All of his adult life Barks was a registered Republican, i.e. a conservative traditionalist, and most of the time he looked disapprovingly at the way his country was governed: I think a lot of the philosophy in my stories is conservative. Conservative in the sense that I feel that our civilization reached a peak around 1910. Since then we've been going downhill. Much of the older culture had basic qualities that the new type of stuff we keep hatching up can never match.
In general, Barks was careful not to let his stronger views shine through in his stories, but a number of them are set in the past in a time when restrictions of the individual were not so prominent. Barks cared for 'the long ago and far away', because (today) everybody's robbing everybody else, but it's something you expect!

In 1999 an interviewer asked about Barks' attitude to war and U$64 Treasure of Marco Polo was mentioned. Barks commented on his views on war in general and the conflict in Vietnam three decades earlier: I get mad like everybody else at the stupid things people are doing in different parts of the world, but what could I do about it? I couldn't hire an army to go over there and kick somebody's butt. I realized that people were objecting to that war, and I felt that someplace we have got to stop the communists, or they're going to take over everything. It was something I couldn't do anything about...

Barks would sometimes jump at the opportunity to satirize fads and crazes that occurred in contemporary times. Some of them even turned out to be long-lasting. Here are three examples of things he had little use for because of their stupefying influences:

TV:
In this country the set is never off, and what is offered is 99% junk. One can't stress the influence of American television on its popularity enough; it breaks people down and poisons them.

Superheroes:
I began seeing the first comic books come along, Superman and some of those, and I would read them and think: 'These are lousy stories as far as I'm concerned'.

Rock music:
In U$62 Queen of the Wild Dog Pack from 1966 there can be little doubt as for Barks' attitude towards rock music. One of the ridiculing lyrics almost takes your breath away: When I melt your heart - I'll find it hard - to dispose of all the lard!

Barks was a concerned environmentalist all of his adult life, long before the term was even a household word. In his stories he would occasionally add some of his views in more or less disguised forms, but maybe his overall indignation of the way we treat our planet was best expressed in a dialogue between the chief of the Peeweegahs and Scrooge in U$18 Land of the Pygmy Indians:
Scrooge has just explained that he has bought the land and he produces the bill of sale. The chief is not impressed: By whom was this token given? By whose hands these written scratches? Did the sun from high above you sell you all these lands and waters? Did the winds that bend the pine trees? Did the snows that fall in winter? Did the rain shower or the lightning sign away these forests to you? Bah! Me no believe that such a token would be honored by the fishes, by the creatures of the forest, by the birds we call our brothers, in the land of the Peeweegahs! None could sign away these woodlands, none could have the right or reason, but the chiefs of all the brothers in a powwow with the seasons!

Barks nourished a certain mistrust - justified or not - to different groups of society. In his point of view nothing good would ever come out of these groups:

Fast-talkers:
The choice of profession in this field is fairly big (we all are a bit apprehensive about door-to-door salesmen, insurance agents, and car sellers, eh?), but Barks' number one aversion was Estate Agents. He portrayed them in quite a lot of stories; most of them were deceiving and chiseling characters and their names matched: Honest Hal (WDCS051 'Seaside Home') and Boaregard Swinely (WDCS271 A Stone's Throw from Ghost Town) are examples.

Self-promoters:
Throughout his stories Barks also showed his disdain of professors and scientists filled with hot-air and who were widely admired for pseudo achievements. One ironic example - where a supercilious professor advocates free child upbringing - is seen in WDCS092 'Pulpheart Clapperhead'. Another example derives from the craze in the 1950s when all the newspapers were filled with stories of scientific explorations of many kinds. The laboratories were crammed with what seemed to be sensational discoveries (in obvious attempts to attract the public spotlight) but most of them were better left in the scientists' notebooks. This hysteria inspired Barks to invent Bombastium, a substance of limited use, for U$17 A Cold Bargain.

Charlatans:
Once in a while new movements - often of a religious persuasion - arise, and Barks gladly satirized the phenomena. The most poisonous attack came in WDCS149 'Flipism' in which Donald is persuaded by a fraudulent liar that he can leave all his life's actions and decisions in the tossing of a coin. Donald does so and his world slowly falls apart.

Lawyers:
The most despicable beings! Barks had several run-ins with representatives from this profession during his lifetime. In 1952 his second marriage had just ended in a painful divorce, and his bad experiences with greedy and talkative lawyers during the divorce procedures inspired the self-righteous character of Sharky in FC0408 The Golden Helmet. But three years earlier Barks had already begun satirizing lawyers. It started in MOC41 Race to the South Seas, in which a lawyer was named Sylvester Shyster (Shyster is a term for an unethical and unscrupulous person). In Barks' last years he had several additional run-ins with lawyers over estate matters and he felt both betrayed and disgusted.

In WDCS246 Lost Frontier Barks is really letting steam out by letting Donald proclaim the following after having been convinced that a certain adventurer is a fraud: That Captain Gadabout is a two-bit fraud! A pernicious prevaricator! A Prince of hokum, and high hipster of hogwash!
Presumably, this small outburst was in accordance with Barks' general view of the people mentioned above...

Barks was never a family man! His comic book work meant more to him than having a normal family life and associating with relatives.
However, he followed conventions, married and had two children, but after his divorce he admitted that it had all been a mistake; he and Pearl had been too young, and their children were never planned.
A few years later Barks married again, but he soon realized that the marriage headed for disaster. He had nothing in common with Clara, and when she turned to drinking they got divorced.

Only when Barks had reached middle-age he found the right wife with the same basic spirits as he had; Garé was also an artist and she was equally engulfed in her work. They were both helping each other and learning from each other, and for the first time Barks settled down in a conventional marriage which would last and grow until the end.
Even a rainy cloud has a silver lining...