a younger generation of American conservatives to mobilize. Goldwater was much less active as a national leader of conservatives after 1964; his supporters mostly rallied behind Ronald Reagan, who became governor of California in 1967 and the 40th President of the United States in 1981.

Goldwater returned to the Senate in 1969, and specialized in defense policy, bringing to the table his experience as a senior officer in the Air Force Reserve. His greatest accomplishment was arguably the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which restructured the higher levels of the Pentagon by increasing the power of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to direct military action. In 1974, as an elder statesman of the party, Goldwater successfully urged President Richard Nixon to resign when evidence of a cover-up in the Watergate scandal became overwhelming and impeachment was imminent. By the 1980s, the increasing influence of the Christian right on the Republican Party so conflicted with Goldwater's libertarian views that he became a vocal opponent of the religious right on issues such as gay rights and the role of religion in public life.

Personal life

Goldwater was born in Phoenix, in what was then the Arizona Territory, the son of Baron M. Goldwater and his wife, Hattie Josephine ("JoJo") Williams. His father's Jewish American family had founded Goldwater's, the largest department store in Phoenix. The family name had been changed from ''Goldwasser'' to ''Goldwater'' at least as early as the 1860 census in Los Angeles, California. Goldwater's paternal grandparents, Michel and Sarah (Nathan) Goldwasser, had been married in the Great Synagogue of London. Goldwater's mother came from an old Yankee family that included the famous theologian, Roger Williams of Rhode Island. Goldwater's parents were married in an Episcopal church in Phoenix; for his entire life, Goldwater was an Episcopalian, though on rare occasions he referred to himself as "Jewish". While he did not often attend church, he stated that "If a man acts in a religious way, an ethical way, then he's really a religious man—and it doesn't have a lot to do with how often he gets inside a church".

The family department store made the Goldwaters comfortably wealthy. Goldwater graduated from Staunton Military Academy, an elite private school in Virginia, and attended the University of Arizona for one year, where he joined the Sigma Chi fraternity. Barry had never been close to his father, but he took over the family business after Baron's death in 1930. He became a Republican (in a heavily Democratic state), promoted innovative business practices, and opposed the New Deal, especially because it fostered labor unions. Goldwater came to know former president Herbert Hoover, whose conservative politics he admired greatly. In 1934, he married Margaret "Peggy" Johnson, wealthy daughter of a prominent industrialist from Muncie, Indiana. They had four children: Joanne (born January 1, 1936), Barry (born July 15, 1938), Michael (born March 15, 1940), and Peggy (born July 27, 1944). Barry became a widower in 1985, and in 1992 he married Susan Wechsler, a nurse 32 years his junior.

With the American entry into World War II, Goldwater received a reserve commission in the United States Army Air Forces. He became a pilot assigned to the Ferry Command, a newly formed unit that flew aircraft and supplies to war zones worldwide. He spent most of the war flying between the USA and India, via the Azores and North Africa or South America, Nigeria, and Central Africa. He also flew "the hump" over the Himalayas to deliver supplies to the Republic of China. Remaining in the Air Force Reserve after the war, he eventually retired as a command pilot with the rank of Major General. By that time, he had flown 165 different types of aircraft. Following World War II, Goldwater was a leading proponent of creating the United States Air Force Academy, and later served on the Academy's Board of Visitors. The Visitor Center at the USAF Academy is now named in his honor. As a Colonel he also founded the Arizona Air National Guard, and he would desegregate it two years before the rest of the US military. Goldwater was instrumental in pushing the Pentagon to support desegregation of the armed services.

In 1940, Goldwater became one of the first people to run the Colorado River recreationally through Grand Canyon when he participated as an oarsman on Norman Nevills' second commercial river trip. Goldwater joined the trip in Green River, Utah and rowed his own boat down to Lake Mead. Goldwater ran track in high school, where he specialized in the 880 yard run. He often went by the nickname of "Rolling Thunder."

In 1970, the Arizona Historical Foundation published the daily journal that Goldwater maintained on the Grand Canyon trip, along with the photographs he took, in a 209 page volume titled "Delightful Journey" by Barry Goldwater.

Goldwater's son Barry Goldwater, Jr. served as a United States House of Representatives member from California from 1969 to 1983.

Political career

Goldwater entered Phoenix politics in 1949 when he was elected to the City Council as part of a nonpartisan group of candidates who focused on "cleaning up" widespread prostitution and gambling. As a Republican he won a seat in the US Senate in 1952, when he upset veteran Democrat and Senate majority leader Ernest McFarland. He defeated McFarland again in 1958, with a strong showing in his first reelection in a year in which the Democrats picked up 13 seats in the Senate. He stepped down from the Senate in 1964 for his presidential campaign.

Policies

Goldwater soon became most associated with labor-union reform and anti-communism; he was an active supporter of the conservative coalition in Congress. However, he rejected the wilder fringes of the anti-communist movement; in 1956 he sponsored the passage through the Senate of the final version of the Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act, despite vociferous opposition from opponents who claimed that the Act was a communist plot to establish concentration camps in Alaska. His work on labor issues led to Congress passing major anti-corruption reforms in 1957, and an all-out campaign by the AFL-CIO to defeat his 1958 reelection bid. He voted against the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954, but he was much more prudent than McCarthy and never actually charged any individual with being a communist/Soviet agent. Goldwater emphasized his strong opposition to the worldwide spread of communism in his 1960 book ''The Conscience of a Conservative''. The book became an important reference text in conservative political circles.

In 1964, Goldwater ran a conservative campaign that emphasized "states' rights." Goldwater's 1964 campaign was a magnet for conservatives since he opposed interference by the federal government in state affairs. Although he had supported all previous federal civil rights legislation and had supported the original senate version of the bill, Goldwater made the decision to oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His stance was based on his view that the act was an intrusion of the federal government into the affairs of states and, second, that the Act interfered with the rights of private persons to do business, or not, with whomever they chose.

All this appealed to white Southern Democrats, and Goldwater was the first Republican to win the electoral votes of the Deep South states (Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina) since Reconstruction. However, Goldwater's vote on the Civil Rights Act proved devastating to his campaign everywhere outside the South (besides Dixie, Goldwater won only in Arizona, his home state), contributing to his landslide defeat in 1964. A Lyndon B. Johnson ad, called "Confessions of a Republican," which ran in the North, associated Goldwater with the Ku Klux Klan. At the same time, Johnson’s campaign in the Deep South emphasized Goldwater’s full history on and previous support for civil rights. In the end, Johnson swept the election.

While Goldwater had been depicted by his opponents in the Republican primaries as a representative of a conservative philosophy that was extreme and alien, his Congressional voting records show that his positions were in harmony with those of his fellow Republicans in the Congress. What distinguished him from his predecessors was, according to Hans J. Morgenthau, his firmness of principle and determination, which did not allow him to be content with mere rhetoric.

