Firing Line- William Buckley Jr. and Malcolm Muggeridge

[vivascargill1]

there probably no one more left wing in the WORLD than  I am but I knew Bill and liked him--you conservatives don't know what you lost

[TheLichens]

How did conservative discussion on TV go from this to Glenn Beck? While still given to hyperbole, they both are quite erudite and there's no yelling or fearmongering. Compared to this, modern conservatives sound like a bad metal band: a lot of noise with no substance.

[kidonlyle]

@TheLichens Exactly

[gabrielguitarman]

@TheLichens Even agreeing with you, my biggest sadness is that I read a lot about Glenn Beck, bad comments about him, but seems like everybody else is refusing to see that Glenn Beck is a product of a rigid control of Left Ideas, left journalists and pretty shitty liberal "thinkers"(in the american sense) on the market place of News and Culture. Beck, comparing with the rest of the media,at least, is honest about his mind and his goals. He is honest

[swriktam]

Both Buckley and Muggeridge are a complete joy to watch and listen too whether you think they are taking sense or nonsense.

I would also love to see the rest of this episode of Firing Line,

Anyone able to post it?

[hegemonymony]

This is probably one of the more important video clips for humanity to watch.

Why is it only at 48K?

Free people... send this one out to all your "Liberal" friends.

Get to it!

[RATM4LYFE]

Mr Muggeridge says he is 'instinctively against authority' yet some years later he converted to Roman Catholicism. Clearly, he must have revised his view of authority.

[hegemonymony]

@RATM4LYFE

Coming to an appreciation for the civilizational contribution of religion to our world does not mean he's succumbing to some mythical notion of authority.

I'm an atheist for Christ.

We should not demean or diminish Christianity's historical contribution to a pluralistic secular world.

[silverstarshine2003]

how did you do it dylan ? you ve got the poshest talking guy in england and the poshest talking guy in america on the same video ..... well done !

[Aaronthegreatest]

I'm sorry, but comparing a former first lady to proponents of genocide is an untenable logical position, to put it nicely. That the most infamous dictators of the 30s and 40s had been 'discredited' does nothing to enhance Muggeridge's arguement.

[loblut]

I thank God for Malcolm Muggeridge---he was a rare gem.

[steveinchelsea]

What in the f**k is this man saying? He is totally insane; he makes Buckley seem rational by comparison !

[MikhailSilverwood]

Hold on a second! Buckley doesn't understand the difference between Leftism and liberalism? Understanding this difference is the key to knowing how our political society works.

The media follows liberalism, ie it has a leftwing bias to it, and at the same time it follows rightwing principles (nationalism, pro-business, anti-labour, etc). By being biased, the right can then complain about an imbalance -- and yet that imbalance actually works in their favour.

[Aaronthegreatest]

@MikhailSilverwood I'm tired of hearing the silly canard that the media follows liberalism. It doesn't. Fox News is the most watched media station in the country, and millions read the Washington Post and the Wall St. Journal, so conservatives need to stop acting like they are being cheated somehow.

[MikhailSilverwood]

@Aaronthegreatest The only people who watch Fox News are reactionary nutcases, we don't need to take them serious.

By mainstream media, I'm talking about NBC, CBS, and ABC, and all of Hollywood, New York Times, Washington Post -- they are the mainstream media, and they all adhere to what is called "liberalism". And again, do not get confused about the definition of liberalism. The mainstream are NOT leftwing and never will be, they are pro-business, anti-labour, pro-war, etc.

[Yulimaruli]

fuckin 15 min and 3 page presentation on this guy....fuck life

[bigguitar22]

Muggeridge had all the appeal of the well bred Oxbridge effete and rode the gravy train of popularity for several decades talking complete bullshit and nonsense as he does here! This is a fantastic skill and I am in awe considering his bibulous and womanising ways that he describes himself as a fundamental Christian.

[TheLivingStone7]

Thank you for the post. I don't care what people's views are for the most part, they just need to have a logically and rational reason and not be another repeater of what someone said. Buckley was an original man, too bad a Lil Wayne or Lady Gaga videos have about 456 times the amount of views

[CurtHowland]

Ah, it all makes sense if you realize that by "liberal", Muggeridge means "Progressive" and "Socialist".

