William F. Buckley, Jr. is dead, and modern American conservatism has lost its chief intellectual spokesman and leader.
Buckley is one of the main reasons that I became a conservative. It wasn't just the influence of God and Man at Yale, Buckley's first and seminal book that made the case that Yale had abandoned its conservative Christian roots. Buckley had the novel idea that private colleges don't belong to their administration and faculty; these are the employees. Rather, colleges belong to the students who pay the tuition and who are there to learn. They along belong to the alumni, the living body of graduates who represent what the institution has produced; alumni also largely fund their alma mater and thus maintain their ties even when they have left.
I learned all this from Buckley, and our renegade newspaper The Dartmouth Review was patterned on Buckley's National Review. But there was more to Buckley than his books and writing. Interestingly Buckley never produced an important book after God and Man at Yale. His real influence was in who he was and what he represented. He was a suave, erudite and generous man, and he represented a conservatism that was witty, iconoclastic and fun. In my teens I had envisioned conservatives as stuffy and narrow-minded businessmen who upheld the status quo. Buckley showed me an irreverent conservatism that enjoyed life and fought to change the liberal status quo, especially on the college campus.
Before Buckley, there was no conservatism in America. The literary critic Lionel Trilling once famously remarked that America has a single political tradition and it is liberal. Conservatism, to the degree it exists, is only reaction. The conservative is not a man of ideas but simply twitches and barks in response to the inexorable march of liberal change. The conservative is against progress. Buckley himself played with this idea, and once described the mission of National Review as one of "standing athwart history, yelling Stop!" With this remark Buckley appeared to confirm the stereotype while in fact exploding it. An unthinking, unimaginative conservative would not have devised such a pithy, witty formulation.
Buckley may not have single-handedly invented modern intellectual conservatism, but he certainly made it respectable. He became the chief intellectual spokesman of the movement that culminated in Ronald Reagan. I never knew him well, although every few months I received an autographed Buckley book--typically about spies or sailing--in the mail. When Alan Wolfe launched his pompous and ignorant fusillade against my book The Enemy at Home, even suggesting that I was not a real conservative, Buckley rushed to my defense, noting that he was a far better authority on conservatism than Wolfe. In the end, it is these little kindnesses that you remember the most.
Today modern American conservatism is at the crossroads, and it's not clear what it's future will be. Oh, if only there were another young Buckley to gallantly lead the intellectual brigade. Still, what Buckley's movement accomplished, both through its intellectual and political successes, is nothing less than the transformation of American politics, even world politics. Buckley's life proves that ideas have consequences, and many of us continue to walk in the path that this far-seeing man cleared for us.
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How William F. Buckley Changed America
Posted Feb 27th 2008 1:11PM by Dinesh D'Souza
Filed under: Breaking News
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Reader Comments ( Page 7 of 13)
91. Hi Somber... your comment "Of course not. I think that parents need to realize just what kind of children they are creating by caving in to their insatiable appetites to consume." is important...
It is scary.. and it starts with the parents. Material things never quite satisfy that internal itch for something... but I bet many people would wonder what to live for if they couldn't spend their days consuming...
Shannie at 3:13PM on Feb 28th 2008
92. bump
not-pboyfloyd at 3:23PM on Feb 28th 2008
93. This is weird... Speaking of John Adams.. I have an old aquaintance by that name, haven't seen him in years.
The commenters here were playing with whether the second prez was a Deist or a Christian or what...
... anyways I saw John Adams just now! Co-incidence... amazing co-incidence.(but the John that I know is a car dealer and I saw him at a garage, so...)
not-pboyfloyd at 3:31PM on Feb 28th 2008
94. Buckley, Jr was a conservative that did not always give the liberal and moderate viewpoints equal representation, but he was by far classier than Rush Limbaugh, and the talk radio shock jocks, that took over conservatism. At least, with William F. Buckley, Jr. did more than merely mock alternative views and would have been someone to have discussions with that could be productive intellectually for those involved. Not sure the same could be said of Rush Limbaugh, ever.
William Monif, Omaha
William Monif at 3:58PM on Feb 28th 2008
95. "It is the duty of all wise, free, and virtuous governments to countenance and encourage virtue and religion." John Jay, 1st U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice
"No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be." Thomas Jefferson
"Whereas, the people of these United States, from their earliest history to the present time, have been led by the hand of a kind Providence and are indebted for the countless blessings...and dependant for continued prosperity...upon Almighty God; and whereas the great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it eminently becomes the representatives of a people so highly favored to acknowledge in the most public manner their reverence for God: therefore, resolved, that the daily sessions of this body be opened with prayer and that the ministers of the Gospel in this city are hereby requested to attend and alternately perform this solemn duty." House Judiciary Committee, 1854
So, liberals/atheists, what is your answer to real certified history as quoted above? How will you explain away, revise, or twist the meaning of the above quotes? I am waiting....
