William F Buckley

[thegreatfearblog]

What a treasure of a channel! I stumbled upon it while searching for videos with Mortimer Adler and ended up knowing William F Buckley who I had never knew about.

[PEMII]

This gentleman set a benchmark for what conservatism is. Without him their would be even more disciples of the liberal entitlement movement in this country. Without him we would not have had the honor of having Ronald Reagan as our President.

[DermochelysCoriacea]

I love this essay.

[DarthKazi]

His leaning are a direct result of his wealthy and worldly upbringing. This is not his 'fault', not can he take credit for it.

He was thoughtful and believed in what he said. His words were well-picked and he was linguistically adept.

Though I rarely agreed with his public policy arguments, his belief in free-choice and free-thought are appreciated.

RIP.

[reaguirre]

this essay is profoundly wise; works to conteplate constantly

[Pleblian]

I have never agreed with anything William F. Buckley espoused, but I did respect him as a human being.

He was a thoughtful opponent who did not resort to mean diatribes. I cannot say the same for likes of his, arch nemeses, Gore Vidal, for which I am in the unfortunate position of agreeing with.

He will be missed

[willwkrueger]

KrazyHoarse is right, he's no intellectual but unfortunately influential. he was an ethnocentric classist homophobe for whom 'human dignity' was merely his sense of entitlement. buckley's dead and good riddance but Marx, the "historical cosmopologist" is making a come back!

[marionettehymnal]

if you're really 19, the world can end now.

[willwkrueger]

i'm really 19, so let it !

[FAHayek89]

He may well be 19. He has the well-intentioned but also un-tempered passion of a bright nineteen year old. I suspect that Marx will be in today and Derrida and Foucault in a couple of years. Do not despair, though. If Marxists like Alasdair MacIntyre, Frank Meyer, and Whittaker Chambers could turn into Aristotelian/Thomists in old age, young Will may have hope as well.

[RightWingCon81]

That's what i thought. You dodged the question. Now THAT speaks volumes.

[RightWingCon81]

define intellectual and tell me why he's not one. YOU DUMB FUCK!

[FAHayek89]

Actually, if pushed on the issue, I think Buckley might reject the term intellectual. His good friend Russell Kirk used to like to point out that the concept of the intellectual was a creation of the French Enlightenment and Revolution - hardly darling social movements of the right -and carries many of the negative implications of that period. Kirk seemed to opt for the term "man of letters."

[RightWingCon81]

The enlightenment is often seen as the birth place of modern liberalism when infact it was the birth o classical liberalism ie conservatism with its views on property, democrac, etc.

[FAHayek89]

The Scottish Enlightenment (Burke, Hume, Smith, etc.) was the birthplace of classical liberalism, which went on to make up one of the wings of the modern American conservative movement. The French Enlightenment, with its emphasis on equality, social restructuring, and utopianism, provides the intellectual antecedents to socialism, statism, Marxism, and the ideologies of the twentieth century. Robespierre was the product and foreshadowed Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, not of Goldwater or Reagan.

[FAHayek89]

I will agree with you on the Scottish Enlightenment. I would argue that the French Enlightenment provided the seeds of modern liberalism and all of the other ideological "isms" of the 20th century (socialism, Marxism, fascism, national socialism, etc.)

[RightWingCon81]

Even the French Enlightenment had serious leanings to the modern right. It's hard to define these people in th right left specrum of today, They were probobably to the left of their day ad to the right today. I would say that the and socialism as we know it came out of Germany with yes, French influence.

[Silvercardinal7]

Thanks for posting

[episkyros]

One has to hand it to Buckley here: belief in God is the best portion of his 'conservative' legacy, and fittingly the most profoundly problematic (because perennial). William Jennings Bryan redivivus. It is a poetic choice not to seek an 'ultimate cause' for life, the Universe and everything in a piece of meat, but rather to look for it in the phenomenon of 'inspiration', what makes us humans 'living souls' (in the words of Genesis).

[Achilles222]

Great essay by Buckley.  Thanks for posting. I very much miss Buckley already.

[24lana]

Thank you for posting this. Buckley was an wonderful and inspiring man. He was one of the greatest intellectuals of our time. This piece reminds me of Proof of the Existence of God by Thomas Aquinas.  Buckley will be missed by us all.

[cloonmore]

Amen.

God bless WFB.

[TogetherinParis]

So what happens when some nut assassinates a President Barak Obama? Won't Obama supporters feel they have license to riot and burn the entire country down? Remember MLK's assassination? Many took that tragedy as an opportunity to shop without paying. Riots would indeed follow any assassination of a President Obama, and who could blame them? On the other hand, if, God forbid, President Hillary R. Clinton were to be assassinated by the plumbers, we would morn, and we would go on calmly.

[c1arknova]

Oh right, Joeseph. I stand corrected.

However, I'm still for seeing you all in reeducation camps after the revolution. The right wants civility at home, and violence and imperialism abroad. Buckley was a droll apologist for American imperialism and regressive social policy. He deserved the guillotine, not your fawning adulation.

As long as a single American anywhere is pointing a machine gun at a single civilian anywhere your cries for civility are frivolous, and ultimately irrelevant.

[afsafsdaf]

You do realize that it would require Americans pointing machine guns at civilians here for reeducation camps to be put into effect don't you? And I happen to oppose unprovoked military intervention overseas, military bases overseas and the Iraq war, but I still respect Buckley because he opposed any trashy ideology that would even contemplate the thought of such things as reeducation camps as good or necessary.

[Curt300]

c1arknova: "I'm still for seeing you all in reeducation camps after the revolution."

The revolution is over.  You lost.