Goldwater fought in 1971 to stop U.S. funding of the United Nations after the People's Republic of China was admitted to the organization. He said:

Elections

In 1964, he fought and won a bitterly contested, multi-candidate race for the Republican Party's presidential nomination. His main rival was New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, whom he defeated by a narrow margin in the bitterly fought California primary. His nomination was opposed by liberal Republicans who thought Goldwater's demand for rollback--defeat of the Soviet Union--would foment a nuclear war. Goldwater lost to President Lyndon Johnson by a massive landslide, pulling down the GOP, which lost many seats in both houses of Congress. Goldwater carried only his home state and five Deep South states.

Goldwater remained popular in Arizona, and in the 1968 Senate election he was reelected (this time to the seat of retiring Senator Carl Hayden). He was subsequently reelected in 1974 and 1980. The 1974 election saw Goldwater easily reelected. His final campaign in 1980 was close, with Goldwater winning in a near draw against Democrat challenger Bill Schulz. Goldwater said later that the close result convinced him not to run again.

Two self-published books advanced the Goldwater cause: ''A Choice, Not An Echo'' by Phyllis Schlafly and ''A Texan Looks at Lyndon: A Study in Illegitimate Power'' by the Texas historian J. Evetts Haley. Both were best-sellers but failed to bolster Goldwater's electoral prospects.

Retirement

Goldwater seriously considered retirement in 1980 before deciding to run for reelection. Peggy Goldwater reportedly hoped that her husband's Senate term, due to end in January 1981, would be his last. Goldwater decided to run, planning to make the term his last in the Senate. Goldwater faced a surprisingly tough battle for reelection. He was viewed by some as out of touch and vulnerable for several reasons – most importantly, because he had planned to retire in 1981, Goldwater had not visited many areas of Arizona outside of Phoenix and Tucson. He was also challenged by a formidable opponent, Bill Schulz, who was a former Republican turned Democrat and a wealthy real estate developer. Schulz was able to infuse massive amounts of money into the campaign from his own fortune.

Arizona's changing population also hurt Goldwater. The state's population had soared, and a huge portion of the electorate had not lived in the state when Goldwater was previously elected, hence many voters were not familiar with Goldwater, who was on the defensive for much of the campaign. Early returns on election night seemed to indicate that Schulz would win. The counting of votes continued through the night and into the next morning. At around daybreak, Goldwater learned that he had been reelected thanks to absentee votes, which were among the last to be counted. Goldwater's surprisingly close victory in 1980 came despite Reagan's 61% landslide over Jimmy Carter in Arizona. Republicans regained control of the Senate, putting Goldwater in the most powerful position he ever had in the Senate.

Goldwater retired in 1987, serving as chair of the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees in his final term. Despite his reputation as a firebrand in the 1960s, by the end of his career he was considered a stabilizing influence in the Senate, one of the most respected members of either major party. Yet Goldwater remained staunchly anti-communist and "hawkish" on military issues. He led the unsuccessful fight against ratification of the Panama Canal Treaty in the 1970s, which would return control of the canal zone to the Republic of Panama. His most important legislative achievement may have been the Goldwater-Nichols Act, which reorganized the U.S. military's senior-command structure.

Political relationships

Goldwater was grief-stricken by the assassination of Kennedy and was greatly disappointed that his opponent in the race would not be JFK, but instead Kennedy's Vice President, the former Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. Goldwater disliked Johnson (whom he said "used every dirty trick in the bag", and Richard M. Nixon of California, whom he later called "the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life.") Goldwater, by then again a Senator, advocated for Nixon to resign at the height of Watergate, warning that fewer than ten senators would vote against conviction after Nixon was impeached by the House of Representatives. The term "Goldwater moment" has subsequently been used to describe situations when influential members of Congress disagree so strongly with a President from ''their own party'' that they rise up and take a stand against them.

His 1984 Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act allowed local governments to require the transmission of Public, educational, and government access (PEG) channels, barred cable operators from exercising editorial control over content of programs carried on PEG channels, and absolved them from liability for their content.

U.S. presidential campaign, 1964

At the time of Goldwater's presidential candidacy, the Republican Party was split between its conservative wing (based in the West and South) and moderate/liberal wing (based in the Northeast). He alarmed even some of his fellow partisans with his brand of staunch fiscal conservatism and militant anti-communism. He was viewed by many traditional Republicans as being too far on the right wing of the political spectrum to appeal to the mainstream majority necessary to win a national election. As a result, moderate Republicans recruited a series of opponents, including New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton, to challenge Goldwater. Goldwater would defeat Rockefeller in the winner-take-all California primary and secure the nomination. He also had a solid backing from Southern Republicans. A bright young Birmingham lawyer, John Grenier, secured commitments from 271 of 279 southern convention delegates to back Goldwater. Grenier went on to serve as executive director of the national GOP during the Goldwater campaign. This was the Number 2 position to party chairman Dean Burch, Goldwater's fellow Arizonan.

Goldwater famously declared in his bold acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican Convention: "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." This paraphrase of Cicero was included at the suggestion of Harry V. Jaffa, though the speech was primarily written by Karl Hess. Due to President Johnson's popularity, however, Goldwater held back from attacking the president directly; he did not even mention Johnson by name in his convention speech.

Past comments came back to haunt Goldwater throughout his campaign. Once he called the Eisenhower administration "a dime-store New Deal," and the former president never fully forgave him. Eisenhower did, however, film a TV commercial with Goldwater. Eisenhower qualified his voting for Goldwater in November by remarking that he had voted not specifically for Goldwater, but for the Republican Party. In December 1961, Goldwater told a news conference that "sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea". That comment boomeranged on him during the campaign in the form of a Johnson television commercial, as did remarks about making Social Security voluntary, and statements in Tennessee about selling the Tennessee Valley Authority, a large local New Deal employer.

The Goldwater campaign spotlighted Ronald Reagan, who appeared in a campaign ad and gave a stirring, nationally televised speech, "A Time for Choosing", in support of Goldwater. The speech prompted Reagan to seek the California Governorship in 1966 and jump-started his political career. Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, later well known for her fight against the Equal Rights Amendment, first became known for writing a pro-Goldwater book, ''A Choice, Not an Echo,'' attacking the moderate Republican establishment. Senator Prescott Bush (1895–1972), a moderate Republican from Connecticut, was a friend of Goldwater's and supported him in the general election campaign. Bush's son, George H.W. Bush (then running for the Senate from Texas against Democrat Ralph Yarborough), was also a strong Goldwater supporter in both the nomination and general election campaigns. Future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and fellow Arizonan William Rehnquist also first came to the attention of national Republicans through his work as a legal adviser to Goldwater's 1964 campaign. Goldwater was painted as a dangerous figure by the Johnson campaign, which countered Goldwater's slogan "In your heart, you know he's right" with the lines "In your guts, you know he's nuts," and "In your heart, you know he might" (that is, might actually use nuclear weapons, as opposed to merely subscribing to deterrence). Johnson himself did not mention Goldwater in his own acceptance speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

Goldwater's provocative advocacy of aggressive tactics to prevent the spread of communism in Asia led to effective counterattacks from Lyndon B. Johnson and his supporters, who claimed that Goldwater's militancy would have dire consequences, possibly even nuclear war. Regarding Vietnam, Goldwater charged that Johnson's policy was devoid of "goal, course, or purpose," leaving "only sudden death in the jungles and the slow strangulation of freedom." Goldwater's own rhetoric on nuclear war was viewed by many as quite uncompromising, a view buttressed by off-hand comments such as, "Let's lob one into the men's room at the Kremlin."