.

The classical Liberals were much more like Muggeridge, and Jefferson, in promoting the rights of individuals.

[kidonlyle]

@CurtHowland No he doesn't.

[miggyjiggy10]

where is the rest of this at?

[jazzinnature081]

I loved Firing Line!  Buckley was awesome.

[ohhrichie]

i feel like im in a lecture :D

[OmahaNan]

Love it -- thanks for posting.

[swanganzcath]

I think, he really got it right w/ liberalism....

Another very credible man said : "One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything." -Malcolm Muggeridge

[Capt777harris]

I'm tired of watching clips of Buckley. I want whole segments. That aside, Muggeridge is predominantly correct.

[Cool2BCeltic]

Malcolm Muggeridge is remembered now as a figure of fun.

[bbdupon]

Eleanor Roosevelt worse than Mussolini---I guess I just entered The Twilight Zone.

[RATM4LYFE]

Muggeridge is fascinating and I agree with much of his writings and of his comments here. One thing that strikes me about this interview is his criticism of authority - odd coming from a man who was admitted to the Catholic Church near the end of his life.

[mainsqueeze1977]

@RATM4LYFE

Actually, that's not odd at all as authority in and of the Church is purely a spiritual one, forcing nobody to join or stay against his conscience. But probably his anti-auhtoritarian made him wait so long.

[loblut]

Thank you for putting this up on the YouTube. Please, more: More Muggeridge please. Especially Firing Line. Can you put some Al Capp from Firing Line on here?

[sithzerikai]

Malcolm muggeridge was my great uncle

[conrock1018]

@sithzerikai- If that's true then you have pure genius running in your veins. I didn't realize how incredibly brilliant the man was until I researched him. I'm only 18, but your uncle was one of the deepest thinkers of the modern day and a personal political hero of mine...Did you know him well?

[puertopensee]

The scariest things I've seen in my life: when Muggeridge compliments Buckley's work and says he reads them faithfully, watch Buckley's eyes bulge out of his head around 2:30 in apparent glee. Creepy!!!

[puertopensee]

possibly the most scariest thing I've seen in my life--when Muggeridge compliments Buckley's works and says that he "reads them faithfully," watch Buckley's eyes bulge out of his head twice, especially the second time at 2:30. I'm scared!!!

[stefanscally]

i hate what these guys are saying. but ive just realised that im listening to them because both of their voices are so cool and interesting haha

[racingeye]

You have obviously been glad for a long time, he died in 1990. As for his views. At least he had the guts to change his views according to his life experience rather than stick to dogma.

[rlibos]

Old Malcolm is nothing but an old reactionary clown. I'm glad he is gone.

[anSiarach]

Fascinating video. Great to hear one of the original Fabians condemning the type of socialism, or 'liberalism' as American socialists dishonestly call it, which has spread misery in every part of the world where it has been tried.

[Nintendomanwill]

@anSiarach

Indeed, I think that most Fabians (aside from nuts like Bernard Shaw) were really libertarians, classical liberals, who simply hadn't studied economics and thus believed in use of authority as a virtue to use force to help the poor (granting coercive power to trade unions etc) and as a necessity in itself. These decent people of the moderate wing of Labour have always been only mildly progressive and always respectable; just with too little head and too much heart to be statesmen!

[kidonlyle]

@Nintendomanwill yep, either eeeeeebil or to stupid to realize that they were "libertarians". At you and I don't have to take political opponents seriously.

[HiramBinghamIII]

'some unfortunate reactionary cultural/social views.'

Reactionary? He was simply demonstrating the inefficiencies of moral relativism, and the implications of a nihilistic attitude in respect to moral standards. The word 'reactionary' is one of the silliest of all verbal platitudes, and only demonstrates the intellectual laziness of the individual who uses it.

[STONEYEND24]

It's so ironic how much William F. resembled Adolf Hitler!

[nihlism4u]

Muggeridge was brilliant!!! He got it right about liberalism.

