More Thoughts From Goldwater

    "The apostles of the Welfare State have been busy transforming that stern old gentleman in the top hat, the cutaway coat, and the red, white and blue trousers from a symbol of dignity and freedom and justice for all men into a national wet nurse, dispensing a cockeyed kind of patent medicine labeled 'something for nothing,' passing out soothing syrup and rattles and pacifiers in return for grateful votes on election day."

    In these words Barry Goldwater speaks--or perhaps snarls--his contempt for the creeping socialism of the liberals. He further condemns the welfare state and recalls a basic principle of Americanism by saying, "We believe any society which proposes to relieve its citizens of all responsibility--and thus condemn them to a perpetual state of childhood--is acting contrary to the best purposes of mankind. We believe every man is entitled to an equal position on the starting line in the race for personal achievement; but no man is guaranteed a preferred position at the finish line."

    James Madison expressed the same thought by saying, "The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment . . . are the best basis of public liberty, and the strongest bulwark of public safety."

From The Americanism of Barry Goldwater, Chapter Four -- Americanism on the Home Front