Goldwater did his best to counter the Johnson attacks, criticizing the Johnson administration for its perceived ethical lapses, and stating in a commercial that "…we, as a nation, are not far from the kind of moral decay that has brought on the fall of other nations and people…I say it is time to put conscience back in government. And by good example, put it back in all walks of American life." Goldwater campaign commercials included statements of support by actor Raymond Massey and moderate Republican senator Margaret Chase Smith.

Before the 1964 election, the muckraking Fact magazine, published by Ralph Ginzburg, ran a special issue entitled ‘The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater.’ The two main articles contended that Goldwater was mentally unfit to be president. The magazine attempted to support this claim with the results of an unscientific poll of psychiatrists it had conducted. ''Fact'' had mailed questionnaires to 12,356 psychiatrists, and published a ‘sampling’ of the comments made by the 2,417 psychiatrists who responded, of which 1,189 said Goldwater was unfit to be president. After the election, Goldwater sued the publisher, the editor and the magazine for libel in Goldwater v. Ginzburg. "Although the jury awarded Goldwater only $1.00 in compensatory damages against all three defendants, it went on to [396 U.S. 1049, 1050] award him punitive damages of $25,000 against Ginzburg and $50,000 against ''Fact'' magazine, Inc." According to Warren Boroson, then-managing editor of ''Fact'' and now a financial columnist, the main biography of Goldwater in the magazine was written by David Bar-Illan, the Israeli pianist.

Daisy

A Democratic campaign advertisement known as Daisy showed a young girl counting daisy petals, from one to ten. Immediately following this scene, a voiceover counted down from ten to one. The child's face was shown as a still photograph followed by images of nuclear explosions and mushroom clouds. The campaign advertisement ended with a plea to vote for Johnson, implying that Goldwater (who was not mentioned by name) would provoke a nuclear war if elected. The advertisement, which featured only a few spoken words of narrative and relied on imagery for its emotional impact, was one of the most provocative in American political campaign history, and many analysts credit it as being the birth of the modern style of "negative political ads" on television. The ad only aired once, and was immediately pulled, but then was shown numerous times by television stations.

Results

In the end, Goldwater received 38.4% of the popular vote, and carried six states: Arizona (with only 50.45% of the popular vote) and the core states of the Deep South: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, where for the last time the electorate was practically all white. In all, Johnson won an overwhelming 486 electoral votes, to Goldwater's 52. Goldwater, with his customary bluntness, remarked: "We would have lost even if Abraham Lincoln had come back and campaigned with us." He maintained later in life that he would have won the election if the country had not been in a state of extended grief (referring to the assassination of John F. Kennedy), and that it was simply not ready for a third President in just 14 months.

Goldwater's poor showing pulled down many supporters. Of the 57 Republican Congressmen who endorsed Goldwater before the convention, 20 were defeated for reelection, along with many promising young Republicans. On the other hand, the defeat of so many older politicians created openings for young conservatives to move up the ladder. While the loss of moderate Republicans was temporary—they were back by 1966—Goldwater also permanently pulled many conservative Southerners and white ethnics out of the New Deal Coalition.

"In the South, Goldwater broke through and won five states—the best showing in the region for a GOP candidate since Reconstruction. In Mississippi — where Franklin D. Roosevelt had won nearly 100 percent of the vote just 28 years earlier — Goldwater claimed a staggering 87 percent." It has frequently been argued that Goldwater's strong performance in Southern states previously regarded as Democratic strongholds foreshadowed a larger shift in electoral trends in the coming decades that would make the south a Republican bastion (an end to the "Solid South")—first in presidential politics and eventually at the congressional and state levels, as well.

Goldwater and the revival of American conservatism

Although Goldwater was not as important in the American conservative movement as Ronald Reagan after 1965, he shaped and redefined the movement from the late 1950s to 1964. Arizona Senator John McCain summed up Goldwater's legacy thus: "He transformed the Republican Party from an Eastern elitist organization to the breeding ground for the election of Ronald Reagan." The columnist George Will remarked after the 1980 Presidential election that it took 16 years to count the votes from 1964 and Goldwater won.

The Republican Party recovered from the 1964 election debacle, picking up 47 seats in the House of Representatives in the mid-term election of 1966. Further Republican successes ensued, including Goldwater's return to the Senate in 1968. In January of that year, Goldwater wrote an article in the ''National Review'' "affirming that he [was] not against liberals, that liberals are needed as a counterweight to conservatism, and that he had in mind a fine liberal like Max Lerner."

Throughout the 1970s, as the conservative wing under Reagan gained control of the party, Goldwater concentrated on his Senate duties, especially in military affairs. He played little part in the election or administration of Richard Nixon, but he helped force Nixon's resignation in 1974. In 1976 he helped block Rockefeller's renomination as Vice President. When Reagan challenged Ford for the presidential nomination in 1976, Goldwater endorsed Ford, looking for consensus rather than conservative idealism. As one historian notes, "The Arizonan had lost much of his zest for battle."

In 1979, when President Carter normalized relations with Communist China, Goldwater and some other senators sued him in the Supreme Court, arguing that the president could not terminate the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty with Republic of China (Taiwan) without the approval of Congress. The case was known as ''Goldwater v. Carter'', which was dismissed by the court as a political question.

Later life

By the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan as president and the growing involvement of the religious right in conservative politics, Goldwater's libertarian views on personal issues were revealed; he believed that they were an integral part of true conservatism. Goldwater viewed abortion as a matter of personal choice, not intended for government intervention.

As a passionate defender of personal liberty, he saw the religious right's views as an encroachment on personal privacy and individual liberties. In his 1980 Senate reelection campaign, Goldwater won support from religious conservatives but in his final term voted consistently to uphold legalized abortion and, in 1981, gave a speech on how he was angry about the bullying of American politicians by religious organizations, and would "fight them every step of the way". Goldwater also disagreed with the Reagan administration on certain aspects of foreign policy (for example, he opposed the decision to mine Nicaraguan harbors). Notwithstanding his prior differences with Dwight D. Eisenhower, Goldwater in a 1986 interview rated him the best of the seven Presidents with whom he had worked.