[Archebaldrin]

@nihlism4u thats my great grandfather

[nihlism4u]

@Archebaldrin You should be proud of a grandfather who was brilliant, austere and as far as I'm concerned one of the most eloquent journalist Britain has ever produced!

[Archebaldrin]

@nihlism4u he was a great man

[PeterMayer]

@nihlism4u he's a pompous ass...

[scorpdan]

Liberalism is responsible for everything wage earners take for granted today, including THE WEEKEND .

[podycheck]

A piddling speck of goodness amidst endless horrors and failures.

[mainsqueeze1977]

@scorpdan

Actually, legal limits to labour contracts and fixed days off are the most illiberal things imaginable. Great things of course but still NOT LIBERAL!!!

[lictor313]

buckley was a traitor to his cause... he back stabbed the learned and supremely astute and erudite Revilo P. Oliver for personal comfort and safety.

For that transgression (despite his amazing career) he deserve contempt not reverence.

[fctchk]

Buckley meets his match in pretentious pedantic pompousity: Muggeridge is the real deal, Buckley the mock.

[nl1098]

what does he mean when he says that others described goldwater as 'potty'?

[msynman]

Loony, I think.

[Fanfardon]

Left or right, it all comes down to breeding

Proletarian scholars are forever bleeding

That Capitallists need a proper spanking

I'd sooner march with Hitler than listen to such wanking!

For I was to the manor born

With blood as blue as Swedish porn

My mother was a night club singer

Which of course made me a rabid right winger

[msynman]

What year is this from?

[Beatlemark21287]

what year was this interview?

[huckabelieve]

Buckley's eyes after Muggeridge tells him he reads him are priceless.

[lucite11]

ha, both of them have possibly the most pompous manner of speaking i've ever heard. getting them together is hilarious.

[wsmith68]

I am sampling them into a mix tape. Only WFB, Yalie, can pronounce Hahvuuud as if he were saying "shit".

[Jitpring]

@lucite11 Your reverse snobbery is duly noted.

[4UCKHERIDID]

In contemporary terms there is very little difference between leftism and/or liberalism. Liberalism in it's old form has more or less been DEAD since the liberals embraced communism, Mao, Stalin, Ho Chi Min and all of the other enlightened philosophers/philosophies that have killed more than 100 million people in the last hundred years or so.

[calum66]

No casualties from conservatism then? What about the effects of the unbridelled marcket on the poor down the ages . You don't think the rich have used conservative doctine to consolodate their advantage in the service of heartless exploitation . And what about Hitler ? Would you say he was left wing or right wing?

[greenskeezy]

hitler was a liberal facist, facsim tends ot come with elements of left and right-extremism. the nazis were very "green", and did not like religion in public life.,...unless they were going to use religon for propaganda purposes. they did ban nativity sets and chirstmas carol's from public display, and replaced them with songs and decors for hitler.

[calum66]

We have to define our terms. In America the term as Muggeridge points out is assosiated with leftism. It is more traditionaly associated with the unregulated market and so would be closer to conservatism. The distinction would be between "classical " and "social" liberalism." They are in effect opposites. For the classical liberal the freedom of the market is set before the rights of the individual. For the social liberal the rights of the individual in the sevice of equality is everthing.

[greenskeezy]

exactly. im reffering to classcial liberalism, and a true conservative, such as buckley, krauthammer, etc. would argue to be more liberal then the social liberal. he would argue that conservative-capitalsim in a liberal democracy furthers individual prosperity and freedom over the dictarship of 'equality" and relavitism that liberalism, as in the European socialized state, offers.

[calum66]

The problem with (Burke's)conservatism is that it is evolutionary rather than revolutionary and traditionally assumes the divine ordinance of power If you were living in squaler and had something of an education noblesse oblige and trickle down suddenly became really good enough . Hence the unions, class emergence and socialism.

As Chomsky points out however what prevaled in the U.S under Bush was not even principled conservatism but utterly Machiavelian and unplicipled nationalism.

