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February 27, 2008
William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008)
William F. Buckley Jr. Is Dead at 82
"Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples' money, except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other people's freedom and security. "
~ William F. Buckley, Jr.
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William F. Buckley Jr., who marshaled polysyllabic exuberance, famously arched eyebrows and a refined, perspicacious mind to elevate conservatism to the center of American political discourse, died Wednesday at his home in Stamford, Conn.
Mr Buckley, 82, suffered from diabetes and emphysema, his son Christopher said, although the exact cause of death was not immediately known. He was found at his desk in the study of his home, his son said. “He might have been working on a column,” Mr. Buckley said.
Mr. Buckley’s winningly capricious personality, replete with ten-dollar words and a darting tongue writers loved to compare with an anteater’s, hosted one of television’s longest-running programs, “Firing Line,” and founded and shepherded the influential conservative magazine, National Review.
He also found time to write more than 45 books, ranging from sailing odysseys to spy novels to celebrations of his own dashing daily life, and edit five more.
The more than 4.5 million words of his 5,600 biweekly newspaper columns, “On the Right,” would fill 45 more medium-sized books.
Mr. Buckley’s greatest achievement was making conservatism — not just electoral Republicanism, but conservatism as a system of ideas — respectable in liberal post-World War II America. He mobilized the young enthusiasts who helped nominate Barry Goldwater in 1964, and saw his dreams fulfilled when Reagan and the Bushes captured the Oval Office.
To Mr. Buckley’s enormous delight, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., the historian, termed him “the scourge of liberalism.”
In remarks at National Review’s 30th anniversary in 1985, President Reagan joked that he picked up his first issue of the magazine in a plain brown wrapper and still anxiously awaited his biweekly edition — “without the wrapper.”
“You didn’t just part the Red Sea — you rolled it back, dried it up and left exposed, for all the world to see, the naked desert that is statism,” Mr. Reagan said.
“And then, as if that weren’t enough,” the president continued, “you gave the world something different, something in its weariness it desperately needed, the sound of laughter and the sight of the rich, green uplands of freedom.”
The liberal advance had begun with the New Deal, and so accelerated in the next generation that Lionel Trilling, one of America’s leading intellectuals, wrote in 1950:
“In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation.”
Mr. Buckley declared war on this liberal order, beginning with his blistering assault on Yale as a traitorous den of atheistic collectivism immediately after his graduation (with honors) from the university.
“All great biblical stories begin with Genesis,” George Will wrote in the National Review in 1980. “And before there was Ronald Reagan, there was Barry Goldwater, and before there was Barry Goldwater there was National Review, and before there was National Review there was Bill Buckley with a spark in his mind, and the spark in 1980 has become a conflagration.”
Mr. Buckley weaved the tapestry of what became the new American conservatism from libertarian writers like Max Eastman, free market economists like Milton Friedman, traditionalist scholars like Russell Kirk and anti-Communist writers like Whittaker Chambers. But the persuasiveness of his argument hinged not on these perhaps arcane sources, but on his own tightly argued case for a conservatism based on the national interest and a higher morality.
His most receptive audience became young conservatives first energized by Barry Goldwater’s emergence at the Republican convention in 1960 as the right-wing alternative to Nixon. Some met in Sept., 1960, at Mr. Buckley’s Connecticut estate to form Young Americans for Freedom. Their numbers — and influence — grew.
Nicholas Lemann observed in Washington Monthly in 1988 that during the Reagan administration “the 5,000 middle-level officials, journalists and policy intellectuals that it takes to run a government” were “deeply influenced by Buckley’s example.” He suggested that neither moderate Washington insiders nor “Ed Meese-style provincial conservatives” could have pulled off the Reagan tax cut and other reforms.
MORE of article HERE
Wild Thing's comment........
This is truly a loss for our society and our Country. Mr. Buckley was one of the most intelligent and erudite defenders of conservative philosophy. Rest in peace Mr Buckley, you will be sorely missed.
He's the guy that got me thru the 60's and 70's when every other political pundit seemed, well, obviously insane. For about 30 years, he carried the conservative movement on his broad shoulders.
Things don't look really good for conservatism now. But compared to when he wrote "God and Man at Yale," we are light years further along--largely because of his efforts. He had the courage to stand up and be the ONLY non-big-government, non-Keynesian in the room and to do it with wit and charm. And, the courage to keep doing it for years on end.
The Earth’s loss is Heaven’s gain.
Posted by Wild Thing at February 27, 2008 12:47 PM
Comments
And when at last you leave your earthly home and stand humble and naked before your creator, may it be your pleasure to hear Him say, "Well done my true and faithful servant; Come, enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and enjoy the fruit of your valiant labors"
God rest Mr. Buckley. Your life exemplifies the greatness of this wonderful country!!!
I pray someone will pick up his fallen torch and raise it high for all to see and carry it onward so that Mr. Buckley's efforts will not have been in vain!!
Posted by: John at February 27, 2008 01:25 PM
I always enjoyed Buckley's comments. He told the truth and it was so refreshing to hear someone in the media not so liberally minded.
God has a wonderful commentator angel today and he belongs to the ages.
Well done.
Posted by: Lynn at February 27, 2008 04:45 PM
He is the reason there is a conservative movement today. Those are big shoes to fill.
Rest in Peace, William Buckley
Posted by: Mark at February 27, 2008 04:48 PM
John, I pray so too, beautiful way you put it.
Posted by: Wild Thing at February 27, 2008 11:09 PM
Lynn, your right he does belong to the ages.
Posted by: Wild Thing at February 27, 2008 11:11 PM
Mark yes they really are big shoes to fill. I knew he was getting up there but it sure was a surprise to hear of his passing away.
Posted by: Wild Thing at February 27, 2008 11:13 PM
I could listen to him speak for hours! What a great patriot he was. His replies and wisdom would make cole slaw out of his liberal opponents.
Posted by: darthcrUSAderworldtour07 at February 28, 2008 02:19 AM
Darth, me too. I was alwasy fascinated in watching his shows and hearing what he had to say and the way he said it as well.
Posted by: Wild Thing at February 28, 2008 04:22 AM
William Buckley and Jeanne Kirkpatrick have been two of my favorite orators/debaters. Their way with words and the English language and their messages were always fascinating. That their prominence came at the time of another great American orator, Ronald Reagan, made the decade of the 80's sound bite sweet.
May William F Buckley Rest in Peace.
Posted by: TomR at February 28, 2008 05:11 AM