On May 12, 1986, Goldwater was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.

After his retirement in 1987, Goldwater described the Arizona Governor Evan Mecham as "hardheaded" and called on him to resign, and two years later stated that the Republican party had been taken over by a "bunch of kooks". In a 1994 interview with the ''Washington Post'' the retired senator said,

Goldwater visited the small town of Bowen, Illinois in 1989 to see first hand where his mother was raised.

In response to Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell's opposition to the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, of which Falwell had said, "Every good Christian should be concerned", Goldwater retorted: "Every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass." (According to John Dean, Goldwater actually suggested that good Christians ought to kick Falwell in the "nuts", but the news media "changed the anatomical reference." ) Goldwater also had harsh words for his one-time political protege, President Reagan, particularly after the Iran-Contra Affair became public in 1986. Journalist Robert MacNeil, a friend of Goldwater's from the 1964 Presidential campaign, recalled interviewing him in his office shortly afterward. "He was sitting in his office with his hands on his cane ... and he said to me, 'Well, aren't you going to ask me about the Iran arms sales?' It had just been announced that the Reagan administration had sold arms to Iran. And I said, 'Well, if I asked you, what would you say?' He said, 'I'd say it's the god-damned stupidest foreign policy blunder this country's ever made!'", though aside from the Iran-Contra scandal, Goldwater thought nonetheless that Reagan was a good president. In 1988 during that year's presidential campaign, he pointedly told vice-presidential nominee Dan Quayle at a campaign event in Arizona "I want you to go back and tell George Bush to start talking about the issues."

Some of Goldwater's statements in the 1990s aggravated many social conservatives. He endorsed Democrat Karan English in an Arizona congressional race, urged Republicans to lay off Bill Clinton over the Whitewater scandal, and criticized the military's ban on homosexuals: "Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar." He also said, "You don't have to ''be'' straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to ''shoot'' straight." A few years before his death he went so far as to address the unprincipled establishment "republicans", "Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you've hurt the Republican party much more than the Democrats have."

In 1996, he told Bob Dole, whose own presidential campaign received lukewarm support from conservative Republicans: "We're the new liberals of the Republican party. Can you imagine that?" In that same year, with Senator Dennis DeConcini, Goldwater endorsed an Arizona initiative to legalize medical marijuana against the countervailing opinion of social conservatives.

Controversy

Goldwater was known in Las Vegas as a “swinger”, or someone who enjoyed the casinos of Las Vegas and the plush suites in clubs such as the Flamingo and the Riviera. He had personal and financial relationships with two racketeers – Willie Bioff and Gus Greenbaum – both of whom were later murdered in gangland executions. Bioff gained control of Hollywood labor unions in the 1930s. In 1941, Bioff was indicted for violating the federal anti-racketeering statutes, and was later convicted of extortion in connection with his management of those unions. Bioff turned state’s witness and assisted in the prosecution of nine Chicago Mafia partners. Greenbaum was a Las Vegas casino operator for various Mafia interests.

When Goldwater began his relationship with Bioff, Bioff was already a convicted labor extortionist. Goldwater said of Bioff at various times that he either did not know of Bioff’s criminal history, or that he was associating with Bioff in order to learn more about labor racketeering. In 1952, Goldwater convinced a local newspaper not to publish a story about Bioff’s criminal history. Goldwater promptly received a $5,000 contribution from Bioff. Goldwater flew Bioff to parties all over the Southwest in his private plane.

On November 17, 1963, Goldwater held a press conference in Pittsburgh in which he denounced news reports of his gangland associations.

Hobbies and interests

Amateur radio

Goldwater was an avid amateur radio operator from the early 1920s onwards, with the call signs 6BPI, K3UIG and K7UGA. The latter is now used by an Arizona club honoring him as a commemorative call. During the Vietnam War, he spent many hours giving servicemen overseas the ability to talk to their families at home over the Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS).

Goldwater was also a prominent spokesman for amateur radio and its enthusiasts. Beginning in 1969 up to his death he appeared in numerous educational and promotional films (and later videos) about the hobby that were produced for the American Radio Relay League (the United States national society representing the interests of radio amateurs) by such producers as Dave Bell (W6AQ), ARRL Southwest Director John R. Griggs (W6KW), Alan Kaul (W6RCL), Forrest Oden (N6ENV), Bill Pasternak (WA6ITF) and the late Roy Neal (K6DUE). His first appearance was in Dave Bell's "The World of Amateur Radio" where Goldwater discussed the history of the hobby and demonstrated a live contact with Antarctica. His last on-screen appearance dealing with "ham radio" was in 1994, explaining a then-upcoming, Earth-orbiting ham radio relay satellite.

Electronics were a hobby for Goldwater beyond amateur radio. He enjoyed assembling Heathkits, completing more than 100 and often visiting their maker in Benton Harbor, Michigan to buy more, before the company exited the kit business in 1992.

Kachina dolls

In 1916, Goldwater visited the Hopi Reservation with Phoenix architect John Rinker Kibby, and obtained his first kachina doll. Eventually his doll collection included 437 items, presented in 1969 to the Heard Museum in Phoenix.

Photography

Goldwater was an accomplished amateur photographer and in his estate left some 15,000 of his images to three Arizona institutions. He was very keen on candid photography. He got started in photography after receiving a camera as a gift from his wife on their first Christmas together. He was known to use a 4x5 Graflex, Rolleiflex camera, and Nikon 35 mm.

For decades, he contributed photographs of his home state to ''Arizona Highways'' and was best known for his Western landscapes and pictures of native Americans in the United States. Three books with his photographs are ''People and Places'', from 1967; ''Barry Goldwater and the Southwest'', from 1976; and ''Delightful Journey'', first published in 1940 and reprinted in 1970. Ansel Adams wrote a foreword to the 1976 book.

Goldwater's photography interests occasionally crossed over with his political career, as well. John Kennedy, as president, was known to invite former congressional colleagues to the White House for a drink. On one occasion, Goldwater brought his camera and photographed President Kennedy. When Kennedy received the photo, he returned it to Goldwater, with the inscription, "For Barry Goldwater – Whom I urge to follow the career for which he has shown such talent – photography! – from his friend – John Kennedy." This quip became a classic of American political humor after it was made famous by humorist Bennett Cerf. The photo itself was prized by Goldwater for the rest of his life, and recently sold for $17,925 in a Heritage auction.

Son Michael Prescott Goldwater formed the Goldwater Family Foundation with the goal of making his father's photography available via the internet. (''Barry Goldwater Photographs'') was launched in September 2006 to coincide with the HBO documentary ''"Mr. Conservative"'', produced by granddaughter CC Goldwater.

UFOs

Goldwater was one of the more prominent American politicians to openly show an interest in UFOs.