[greenskeezy]

well bush was not the msot conservative prsident, his spending showed him to be more g.w. clinton then anything else. foriegn policy wise i do not belive he was nationalistiic, there is legitamate debate over whter iraq was the right choice, buckley himself did not eblieve so. but i would not say bush was nationalistic.

[marbs0204]

To say the nazis did not like religion is a strong generalization. National Socialism is not the homogenous entity many people make it out to be. There were many divergences of opinion in the movement. The case of religion/chrisitianity is one example. Many Nazis valued the tenets of patriarchal paganism and were anti-christian, some followed a racialist/aryan version of christianity called positive christianity, and some like Hitler had no strong religious positions.

[HNK222]

Wow, that's shockingly stupid! Rightwing ideology notoriously takes America into the toilet, and when conservatism is unfettered and run amok we get the aftermath of the W years. The worst economic period in US history since the conservative, republican policies of Herbert Hoover gave us the Great Depression. The only period in the last 25 years when the US was doing well economically (amazingly well, at that) was during the only Democratic administration during that period. Reality hurts, huh?

[greenskeezy]

well G.W. bush was G.W. Clinton in many ways, during the Bush years spending was up on education (58%), Social Security (17%), Medicare (51%), health research and regulation (55%), highways and mass transit (22%) and veterans' benefits (59%). The economy did well udner clinton because from 95-99 we had a fairly conservative congress, one that clinton cooperated with a fair amount. even clinton knew that loweirng taxes on the highest income lead to more revenue, he initially raised them...

[tucsonia]

All of you, quit saying 'G W Clinton' when you mean 'W J Clinton'.

[greenskeezy]

no, i mean GW Clinton. im saying that Bush was not too different from clinton on certain economic matters.

[aghneyya]

wow... did Buckley not know what classical liberalism is? The distinction between being a leftist and a liberal is clear as can be!

[polymath7]

I'm no admirer of Buckley, but I'm sure he understood the distinction.

This is an *interview*. He was asking for the benefit of the audience.

[neothomist1275]

By Liberalism, Muggeridge means the line of thought running from Locke, Bentham and Mill.

America calls leftists "Liberals" because everbody in America is a Liberal.

[lelvish1]

Yes, Americans are the only people in the world who fundamentally misinterpret the word.

By my reckoning,

Conservatism is on the Right

Liberalism is in the Centre

Socialism is on the Left

[BigStick3456]

That is because most liberals do not live in America. They for the most part breath socialism, but hide under the word "Liberal."

[bennystalebread123]

Does anyone know where I can find Jack Kerouac on the firing line?

[mozart20dlubos]

Where was Muggeridge from ? He had a strange accent.

[scotty123123]

England!

[miryamdjnb]

brilliant!!!...i want more...

[nurbSoldier]

Where's the rest of it?

[dylannut69]

THe rest of this is on an old beta video tape that I have. I just posted this little nugget. I hope you enjoyed it. I wish all of the old Firing Line episodes were available today on DVD...maybe someday

[pobaldy66]

hoover institution (stanford university) hold the archives for firing line, and they are slow to reproduce any more than a few minutes of only a few of the programs, in spite of my entreaties over the last six years.  in fact, in that time, they have not made available any more footage.

[renindy]

What a fascinating clip. I could listen for hours. Delicious. A reminder of how far downward conventional "media" has spiraled.

D

[calum66]

Very grateful ! This is great but it goes wothout saying that more would be better.

[relarerfhjk]

@dylannut69 well can you please post the rest of this video? Its interesting

[newengland72]

@dylannut69 I'd buy them.

[RuflessRecords]

This video must have been edited, isn't there supposed to be some screaming far left piece of filth who comes in and disrupts the discussion halfway through? Oh that's just when any rightwinger is giving a speech or debating someone publicly today, not back then. Thought maybe they cut that out. They used to allow rightwingers to speak without being interrupted by some incoherent deranged protester shouting back then, can't imagine!

[adanremnant]

This is extremely fascinating...thanks for posting!

I too disagree with Muggeridge's take on Roosevelt and Hitler, but I love the way his mind works.

