Mr Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

This is a surprising film. I did not know much about Barry Goldwater, I am ashamed to say, beyond his reputation as an ultra-conservative. He was, but in the sense of a true conservative.

Goldwater was for strong national defense and was an ardent anti-Communist. He was also Pro-Choice and definitley not a friend of the Religious Right. Goldwater's main political guiding logic was that government should not meddle in people's lives any more than is necessary.

Barry was against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He thought it amounted to too much government intrusion. He criticised the Religious Right on numerous occassions and said religion had not place in politics, and that crossing that line resulted, again, in too much government intrusion.

Goldwater also was close friends with JFK. They were often opponents, on opposite sides of political issues. But they still admired each other greatly and socialized often.

Seeing this film left me with a great admiration for Barry Goldwater. In these days of polarized partisan politics and wedge issues, I wish we had someone in DC with Barry Goldwater's strength of character to focus on the real issues and the courage to reach across the aisle for true and meaningful dialogue.

I have been a fan of Barry's ever since I rang doorbells for him in the California primary -- and even for me this film is full of surprises. I did not previously know about many things that are revealed here. Overall, the film is a moving elegy to the conservatism that might have been. A hawk on foreign policy, Goldwater was really a libertarian on domestic issues (hence the ignorant myth that he "became a liberal" at the end). He had no use for the "social values" conservatism that emerged in the seventies and triumphed in 1980.

I recently became a conservative myself about a year ago after someone showed me Ron Paul and his views. A lot of people threw Goldwater's name around him so I thought that this dvd would be worth it and it was. The film delves a little more into Goldwater's relationship with his family but does a good job at presenting his views for the most part.

(Potential Spoiler) I think it fails to accurately depict his views on Vietnam like the press did though. It only showed him saying that he would be for using low-yield nuclear weapons in Vietnam but didn't actually show what his position was on the war itself. He believed that if we weren't willing to support our troops in any way possible then we should withdraw. And he wasn't for dropping nukes on Hanoi itself but on infiltration routes used by the Vietnamese.
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(Spoiler Alert Over)I was dismissive of this film at first because I saw John McCain and Hillary Clinton's name on the back cover. Even thought they give their "opinions" on the Goldwater movement (not that either of them are even CLOSE to being true conservatives) their appearances don't hinder the documentary at all; mostly due to the fact that they're not in it that much. I think it was just the documentary's way of trying to appeal to the Liberal and Neo-Cons enough to get them to watch which is good if you ask me.

I think that if you are interested in true conservatism you should try this documentary. It will give you a good perspective on how Ron Paul's conservatism and the Libertarian movement came to be.