On March 28, 1975, Goldwater wrote to Shlomo Arnon: "The subject of UFOs has interested me for some long time. About ten or twelve years ago I made an effort to find out what was in the building at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where the information has been stored that has been collected by the Air Force, and I was understandably denied this request. It is still classified above Top Secret." Goldwater further wrote that there were rumors the evidence would be released, and that he was "just as anxious to see this material as you are, and I hope we will not have to wait much longer."

The April 25, 1988 issue of ''The New Yorker'' carried an interview where Goldwater said he repeatedly asked his friend, Gen. Curtis LeMay, if there was any truth to the rumors that UFO evidence was stored in a secret room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and if he (Goldwater) might have access to the room. According to Goldwater, an angry LeMay gave him "holy hell" and said, "Not only can't you get into it but don't you ever mention it to me again."

In a 1988 interview on Larry King's radio show, Goldwater was asked if he thought the U.S. Government was withholding UFO evidence; he replied "Yes, I do." He added:

Goldwater Scholarship

The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by Congress in 1986. Its goal is to provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in these fields.

The Scholarship is widely considered the most prestigious award in the U.S. conferred upon undergraduates studying the sciences. It is awarded to about 300 students (college sophomores and juniors) nationwide in the amount of $7500 per academic year (for their senior year, or junior and senior years). It honors Goldwater's keen interest in science and technology.

Death

Goldwater's public appearances ended in late 1996 after he suffered a massive stroke; family members then disclosed he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. He died on May 29, 1998, at the age of 89 at his long-time home in Paradise Valley, Arizona, of complications from the stroke. His ashes were buried at the Episcopal Christ Church of the Ascension in Paradise Valley, Arizona. A memorial statue set in a small park has been erected to honor the memory of Goldwater in that town, near his former home and current resting place.

Quotations

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

"The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government."

“To disagree, one doesn't have to be disagreeable.”

“Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.”

“We cannot allow the American flag to be shot at anywhere on earth if we are to retain our respect and prestige.”

“Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.”

“To insist on strength is not war-mongering. It is peace-mongering.”

“It’s time America realized that there is no gay exemption in the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence.”

"You don't need to be straight to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight."

"Today's so-called 'conservatives' don't even know what the word means. They think I've turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That's a decision that's up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It's not a conservative issue at all."

Buildings and monuments

Among the buildings and monuments named after Barry Goldwater are: the Barry M. Goldwater Terminal at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Goldwater Memorial Park in Paradise Valley, Arizona, and Barry Goldwater High School in northern Phoenix.

Documentary

Goldwater's granddaughter, CC Goldwater, has co-produced with long time friend and indie-film producer Tani L. Cohen a documentary on Goldwater's life, ''Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater'', first shown on HBO on September 18, 2006.

Books

Goldwater, Barry. ''The Conscience of a Conservative'' (1963) ISBN 0-89526-540-0

Goldwater, Barry. ''Why Not Victory? A fresh look at American policy'' (1963)

Goldwater, Barry. ''Conscience of a Majority'' (1971) ISBN 0-671-78096-4

Goldwater, Barry. ''The Coming Breakpoint (1976) ISBN 0-02-544611-8

Goldwater, Barry. ''Arizona'' (1977) ISBN 0-938379-04-6

Goldwater, Barry. ''With No Apologies: The Outspoken Political Memoirs of America's Conservative Conscience'' (1979) ISBN 0-425-04663-X

Goldwater, Barry. ''Goldwater'' (1988) ISBN 0-385-23947-5, autobiography

Relatives

Goldwater's nephew, Don Goldwater, sought the Arizona Republican Party nomination for Governor of Arizona in 2006, but was defeated by Len Munsil. Munsil was in turn defeated by Janet Napolitano, who was re-elected, and who, in 2009, became Secretary of Homeland Security.

See also

Electoral history of Barry Goldwater

''Goldwater v. Carter'', 444 U.S. 996 (1979).

Don Goldwater, a nephew

Goldwater Institute

Goldwater rule

References

Further reading

;Primary sources

George H. Gallup, ed., ''The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935–1971,'' vol. 3. (1972)

Karl Hess, ''In A Cause That Will Triumph: The Goldwater Campaign and the Future of Conservatism'' (1967), memoir by Goldwater's speechwriter

;Secondary sources

Mary C. Brennan, ''Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the G.O.P.'' (University of North Carolina Press, 1995)

Edwards, Lee. ''Goldwater'' (1995). biography

Goldberg, Robert Alan. ''Barry Goldwater'' (1995), the standard scholarly biography

Godfrey Hodgson, ''The World Turned Right Side Up: A History of the Conservative Ascendancy in America'' (1996).

Jeffrey J. Matthews. "To Defeat a Maverick: The Goldwater Candidacy Revisited, 1963–1964." ''Presidential Studies Quarterly.'' 27#1 1997. pp 662+.

Perlstein, Rick. ''Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus'' (2001) New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 0-8090-2859-X. On the 1964 campaign.

White, Theodore, ''The Making of the President: 1964'' (1965)

''The New Yorker'', April 25, 1988, p 70

External links

Retrieved on 2009-03-03

The Goldwater Institute advances the principles of free enterprise, individual responsibility, and constitutionally limited government, espoused by Senator Goldwater.

Transcript of Goldwater's 1964 Republican National Convention Acceptance Address

Goldwater's 1964 acceptance speech at the Republican Convention – the 'extremism in the defense of liberty' speech.

Extended "in memoriam" reporting from the ''Arizona Republic''

''Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony for the Presidential Medal of Freedom – May 12, 1986''

Photos of Barry Goldwater campaigning for President in Cairo, Ill., in 1964

{{U.S. Senator box | before=Ernest McFarland (D) | state=Arizona | class=1 | years=1953–1965 | alongside=Carl Hayden | after=Paul Fannin (R)}} {{U.S. Senator box | before=Carl Hayden (D) | state=Arizona | class=3 | years=1969–1987 | alongside=Paul Fannin, Dennis DeConcini | after=John McCain (R)}}

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bg:Бари Голдуотър cs:Barry Goldwater da:Barry Goldwater de:Barry Goldwater es:Barry Goldwater fr:Barry Goldwater ko:배리 골드워터 it:Barry Goldwater he:בארי גולדווטר lv:Berijs Goldvoters nl:Barry Goldwater ja:バリー・ゴールドウォーター no:Barry Goldwater pl:Barry Goldwater pt:Barry Goldwater ru:Голдуотер, Барри Моррис simple:Barry Goldwater fi:Barry Goldwater sv:Barry Goldwater uk:Баррі Голдвотер yi:בערי גאלדוואטער zh:貝利·高華德

Name	Dennis Prager
Birth date	August 02, 1948
Birth place	USA
Religion	Jewish
Occupation	Radio host, political commentator, author, and television personality
Children	1 Grandchild (announced 9/15/2010)
Web site	dennisprager.com
Accessdate	}}

Dennis Prager (born August 2, 1948) is an American syndicated radio talk show host, syndicated columnist, author, and public speaker. He is noted for his conservative political and social views emanating from conservative Judeo-Christian values. He holds that there is an "American Trinity" of essential principles, which he lists as E Pluribus Unum, In God We Trust, and Liberty. He is a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. He taught Jewish and Russian History at Brooklyn College, and was a Fellow at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, where he did his graduate work at the Russian Institute (now the Harriman Institute) and Middle East Institute from 1970-1972. He has lectured in 46 states and on six continents and traveled in 98 countries and the 50 U.S. states. He speaks French, Russian, and Hebrew, and has lectured in Russian in Russia and in Hebrew in Israel. An avid classical music lover, he periodically conducts orchestras in Southern California.

