Goodbye, Mr. Buckley

William F. Buckley, Jr., the founder of the National Review (that begat National Review Online), has passed away. The conservative, known for his intelligent and humorous arguments against liberalsim, led the way for the right's rise "from the fringes to the White House." He was the father of the conservative intellectual movement which led to the conservative political movement. He was best known for his intellectual political writings.

My first memory of Mr. Buckley was during the 1968 Republican convention when he debated Gore Vidal (One of the first of the far left "hate America first" crowd along with Noam Chomsky.) My Father was greatly influenced by Buckley and was a stalwart conservative, I think, because of him. I can still see him lean back in his chair, raising his eyebrows with word rolling off his tongue and answering a question like he was amused that anyone should ask that particular question since they should have known the answer. Buckley made mincemeat of everyone who dared debate him.

One of the comments I heard is that Buckley begat National Review which begat Barry Goldwater who begat Nixon and Reagan who begat George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. Today's great conservative intellectuals owe their very being to William F. Buckley. MSNBC's website's touching tribute to Buckley can be found here. One of my favorite parts of the article is the following:

"'Editor, columnist, novelist, debater, TV talk show star of “Firing Line,” harpsichordist, trans-oceanic sailor and even a good-natured loser in a New York mayor’s race, Buckley worked at a daunting pace, taking as little as 20 minutes to write a column for his magazine, the National Review.

Yet on the platform he was all handsome, reptilian languor, flexing his imposing vocabulary ever so slowly, accenting each point with an arched brow or rolling tongue and savoring an opponent’s discomfort with wide-eyed glee.

“I am, I fully grant, a phenomenon, but not because of any speed in composition,” he wrote in The New York Times Book Review in 1986. “I asked myself the other day, ‘Who else, on so many issues, has been so right so much of the time?’ I couldn’t think of anyone.”'

Goodbye, Mr. Buckley, and thanks. We are richer because of your life.

Why We Whisper

I heard an interview a couple of weeks ago with Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) who has written a book, "Why We Whisper: Restoring Our Right to Say It's Wrong." We have slowly given up our First Amendment rights to speak up against wrongs. This has happened subtly over time with the appointment of judges with lifetime tenure who are judicial activists more interested in making law rather than interpreting it. The American public, espcially conservatives, should be outraged. It is ironic that while our First Amendment right to speak against that which is contrary to Western values, those who embrace everything except traditional values are given a pass. Senator DeMint's blog is here where he writes about these issues. I recommend a look at it.