[tzipn]

Thank you for this - very lovely. He was truly a genetleman and a scholar. I hope that our grandchildren will know of him. May he be face to face with the Almighty!

[RonPaulGeorgeRingo]

William F. Buckley (RIP) - It is quite sad that the modern Republican Party has very little in common with Buckley's more libertarian and intellectual brand of conservatism. Many people, conservatives and quite a few liberals too, admired the man. He was one of a kind.

[hardyboymontana]

Buckley lives....on

[dingorex]

Thanks for all the comments.I'm really torn up at his passing more so as I was planning to post this today not knowing,and had posted his Firing Line with Mortimer Adler on Intellect Mind Over Matter just 2 days ago.

[mattmps]

Notice how liberals, who claim to be the most compassionate among us, leave the most hateful, vicious comments? Since most liberals are so unhappy with their lives, hating conservatives is almost a religion and gives them something to live for. In a debate, William F. Buckley would have absolutely wiped the floor with each and every liberal celebrating his death. Your little bumper sticker slogans might impress your disheveled friends and ugly liberal women, but WFB was smarter than all of u

[Reggie1971]

I've seen a number of vile and hateful comments from the far left on videos of WFB. I'm not surprised at them considering that their ilk do seem to harbor a great deal of bitterness and frustration. It can be infuriating to see left wingers have no respect for those who are remembering someone they loved and admired. Just consider the source. These people are bums. Many of them hate America. No class. No style. No sense of decency.

[c1arknova]

That "no sense of decency" line comes from the public condemnation of Eugene MaCarthy: another right wing lunatic trying to scare the populace into accepting a police state, with the specte of Communisim.

Your beloved Buckley was a smoother talker, but in essence the same sort of fearmonger. He used the phony threat of Communisim as apology for Laissez-faire corporatism.

If you're going to sputter about lack of respect for your dearly departed demagogue, at least try to rip off your own side.

[lethalfarm]

Communism killed over 100 million people...through the regimes of stalin, mao, pol pot and others. More efficient then anything hilter ever did. You don't know this because you are a well-educated knee-jerk liberal establishment conformist...you "Think" you are educated....you are in fact part of the great liberal Bourgeoisie...educated by the groupthink in the liberal mass media and liberal university education system.  Congratulations you are so different your the same as everone.

[afsafsdaf]

I think you mean Joseph McCarthy. Eugene McCarthy was a politician also, but a Democrat and not involved with the McCarthy hearings. Anyway, I think a little respect towards the recently departed wouldn't hurt - most people didn't come to this video to debate politics, but to remember a man's life.

[rmorte62]

At least Bill Buckley knew the difference between Eugene McCarthy and Joe McCarthy, you ignorant dork.

[AgentOfOblivion]

Your ignorance is breathtaking. McCarthy has been vindicated by research. It's now known that virtually every one he accused did in fact have communist ties, and our intelligence agencies have confirmed that communist agents had infiltrated every level of government. Please, do try to know WTF you're talking about before opening your commie mouth. Not everyone is as ignorant of the facts as is required in order to sell your leftist BS.

[AgentOfOblivion]

Your ignorance is breathtaking. McCarthy has been vindicated by research. It's now known that virtually every one he accused did in fact have communist ties, and our intelligence agencies have confirmed that communist agents had infiltrated every level of government. Please, do try to know WTF you're talking about before opening your commie mouth. Not everyone is as ignorant of the facts as is required in order to sell your leftist BS.

[Curt300]

c1arknova: I think you meant to say "Charlie McCarthy".

"...phony threat of Communisim (sic)..."? There was nothing phony about it. Thanks to men like Buckley, we won.

Sit down son.

[tonygem]

Thank goodness this pompous fool is dead. He wasn't only a fascist pig but a Taliban Catholic as well.

[Rice2008dotCom]

"The Left" is soooooo tolerant. (Not to mention classy and gracious.)

RIP WFB

[Reggie1971]

You are a classless pig and an ignoramus. You prove once again that the left is filled to the brim with hateful idiots.

[topgig]

Three cheers for Mr. Buckley for living a great life and giving so much to the country and to the world!

RIP Mr. Buckley. Heaven is now an even more wonderful (and entertaining) place with you in it.

[c1arknova]

Good riddance you misanthropic old bastard. You were as empty as the straw men you spent your life stuffing.

[Reggie1971]

Another example of a hateful leftist idiot with no class.

[tiercel76]

God bless WFB...

[Spifficus]

2008 baby! The death of Conservatism! Good things DO come to those who wait!

[Reggie1971]

You must be a moron to think that a man's physical death entails the death of his and other people's ideas.

[mccronej]

bless him

[jklseattle]

Hail Buckley, Jr.

[RonPaulWOW]

Sadly Buckley threw in with the Neo-Cons and diminished his stature by compromising traditional conservative views to accommodate

the neo-con's untested ideas.

[mlbalan74]

Oh gosh, he was a critic of the Iraq war. Do a little research before spouting your talking points!

[RonPaulWOW]

The neo-con mantra is a lot larger than the than the Iraq war. It involves economic policy too. Sir I have don more research than most on this issue.

[jklseattle]

You can take your internet spamming campaign to the crapper along with your fledgling candidate. You are now OFFICIALLY irrelevant. Quit your squawking.

[RonPaulWOW]

So seattle you want to make this personal? I will be happy to take you on anytime anywhere!

[afsafsdaf]

while Buckley deserves some criticism by libertarian conservatives for things he's said, I think it's more important at the time of his death to remember his enormous contribution to sparking the conservative movement. Barry Goldwater, Reagan, would have never become prominent without the intellectual stimulus provided by Buckley. The National Review inspired the mind of many a conservative and showed that being an intellectual conservative isn't an oxymoron.