Early life

Raised in Brooklyn, New York, Prager attended Yeshiva Rambam from kindergarten through 8th grade and Yeshiva of Flatbush for high school, where he met his future co-author Joseph Telushkin in the 10th grade. Prager attended Brooklyn College majoring in Middle Eastern Studies and History; he graduated in 1970. He went on to study at the Russian Institute (now the Harriman Institute) at Columbia University.

Political views

In his articles, broadcasts, and lectures, Prager states that the U.S. is engaged in a "second non-violent civil war" "culture war" over the fundamental moral values on which he believes American society was built. Prager argues that many influential American institutions (including universities, trial lawyers, labor unions, the ACLU, civil rights groups, and most large newspapers and television networks) are dominated by "secular leftists," who, he says, attack and misrepresent Judeo-Christian values and their positive historical effect upon America and the world. In 2005, 24 of his columns were devoted to explaining those values and how he believes they make the United States special. Prager can be heard Monday through Friday, 9 to noon (Pacific), noon to 3pm (Eastern) in most major markets on the Salem Radio Network.

Controversy involving Keith Ellison

Prager in early 2009 accused Congressman Keith Ellison, a Muslim, of taking the oath of office in a photo-op reenactment of the actual oath with the Islamic Quran. Prager stated that America was "imperiled" by Ellison taking the oath on the Quran in substitution of the Bible as the Bible, "the moral basis of American civilization" in Prager's view, had never before been replaced by another religious work. Some conservative commentators such as Tucker Carlson were critical of this position, pointing out that the US Constitution requires no religious test. Carlson stated: "I'm no great defender of the Koran but I'm not sure why America is imperiled by Keith Ellison's taking the oath on it. …it's hard for me to believe I'm defending the Koran here. But that document [the Constitution] says very clearly no religious test will ever be required for holding office and you're implying holding up a religious test. …If you don't believe in the God at the very center [of] that document [the Christian Bible], you still have to acknowledge the centrality of the document? With respect, that doesn't make sense. …Here we have a Jew pushing a Muslim to use the Christian Bible. This is - that's America."

Bibliography

Prager's columns are handled by Creators Syndicate. He wrote for the Sunday ''Los Angeles Times'' "Current" section, and writes a weekly column published in newspapers such as the ''Washington Examiner'' and online at Townhall.com, National Review Online, ''Jewish World Review'' and elsewhere. He also writes a bi-weekly column for the ''Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles''.

He is also the author of four books:

''Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism'' (with Joseph Telushkin) (1986) ISBN 0-6716-2261-7

''Think a Second Time'' (1996) ISBN 0-0609-8709-X

''Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual'' (1999) ISBN 0-0609-8735-9

''Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism'' (with Joseph Telushkin) (2003) ISBN 0-7432-4620-9

See also

List of newspaper columnists

References

External links

Prager University

Dennis Prager Controversy in Joining the US Holocaust Memorial Museum from Holocaust Survivors and Remembrance Project

Dennis Prager Features at Creators Syndicate

Pragerradio.com

Townhall columns

Podcasts of Prager's recent articles

Dennis Prager Biography

Why Are Atheists So Angry? A Debate Between Prager and Sam Harris

Category:1948 births Category:American Jews Category:Living people Category:American columnists Category:American political pundits Category:American talk radio hosts Category:Jewish American writers Category:American Orthodox Jews Category:Islam-related controversies Category:Writers on antisemitism Category:Scholars of antisemitism Category:Columbia University alumni Category:People from Brooklyn

de:Dennis Prager he:דניס פרגר yi:דעניס פרעגער

birth name	Michael Francis Moore
birth date	April 23, 1954
birth place	Flint, Michigan, United States
years active	1972–present
occupation	Actor, director, screenwriter, producer
spouse	Kathleen Glynn (1991–present)
alma mater	University of Michigan–Flint (dropped out)
website	http://michaelmoore.com/ }}

Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American filmmaker, author and liberal political commentator. He is the director and producer of ''Bowling for Columbine'', ''Fahrenheit 9/11'', ''Sicko'', and ''Capitalism: A Love Story'', four of the top ten highest-grossing documentaries of all time. In September 2008, he released his first free movie on the Internet, ''Slacker Uprising'', documenting his personal crusade to encourage more Americans to vote in presidential elections. He has also written and starred in the TV shows ''TV Nation'' and ''The Awful Truth''.

Moore criticizes globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the Iraq War, the American health care system, and capitalism in his written and cinematic works.

Early life

Moore was born in Flint, Michigan and raised in Davison, a suburb of Flint, by parents Veronica (née Wall), a secretary, and Frank Moore, an automotive assembly-line worker. At that time, the city of Flint was home to many General Motors factories, where his parents and grandfather worked. His uncle LaVerne was one of the founders of the United Automobile Workers labor union and participated in the Flint Sit-Down Strike. Moore has described his parents as "Irish Catholic Democrats, basic liberal good people."

Moore was brought up Roman Catholic, attended parochial St. John's Elementary School for primary school and originally intended to join the seminary. He then attended Davison High School, where he was active in both drama and debate, graduating in 1972. As a member of the Boy Scouts of America, he achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. At the age of 18, he was elected to the Davison school board.

Career

After dropping out of the University of Michigan–Flint following his freshman year (where he wrote for the student newspaper ''The Michigan Times''), Moore worked at the local Buick plant. At 22 he founded the alternative weekly magazine ''The Flint Voice'', which soon changed its name to ''The Michigan Voice'' as it expanded to cover the entire state. In 1986, when Moore became the editor of ''Mother Jones'', a liberal political magazine, he moved to California and ''The Michigan Voice'' was shut down.

