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Last week, at the age of 82, William F. Buckley died at his Connecticut home. Principally through two vehicles—the National Review and his PBS TV program, “Firing Line”—Buckley provided the energy and leadership for the renewal of modern-day conservatism. Several thoughts about Buckley:
- In one of his first books, God and Man at Yale, Buckley properly characterized his alma mater as a bastion of atheistic collectivism. He skewered the university as fostering a secular worldview that was more open to Karl Marx than Jesus Christ. Rightly, he saw long before many others that higher education was graduating people more critical of American values and traditions than anyone realized.
- Buckley championed individual initiative and energy as the vital center of a renewed civilization, not socialist collectivism. He mocked the left as fostering an unhealthy dependence on government that always, hopelessly, failed people, for it cannot deliver what it promises.
- A fervent anti-communist during the Cold War, he championed a well-balanced ideological revival of conservatism. More than anyone perhaps, he helped promote Ronald Reagan as president. Yet, Buckley was not afraid to disagree with Reagan, as he did over the Panama Canal issue.
- Finally, as a devout Roman Catholic, Buckley stood for a deep-seated set of ethics rooted in Christianity and the teachings of Jesus.
For many reasons I will miss Bill Buckley, for his energy, vision and understanding of the human condition have been matched by few others.
See George Will’s testimony to him in the Washington Post (29 February 2008) and William McGurn’s in the Wall Street Journal (29 February 2008).
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