May I ask your opinion of this statement? "Extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice".?

Question

This seems to raised a few bones of contention..thumbs up&down...I will have to look into a little...Further.

Answer 1

Extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice," hollered Barry Goldwater. My goodness, how along ago was it when the senator from Arizona uttered those words, as he called, among other things, for the US to go after those uppity peasants in black pyjamas who dared confront American troops in Vietnam?

If you guessed 1964 at the Republican National Convention where Goldwater accepted his party's nomination for president, you'd be right. Goldwater may have subsequently lost the elections to Lyndon Johnson but he is credited, if credit is what is due here, with sparking what has come to be known as the "conservative revolution" in America that year.

Now fast forward to 2001, several days after 9/11 and we find his disciples, now known as neoconservatives, gathered at a then obscure think tank in Washington called Project for the New American Century, drafting a letter to the White House outlining their plans to reshape the world, in particular that part of it we call our own, in response to American geoplitical interests.

A great many of those neocons ended up in government, where they aggressively pushed their agenda to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, humble Iran, confront North Korea, "introduce" the Arab countries to American-style democracy, cut down to size the Palestinian National Authority and Hezbollah, and make the Middle East safe for Israel.

The neocons, including such Israel stalwarts among them as Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Richard Pearl, were well known, after all, for being more Likud than the Likudnicks. (A New Yorker interviewer once noted how Feith had a life-size picture of Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, hanging prominently on the wall in his living room.)

And a clueless president went along. Those other officials who had trepidations about the whole exercise, like Colin Powell, were made to drink the Kool-Aid, as evidenced by the spectacle of the US secretary of state pathetically going out on a limb in February 2003 at the UN Security Council, complete with slides, attesting to the "documented fact" that Saddam Hussain possessed those putative weapons of mass destruction.

It didn't work out that way, did it? The US today stands alone. And, as Rodney Dangerfield would have put it, it gets no respect, neither from the insurgents in Iraq nor from the mullahs in Iran, neither from Hezbollah nor from Hamas. Its strategy in the Middle East lies in tatters.

And its defeat (oops, make that failure) in the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates has reinforced that isolation.

Even Vladimir Putin, no softie when it comes to breaking the rules of human decency in places like Chechnya and the Ukraine, accused the US at a conference in Munich last Saturday of showing "greater and greater disregard for the principles of international law."

Answer 2

Hmm, you tricky man, Kit.

I have never been a fan of Goldwater, but that's neither here nor there.

My basic response to that statement is that it puts a person on the keen edge of a sharpened blade, and that you're damned if you agree with it, and you're also damned if you don't.

Prior to 11 September 2001, the deadliest act of terrorism on US soil was carried out by Timothy McVeigh. If you will remember, one of his favorite quotes was: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants," by Thomas Jefferson. I believe he had a t-shirt in his possession with that quote on it when he was arrested. Clearly, for him, extremism in the defense of liberty was not only not a vice, it was an imperative which he took quite seriously. I can think of 168 people and their families and friends who would vehemently disagree with him.

And yet, there are those who, with sound reasoning, could argue that it is, indeed, a vice, and a terrible one, at that.

My personal feeling is that extremism in any form is dangerous. It clouds the mind and makes us do things which are dangerous and often not just inappropriate but, I would argue, immoral. Goldwater's statement (and I know it's part of a longer quote), would seem to be giving carte blanche to anyone who feels they have a genuine reason for extreme behavior to defend THEIR PERSONAL idea of liberty. And liberty, like beauty, is a slippery and extremely difficult concept. One man's liberty is another's tyranny or injustice. As such, it's hard to decide what is and what is not a vice in defending said slippery concept of liberty.

I am all about going overboard on many subjects, but when it comes to this quote, I believe moderation and a general consensus of what is sensible is what is important. That is, after all, one of the bases of democracy. I may not always agree with someone else's opinion, but I am willing to swallow my frustrations when necessary if the majority feels differently than I do. I figure I can swallow them long enough to start working for change, by which I mean organized and sensible change.

So I guess the final answer would be that I know of 169 people who would disagree with McVeigh and his type, because I feel that extremism is a vice.

Answer 3

It's a curious quote, because Goldwater meant at the time he said it that conservatives should oppose any attempt by the federal government to impose any kind of regulation on personal freedoms, i.e., the right of states to create their own laws (like Jim Crow) and the right of individuals to make a buck and keep it (no new taxes).

It scared a lot of people---as well it should have---and led to his defeat in the 1964 presidential elections. But I sometimes think that a number of other people in American history, like Alexander Hamilton, could have said it.

I just got through talking with several militant opponents of the war in Iraq, and their opinions might also follow the same logic, as they have risked life and limb to protest against the transport of military equipment out of the Port of Olympia in Washington state. I support them, but I think we always need to be clear about our definition of the term "liberty" when we feel so strongly about a cause that we think we must resort to violence or physical force. We can't use the ends to justify the means---if the innocent get hurt because of our actions, then we have not perpetuated the cause of liberty at all. We have simply perpetuated acts of violence and have violated the rights of others.

I'm saying this after having examined the bruise on the face of one protester, who was hit by a pepper bullet fired by a police officer during an antiwar demonstration. The cop was trained in the use of this weapon and knew he wasn't supposed to fire the bullet in a person's face, but he did anyway. "Extremism in the defense of"....the cop's idea of liberty. But the protesters were exercising a form of "Liberty"---the right of free speech, protected by the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

I don't think ol' Barry, who was in the end a moderate Republican, thought about this.

Answer 4

Very, very odd your question went right by several of your respondents. They are upset that civil liberties are threatened, but that's not what the quote says. As you put it, it is "extremism in the DEFENSE OF LIBERTY..." How one can spin that to entail a *threat* to liberty underscores why we need to bring back logic classes in high school.

It was such "extremism" which led to our Revolution against Great Britain. It was the pursuit of liberty which made the United States free and independent. Whenever a people lose that sense of "extremism," they'll eventually lose their liberty.

Also, one of your respondents attempted to quote Benjamin Franklin, but he got the quote all wrong. Mr. Franklin wrote a letter to Josiah Quincy on September 11, 1773 and he said the following, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Skeet

Answer 5

A quote from Barry Goldwater. And nnothing but an excuse for intolerance and fanaticism. People who take that kind of attitude are the enemies of liberty, not its defenders.

Answer 6

I disagree with the sentiment. It's basically granting a blank moral check to any action so long as it's cloaked in the guise of "defending liberty".

Answer 7

Might as well be:
"do whatever is necessary for the Greater Good."

And we all know what Greater Good means in the minds of politicians that want power, don't we?

Answer 8

Using the entire quote puts it into perspective.

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! - Barry Goldwater

As a whole it means that it is not bad to go as far as necessary in order to pursue liberty. In the same way, we should not let anything hold us back as we seek justice.

Answer 9

The curtailment of liberty under the guise of its defense is treason.

Answer 10

"Those who seek to take away civil liberties for the sake of freedom, deserve neither civil liberties nor freedom"