Marlinj Brown at 3:58PM on Feb 28th 2008
96. I do not consider myself liberal or atheist – but considering the way religion has always been used throughout history(and still is to this very day) to provoke, manipulate and bound the least of my brothers – the quoted above of ‘real certified history’ is a bit scary indeed!
swells at 4:47PM on Feb 28th 2008
97. So, Marlinj, changing the subject from welfare of the poor, I guess you said your 'piece' on that... "it is all the liberals fault".
Now we have these, "Ignore that now, look over HERE instead!", quotes that Marlinj is "waiting" for a response to.
Well, Marlinj, I'll pick the first one, the rest you can adjust to fit, okay?
"No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be." Thomas Jefferson
I give you, Marlinj... Cuba, USSR, The Peoples Republic of China, North Vietnam, Vietnam, North Korea.
not-pboyfloyd at 4:21PM on Feb 28th 2008
98. Marlin,
I don't think anyone will try. My whole point was that brian was wrong - John Adams was not a Christian. That has been proven. Some founding fathers were christian, others weren't. You can't take credit for them all, and you can't claim that the country was 'founded by christians for christians' just because a FEW of the founding fathers believed the same thing you do. (For the record, none of the founding fathers were atheists. They just didn't practice or agree with christianity/the Catholic church.)
For every pro-christian quote you can come up with, I can find two that are not.
Here's a good one because it has John Adams talking about how proud he is that he can say the US wasn't founded on god:
The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. ... It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven ... it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.
-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88), from Adrienne Koch, ed, The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"
So, Marlin/christians, what is your answer to real certified history as quoted above? How will you explain away, revise, or twist the meaning of the above quotes? I am waiting....
K at 4:29PM on Feb 28th 2008
99. @ post 94. To name a few countries not counting the communists: present day Germany, France, The European Union, Japan.
Theocracies: Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Would I want to live in a religious country?
JefFlyingV at 4:39PM on Feb 28th 2008
100. not-pboyfloyd at 4:21PM on Feb 28th 2008
Moreover, in the same countries you mentioned--no freedom, population problems, suppression of ideas different from the government line, millions murdered by the leaders to retain power, citizens starving because the government cannot provide its promised quotas, massive and continuous military build-ups not so much for defense from other countries but to oppress their own people... I give back to you your shining examples of governments that exist without religion and ask of you to be honest. Would you really rather live in one of those or this country? If your answer is the others, then do not waste your time or mine, just go live in one of them and find out how fast your liberalism will be silenced.
As for changing subjects, how was the subject of Buckley changed to anything else here? The atheists/liberals posting here want to harp on their favorite subjects of anti-Christianity and anti-conservatism continuously, so I am just responding to your ad nauseum posting with researched material that you have responded to very inadequately and I might even say almost not at all.
Marlinj Brown at 4:48PM on Feb 28th 2008
101. Ok, I get confused on this blog. You have a guy like Father John, who seems to be just about the most intellectual dude here. But instead of people debating the issues, it always comes down to atheists vs. hard core religious right. What about the vast majority of people who are neither? The reason people are so fed up with this blog is that it ALWAYS degenerates into name calling. I asked brian some questions, and he gave me answers. I didn't agree with him. He doesn't think that the government should be involving itself in people's care and whatnot. I think he's wrong, because while private groups do good work, there aren't enough of them, and people are still living in abject poverty. Government should protect the interests of its least well off, because, there really aren't enough people to do that. But see, that's a calm, civil disagreement. I don't see why we can't have more of that.
whatif704 at 4:52PM on Feb 28th 2008
102. Strados,
Perhaps you would be "safer in Cuba" and more "at home."
Alfred at 1:28AM on Mar 1st 2008
103. @ post 94. Wasn't Jefferson a Franco-phile pro French revolution (including the excesses)?
JefFlyingV at 4:50PM on Feb 28th 2008
104. Here's the problem with quoting guys who lived a long time ago.
"I'd sooner believe that two yankee professors had lied, than to believe that rocks could fall from the sky." - Thomas Jefferson.
Just wondering if showing that Jefferson was wrong in Marlinj's quote and showing that Jefferson was wrong with the above quote, makes the slightest difference to his opinion of the 'government needs religion' quote at all?
The point here is that Thomas Jefferson was a great man, but sometimes his OPINIONS were just not true.
There ARE meteorites, and there CAN be government without religion, we KNOW that now.
not-pboyfloyd at 4:54PM on Feb 28th 2008
105. Oh, and by the way, quotes really don't do ANYTHING. You can find a good quote on every side of every subject. Marlinj, randomly quoting founding fathers really doesn't do anyone any good, and it doesn't further anyone's argument. And K, while I think it's a great quote you have, the same goes for you.
whatif704 at 4:56PM on Feb 28th 2008