After four months at ''Mother Jones'', Moore was fired. Matt Labash of ''The Weekly Standard'' reported this was for refusing to print an article by Paul Berman that was critical of the Sandinista human rights record in Nicaragua. Moore refused to run the article, believing it to be inaccurate. "The article was flatly wrong and the worst kind of patronizing bullshit. You would scarcely know from it that the United States had been at war with Nicaragua for the last five years." Berman described Moore as a "very ideological guy and not a very well-educated guy" when asked about the incident. Moore believes that ''Mother Jones'' fired him because of the publisher's refusal to allow him to cover a story on the GM plant closings in his hometown of Flint, Michigan. He responded by putting laid-off GM worker Ben Hamper (who was also writing for the same magazine at the time) on the magazine's cover, leading to his termination. Moore sued for wrongful dismissal, and settled out of court for $58,000, providing him with seed money for his first film, ''Roger & Me.''

Directing/producing

; ''Roger & Me'': Moore first became famous for his 1989 film, ''Roger & Me'', a documentary about what happened to Flint, Michigan after General Motors closed its factories and opened new ones in Mexico, where the workers were paid much less. Since then Moore has been known as a critic of the neoliberal view of globalization. "Roger" is Roger B. Smith, former CEO and president of General Motors.

; ''Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint'': (1992) is a short (23-minute) documentary film that was aired on PBS. It is based on the feature-length film ''Roger & Me'' (1989) by Michael Moore. The film's title refers to Rhonda Britton, a Flint, Michigan, resident featured in both the 1989 and 1992 films who sells rabbits as either pets or meat.

; ''Canadian Bacon'': In 1995, Moore released a satirical film, ''Canadian Bacon'', which features a fictional US president (played by Alan Alda) engineering a fake war with Canada in order to boost his popularity. It is noted for containing a number of Canadian and American stereotypes, and for being Moore's only non-documentary film. The film is also one of the last featuring Canadian-born actor John Candy, and also features a number of cameos by other Canadian actors. In the film, several potential enemies for America's next great campaign are discussed by the president and his cabinet. (The scene was strongly influenced by the Stanley Kubrick film ''Dr. Strangelove.'') The President comments that declaring war on Canada was as ridiculous as declaring war on international terrorism. His military adviser, played by Rip Torn, quickly rebuffs this idea, saying that no one would care about "... a bunch of guys driving around blowing up rent-a-cars."

; ''The Big One'': In 1997, Moore directed ''The Big One'', which documents the tour publicizing his book ''Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American'', in which he criticizes mass layoffs despite record corporate profits. Among others, he targets Nike for outsourcing shoe production to Indonesia.

; ''Bowling for Columbine'': Moore's 2002 film, ''Bowling for Columbine'', probes the culture of guns and violence in the United States, taking as a starting point the Columbine High School massacre of 1999. ''Bowling for Columbine'' won the Anniversary Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and France's César Award as the Best Foreign Film. In the United States, it won the 2002 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. It also enjoyed great commercial and critical success for a film of its type and became, at the time, the highest-grossing mainstream-released documentary (a record now held by Moore's ''Fahrenheit 9/11''). It was praised by some for illuminating a subject slighted by the mainstream media.

; ''Fahrenheit 9/11'': ''Fahrenheit 9/11'' examines America in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, particularly the record of the Bush administration and alleged links between the families of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden. ''Fahrenheit'' was awarded the ''Palme d'Or'', the top honor at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival; it was the first documentary film to win the prize since 1956. Moore later announced that ''Fahrenheit 9/11'' would not be in consideration for the 2005 Academy Award for Documentary Feature, but instead for the Academy Award for Best Picture. He stated he wanted the movie to be seen by a few million more people via a television broadcast prior to election day. According to Moore, "Academy rules forbid the airing of a documentary on television within nine months of its theatrical release", and since the November 2 election was fewer than nine months after the film's release it would have been disqualified for the Documentary Oscar. However, Fahrenheit received no Oscar nomination for Best Picture. The title of the film alludes to the classic book ''Fahrenheit 451'' about a future totalitarian state in which books are banned; according to the book, paper begins to burn at 451 degrees Fahrenheit. The pre-release subtitle of the film confirms the allusion: "The temperature at which freedom burns." At the box office, as of 2010 ''Fahrenheit 9/11'' is the highest-grossing documentary of all time, taking in over US$200 million worldwide, including United States box office revenue of almost US$120 million. In February 2011, Moore sued producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein for US$2.7 million in unpaid profits from the film, claiming they used "Hollywood accounting tricks" to avoid paying him the money.

; ''Sicko'': Moore directed this film about the American health care system, focusing particularly on the managed-care and pharmaceutical industries. At least four major pharmaceutical companies—Pfizer, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, and GlaxoSmithKline—ordered their employees not to grant any interviews to Moore. According to Moore on a letter at his website, "roads that often surprise us and lead us to new ideas—and challenge us to reconsider the ones we began with have caused some minor delays." The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 19 May 2007, receiving a lengthy standing ovation, and was released in the U.S. and Canada on 29 June 2007. The film was the subject of some controversy when it became known that Moore went to Cuba with chronically ill September 11th rescue workers to shoot parts of the film. The United States is looking into whether this violates the trade embargo. The film is currently ranked the fourth highest grossing documentary of all time and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.

; ''Captain Mike Across America'':Moore takes a look at the politics of college students in what he calls "Bush Administration America" with this film shot during Moore's 60-city college campus tour in the months leading up to the 2004 election. The film was later re-edited by Moore into ''Slacker Uprising''.

; ''Capitalism: A Love Story'': On September 23, 2009, Moore released a new movie titled ''Capitalism: A Love Story'', which looks at the late-2000s financial crisis and the U.S. economy during the transition between the incoming Obama Administration and the outgoing Bush Administration. Addressing a press conference at its release, Moore said, "Democracy is not a spectator sport, it's a participatory event. If we don't participate in it, it ceases to be a democracy. So Obama will rise or fall based not so much on what he does but on what we do to support him."

Acting

Moore has dabbled in acting, following a 2000 supporting role in ''Lucky Numbers'' as the cousin of Lisa Kudrow's character, who agrees to be part of the scheme concocted by John Travolta's character. He also had a cameo in his ''Canadian Bacon'' as an anti-Canada activist. In 2004, he did a cameo, as a news journalist, in ''The Fever'', starring Vanessa Redgrave in the lead.

Television

Between 1994 and 1995, he directed and hosted the BBC television series ''TV Nation'', which followed the format of news magazine shows but covered topics they avoid. The series aired on BBC2 in the UK. The series was also aired in the US on NBC in 1994 for 9 episodes and again for 8 episodes on Fox in 1995.

His other major series was ''The Awful Truth'', which satirized actions by big corporations and politicians. It aired on Channel 4 in the UK, and the Bravo network in the US, in 1999 and 2000.

Another 1999 series, ''Michael Moore Live'', was aired in the UK only on Channel 4, though it was broadcast from New York. This show had a similar format to ''The Awful Truth'', but also incorporated phone-ins and a live stunt each week.

In 1999 Moore won the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in Arts and Entertainment, for being the executive producer and host of ''The Awful Truth'', where he was also described as "muckraker, author and documentary filmmaker".

