VIDEO: Students Debate Conservatism’s Shared Values

Daniel Anderson / July 30, 2010

During his 1964 acceptance speech, Barry Goldwater described his movement to the audience with these words:

This party, with its every action, every word, every breath and every heartbeat has but a single resolve, and that is freedom — freedom made orderly for the Nation by our constitutional government; freedom under a government limited by the laws of nature and of nature’s God; freedom — balanced so that order, lacking liberty, will not become a slave of the prison cell; balanced so that liberty, lacking order, will not become the license of the mob and the jungle.

While the modern conservative movement has long been a compilation of like-minded ideologies, getting them to put aside their small differences and focus on common goals has always been a challenge. Dr. Lee Edwards describes how these different factions came together around common, fundamental ideas to stand united against the communist and socialist menaces of their time. Senator Goldwater’s statement above succinctly summarizes this fusion. On July 14th, two Heritage Foundation interns and two libertarian interns added their own perspectives to the ongoing debate over the fusion of their two schools of conservative thought. (more…)