Some of you may wonder why. The reason is simple: He was infuriating, but intellectually honest. As I disagreed, I found no ad hominem arguments, no fallacious rhetoric, and no specious reasoning. Just a smart guy to disagree with.
Is it a coincidence that the movement he helped found has been taken over by mental midgets like Cunningham, who, perhaps, by faulty association, permanently sunk any sense of legitimate Conservatism.
I doubt we'll see another one like him again.
I'll drink one for you, you WASP-y prick you.
William Kristol in that AP article: "He [Buckley] legitimized conservatism as an intellectual movement and therefore as a political movement"
ReplyDeleteAside from the Forced Hypothesis fallacy there (i.e., that intellectualism denotes perforce a political movement), it's revealing in that Kristol's logic implies that before Buckley conservatism was not an intellectual movement.
It makes me think of how Buckley was so very different than, say, Coulter who would have had her ass handed to her in a debate with Buckley, even though both were Ivy-League educated. He certainly was a different breed, one that has virtually died out, I think.
Pace, Willie boy...
Coulter is a cunt. Buckley was.... um... he was Buckley.
ReplyDelete-Dale
Yeah, I can't even give the old drunkard even a little hagiography. He had a quick mind, a towering intellect and a sizable vocabulary, but he used all those in the service of an odious and evil philosophy. To my knowledge, he never once repudiated the Jim Crowism from the early days of National Review.
ReplyDeleteI wish no ill upon his family in their time of morning, but I will not celebrate the man's life.
WF
Buckley was a smart jerk.
ReplyDeleteBuckley is a man who at least twice threatened to punch his debate opponents (Chomsky and Vidal) in the face.
I believe Buckley, like Milton Friedman, was someone who's sincerity I can always trust and who's conclusions are always suspicious. I find the two of them so smart they seem to have lost all compassion.
They both believe that America should be the land of "every man for himself."
I know I'm not supposed to address you Wes but since I accidently did in another post I'll address your comment. "Odious and evil philosophy" ??? Come on now. I'm no expert on Buckley and I seriously doubt you are either (except in the sense that you seem to think you're an expert on all intellectual subjects)but I'll take him for what he probably represents in the minds of most semi-conscious political thinkers- as one of the main spokesman for the white suburban conservative. Do these people in any way stand out as unusually odious and evil? Do they stand out as unusually unprincipled when compared to the the urban hip-hop gang banger? This is often the impression I get when the grand intellegencia of this country chimes in on their worth. Maybe they're materialistic, shallow, and a bit boring but all in all they are a generally decent lot. How about maybe easing up on the rhetoric a bit?
ReplyDeleteAlso, have you ever lived in the South? Do you know what its like to live in a political system where a somewhat hostile minority makes up a significant percentage of the populace? I don't (other than city government) and I doubt you do either? So before you judge from on high about what the proper social and political arrangements should abide in a specific locale, you should have a little more real-world knowledge about the daily difficulties of said place than a grand theory in some textbook.
Trey