Music videos

Moore has directed several music videos, including two for Rage Against the Machine for songs from ''The Battle of Los Angeles'': "Sleep Now in the Fire" and "Testify". He was threatened with arrest during the shooting of "Sleep Now in the Fire", which was filmed on Wall Street; the city of New York had denied the band permission to play there, although the band and Moore had secured a federal permit to perform.

He also directed the videos for R.E.M. single "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)" in 2001 and the System of a Down song "Boom!".

Appearances in other documentaries

Moore appeared in ''The Drugging of Our Children'', a 2005 documentary about over-prescription of psychiatric medication to children and teenagers, directed by Gary Null a proponent of Alternative Medicine. In the film Moore agrees with Gary Null that Ritalin and other similar drugs are over-prescribed, saying that they are seen as a "pacifier".

Moore appeared on fellow Flint natives Grand Funk Railroad's edition of Behind The Music.

Moore appeared as an off-camera interviewer in ''Blood in the Face'', a 1991 documentary about white supremacy groups. The film centers around a neo-Nazi gathering in Michigan.

Moore appeared in ''The Yes Men'', a 2003 documentary about two men who pose as the World Trade Organization. He appears during a segment concerning working conditions in Mexico and Latin America.

Moore was interviewed for the 2004 documentary, ''The Corporation.'' One of his highlighted quotes was: "The problem is the profit motive: for corporations, there's no such thing as 'enough'".

Moore appeared in the 2006 documentary ''I'm Going to Tell You a Secret'', which chronicles Madonna during her 2004 Re-Invention World Tour. Moore attended her show in New York City at Madison Square Garden.

Books

Moore has authored three best-selling books:

''Downsize This!'' (1996), about politics and corporate crime in the United States,

''Stupid White Men'' (2001), ostensibly a critique of American domestic and foreign policy but, by Moore's own admission, "a book of political humor," and

''Dude, Where's My Country?'' (2003), an examination of the Bush family's relationships with Saudi royalty, the Bin Laden family, and the energy industry, and a call-to-action for liberals in the 2004 election.

Political views

Though Moore rejects the label "political activist", he has been active in promoting his political views. According to John Flesher of the Associated Press, Moore is known for his "fiery left-wing populism," and publications such as the Socialist Worker Online have hailed him as the "new Tom Paine."

Moore was a high-profile guest at both the 2004 Democratic National Convention and the 2004 Republican National Convention, chronicling his impressions in ''USA Today''. He was criticized in a speech by Republican Senator John McCain as "a disingenuous film-maker." Moore laughed and waved as Republican attendees jeered, later chanting "four more years." Moore gestured his thumb and finger at the crowd, which translates into "loser."

During September and October 2004, Moore spoke at universities and colleges in swing states during his "Slacker Uprising Tour". The tour gave away ramen and underwear to young people who promised to vote. This provoked public denunciations from the Michigan Republican Party and attempts to convince the government that Moore should be arrested for buying votes, but since Moore did not tell the "slackers" involved for ''whom'' to vote, just to vote, district attorneys refused to get involved. Quite possibly the most controversial stop during the tour was Utah Valley State College in Orem, Utah. A fight for his right to speak ensued and resulted in massive public debates and a media blitz. Death threats, bribes and lawsuits followed. The event was chronicled in the documentary film ''This Divided State''.

Despite having supported Ralph Nader in 2000, Moore urged Nader not to run in the 2004 election so as not to split the left vote. On ''Real Time with Bill Maher'', Moore and Maher knelt before Nader to plead with him to stay out of the race. In June 2004, Moore stated that he is not a member of the Democratic party. Although Moore endorsed General Wesley Clark for the Democratic nomination on January 14, Clark withdrew from the primary race on February 11.

Moore drew attention when charging publicly that Bush was AWOL during his service in the National Guard, describing Bush as "The Deserter" (see George W. Bush military service controversy).

On April 21, 2008, Moore endorsed Barack Obama for President, stating that Hillary Clinton's recent actions had been "disgusting."

In December 2010, Moore publicly offered to contribute $20,000 to the bail of Julian Assange, then held in custody in Britain after Swedish prosecutors sent a European Arrest Warrant, wanting to question Assange for alleged sex crimes. Moore also wrote an open letter to the Swedish government, citing statistics on the increasing number of reported rape cases in Sweden. Some of these statistics appear to have been misinterpreted.

Personal life

Since 1990, Moore has been married to producer Kathleen Glynn, with whom he has a stepdaughter named Natalie. They live in Traverse City, Michigan.

Moore is a Catholic, but has said he disagrees with church teaching on subjects such as abortion and same-sex marriage. He acquired a life membership to the National Rifle Association following the Columbine massacre.

In 2005 ''Time'' magazine named him one of the world's 100 most influential people. Also in 2005, Moore started the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Traverse City, Michigan.

Moore's net worth has been estimated at "8 figures".

Controversy

Moore was criticized by Sean Hannity for criticizing capitalism while benefiting from it himself.

Published work

Bibliography

Filmography

''Roger & Me'' (1989)

''Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint'' (1992) (TV)

''Canadian Bacon'' (1995)

''The Big One'' (1997)

''And Justice for All'' (1998) (TV)

''Lucky Numbers'' (2000) (as actor)

''Bowling for Columbine'' (2002)

''The Corporation'' (2003)

''Fahrenheit 9/11'' (2004) "Palme d'Or" in Cannes

''Sicko'' (2007)

''Captain Mike Across America'' (2007)

''Slacker Uprising'' (2008)

''Capitalism: A Love Story'' (2009)

Television series

''TV Nation'' (1994)

''The Awful Truth'' (1999)

''Michael Moore Live'' (1999)

References

External links

Michael Moore on YouTube

The Populist: Michael Moore Can Make You Cry / ''New Yorker'' (16 February 2004)

America's Teacher by Naomi Klein, ''The Nation'', September 23, 2009

A 2007 NOW on PBS interview with Michael Moore What makes him tick, and why our health care system ticks him off

Michael Moore on His Life, His Films and His Activism - video interview by ''Democracy Now!''

Michael Moore on 2010 Midterm Elections, the Tea Party, and the Future of the Democratic Party

Category:1954 births Category:Living people Category:People from Flint, Michigan Category:Actors from Michigan Category:American alternative journalists Category:American anti–Iraq War activists Category:American anti-war activists Category:American documentary filmmakers Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American health activists Category:American political writers Category:American social commentators Category:American writers of Irish descent Category:César Award winners Category:Documentary film directors Category:Eagle Scouts Category:Emmy Award winners Category:National Rifle Association members Category:University of Michigan alumni Category:Writers from Michigan Category:Writers Guild of America Award winners Category:Youth empowerment individuals Category:Youth rights individuals Category:Roman Catholic activists Category:Academy Award winners

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