1964 Election

[dazzleman]

Eric Hass (Socialist Labor)

But out of these two, Goldwater.

Why would you not have voted for Johnson?

I would have had reservations about Goldwater because he was against the Civil Rights Acts.  I am not a liberal, but I don't think that basic rights for all Americans is a conservative-liberal issue, and I think it was absolutely necessary at that time to make the first steps toward ending systematized discrimination, against the spirit and word of the constitution, against blacks.  Despite my dislike of Johnson and the Democrats, I would have been reluctant to vote for a candidate who did not seem to understand this.

[dazzleman]

Johnson earns my vote for his work on civil rights. Although I disagree with him on Vietnam, and there is some argument that he planned the Kennedy assassination which I am not dismissing. I don't know much about Johnson's personality, but he looks like the stereotypical old man who controls the world, and he is Texan so he loses points for that.

I think Johnson messed up in Vietnam because he made the worst possible choice - to fight with one hand tied behind his back.  He should have either gone all out or stayed out.

The war on poverty was also a mess, wasting untold billions of dollars and generally making all the problems worse that it sought to address.

But I don't believe for a minute that he planned the Kennedy assassination.  And I wouldn't judge whether to vote for him or not by the state he came from.  That attitude is what make large parts of the country hate "Yankees" and it's hard to blame them.

[dazzleman]

Why would you not have voted for Johnson?

He was an ego-idiot.  At the time I might have voted for Johnson, but back in hindsight, there is no way.  He was a mess with the "war on Poverty" (Those wars on nouns don't work) and Vietnam.  At least Goldwater would have made the place a "mud puddle" and we could have same hundreds of thousands of American lives.

You make some good points.  There were not a lot of good choices that year, and of course, Johnson's tenure looked a lot more promising from the vantage point of 1964 than it did after the Vietnam disaster and the destruction wrought by his war on poverty.

I would also say that you're right that wars on nouns don't work, and that's why I don't refer to our current war as a war on terrorism.  Let's call it what it is -- a war on radical Islamic fundamentalists.  There's no point in being politically correct.

[dazzleman]

Thats still a noun.

No, it's a group of evil people, like the Nazis.  It is not a tactic or condition.

[dazzleman]

Eric Hass (Socialist Labor)

But out of these two, Goldwater.

Why would you not have voted for Johnson?

I would have had reservations about Goldwater because he was against the Civil Rights Acts.  I am not a liberal, but I don't think that basic rights for all Americans is a conservative-liberal issue, and I think it was absolutely necessary at that time to make the first steps toward ending systematized discrimination, against the spirit and word of the constitution, against blacks.  Despite my dislike of Johnson and the Democrats, I would have been reluctant to vote for a candidate who did not seem to understand this.

I think Goldwater would've made a distinction between discrimination by the government and discrimination by private individuals.  I know I would.

I would too, and the Civil Rights Act were passed to do away with government-sponsored and supported discrimination or discrimination in public accomodations.  I don't think there's too much that can be done about discrimination in private life, nor should there be.

[dazzleman]

You're either a racist or not a racist. Their's no middle ground. You cant be a racist and "not like it".

I don't really think it's that black and white.  I think that everybody has certain prejudices, whether they admit it or not, and that racism is a matter of degree.

You can also recognize your prejudices, and try to avoid acting on them inappropriately.

I think that LBJ realized that the time had come for change, and decided to act in defiance of his own prejudices and upbringing.  For that, he deserves credit, because that's the only way that bad prejudices are reduced or eliminated.

[dazzleman]

I don't really think it's that black and white.  I think that everybody has certain prejudices, whether they admit it or not, and that racism is a matter of degree.

You can also recognize your prejudices, and try to avoid acting on them inappropriately.

I think that LBJ realized that the time had come for change, and decided to act in defiance of his own prejudices and upbringing.  For that, he deserves credit, because that's the only way that bad prejudices are reduced or eliminated.

True.
BTW that sounds a lot like some of the stuff the SPLC says.
Good to see you being objective

Well, I think the Southern Poverty Law Center is very extreme.  I don't like them or their tactics.  I think that organizations like that breed more prejudice.