[ericjohnsa]

I LOVE this video... absolutely brilliant defense of conservatism.

[rehedgehog]

Sorry, that opening statement by Muggeridge on Eleanor Roosevelt doing more harm than Stalin or Hitler is just preposterous-whatever the faults of "liberalism" it is NOT worse than Communism or National Socialism.

[dylannut69]

no need to apologize...you are entitled to your opinion as is/was Muggeridge. Maybe somewhere in between, lies the truth

[neothomist1275]

rehedgehog, are you saying that Eleanor Roosevelt, a personal friend of Bernays and an admirer of Pavlov, was a decent human being?

[mainsqueeze1977]

@rehedgehog

And if you would try to listen to what he actuall said, what he explained about the statement. He said Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini did much worse damage and were not as well-intentioned as Mrs Roosevelt (whose good intentions also resulted in damage, in his view) but that while their damage is universally condemned, her (admittedly much lesser) damage is not. And fundamentally, why can we not go back to actually listening to what the other means instead of acting indignant at words.

[tvicena]

@rehedgehog liberalism is the gateway drug to socialism and communism therefor it is a festering sore that leads to cancer that needs to have radical treatment to cure it!

[MrTruthAddict]

@tvicena uh huh, and what else did Glenn Beck tell you to think today?

[baronessdeb]

I tried the website for the William F. Buckley/Malcolm Muggeridge hour on Christianity, but it didn't work. I would LOVE to see this. Am I doing something wrong? Thank you.

[dylannut69]

Sorry, I don't know anything about this web site..this just happens to be an old video recording that I found in my collection...like finding a gold nugget!

[mwquacker]

Search Amazon. I just viewed another interview with MM at age 80+ and it's great! The Case for Faith. MW````````````````````

baronessdeb wrote: I tried the website for the William F. Buckley/Malcolm Muggeridge hour on Christianity, but it didn't work. I would LOVE to see this. Am I doing something wrong? Thank you.

[shilohwillcome]

I love Buckley and Muggeridge

[kiwitoffee]

Thank you very much for posting this clip.

I remember thinking Muggeridge was a boring, upper-class, kill-joy when I was a young man in england in the 70s. Now, some thirty years later and having read much of his work, I find myself agreeing with him more and more!

[codder43]

Try this -

malcolmmuggeridge(dot)org/pr/f­aith.ram

[baronessdeb]

I tried this site, but it doesn't seem to work. Any ideas on how to get this? I'd love to see it. Thanks.

[codder43]

A one hour audio stream of a Sept 6, 1980 interview between WFB and Muggeridge on Christianity and the latter's conversion.

[BareknuckleRealist]

A post that reflects your intellectual character and YouTube's real purpose of stimulating thought. " The forest shapes the trees." Thank You!

[dingorex]

Read and reread Muggeridge in my 20s, this makes me want to dust off his books. Thanks for posting.

[dylannut69]

my pleasure!

[99Leo]

That's it? Only, three minutes 10sec?!

[dylannut69]

aw yes, but what a glorious three minutes and 10 seconds!

[vermaxusa]

Thank you for putting this up. I would love to see the entire video with Malcolm Muggeridge with WFB. Hard to believe that they are no longer with us.

[dylannut69]

I have a few episodes I think deep in the bowels of my basement. We moved last year and things are a little disorganized...I will try to find what I can. I know for certain that I have a few that I burnt onto dvd but I don't know how to make copies yet. I will see what I can do. Are you saying that many of these old Firing Line episodes are gone to the dustbin of history forever unless fans still have copies of their own?

[canyagrabmiaz]

Do you have any more Firing Lines from the 60s/70s? The Hoover Inst. unfortunately does not have all of them on VHS or DVD.

[DermochelysCoriacea]

This was Firing Line's favorite guest of all time. Buckley said this on his last showing of Firing Line just before they played a clip.

[DermochelysCoriacea]

Woo hoo, a new one!

[CaliforniaSunkist]

A good Man and will be greatly missed. Thanks for sharing.

[cloonmore]

Great stuff. Would love to see more.

Classic Buckley face at 2:33