Au H2O

Some words from a conservative icon which should make modern "conservatives" shrink in shame. I'll tell you at the end who the speaker was.   

        "You don't need to be straight to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight. The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world, quit discriminating against people just because they're gay. You don't have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. And that's what brings me into it.!" "Having spent 37 years of my life in the military as a reservist, and never having met a gay (I'd bet  he did, but didn't realize it)  in all of that time, and never having even talked about it in all those years, I just thought, why the hell shouldn't they serve? They're American citizens. As long as they're not doing things that are harmful to anyone else... So I came out for it."

Compare this to the hateful rhetoric of the modern Republican party!

       "Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed."

Donald Trump, anyone?

        "My faith in the future rests squarely on the belief that man, if he doesn't first destroy himself, will find new answers in the universe, new technologies, new disciplines, which will contribute to a vastly different and better world in the twenty-first century.  To my mind the single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom."

This would include stem cell and environmental research, I'll bet!

        "Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the Republican party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them." " Someone should kick Falwell in the ass!"

Pat Robertson, Rick Santorum,  Ted Cruz or Mike Huckabee, anybody?

      "There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both."   "The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn't stop now. To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic.

        And this guy was chided and characterized as "too conservative."  He lost the election of 1964 to Lyndon Johnson, who, although he ran on a "war scare" platform (remember the TV ad with the little girl and the mushroom cloud? ),  proceeded to escalate the Vietnam War, from which his predecessor had planned to withdraw. Of course he was 5 term AZ senator, Barry Goldwater.  Modern far right hate mongers ought to reflect on how far they have strayed.