William F. Buckley Jr. 1925-2008

Have you ever heard of him before? He and Reagan are credited as being the most influential conservatives ever. William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review and his ideas have largely driven the conservative movement over the past 50 years. The writers over at NRO have a wonderful tribute to him. This comes from the gentlemen over at Powerline. Here is Hugh's tribute to the man, and what follows is an excerpt from his post:

There may have been more influential conservative pundits and intellectuals over the past half century, though none come immediately to mind, and there may have been more accomplished interviewers and authors of such numerous, diverse and always interesting books, though, again, no names jump out.But I don't think there is anyone who combined accomplishments of this order with such widespread, genuine and deep affection across the center-right except for Ronald Reagan, who owed much to Buckley, which means we all do.

From this piece, a brief description of Buckley's output during his lifetime:

Consider the statistics. During his nearly 60 years in the public eye, William F. Buckley Jr. published 55 books (both fiction and nonfiction); dozens of book reviews; at least 56 introductions, prefaces, and forewords to other peoples’ books; more than 225 obituary essays; more than 800 editorials, articles, and remarks in National Review; several hundred articles in periodicals other than National Review; and approximately 5,600 newspaper columns. He gave hundreds of lectures around the world, hosted 1,429 separate Firing Line shows, and may well have composed more letters than any American who has ever lived.

This short article touches on his role in helping defeat communism. And this from the editors when news of his death first reached them. Perhaps the words that emphasized the most for me what this man meant to so many people were these, "we are devastated to announce the passing of William F. Buckley Jr." Of all the stuff that I read about him between today and yesterday, that one line was what I appreciated the most. And this last link will take you to the mission statement for National Review when Buckley first started the magazine more than 50 years ago. This is an excerpt from that statement:

"I happen to prefer champagne to ditchwater," said the benign old wrecker of the ordered society, Oliver Wendell Holmes, "but there is no reason to suppose that the cosmos does." We have come around to Mr. Holmes' view, so much so that we feel gentlemanly doubts when asserting the superiority of capitalism to socialism, of republicanism to centralism, of champagne to ditchwater — of anything to anything. (How curious that one of the doubts one is not permitted is whether, at the margin, Mr. Holmes was a useful citizen!) The inroads that relativism has made on the American soul are not so easily evident. One must recently have lived on or close to a college campus to have a vivid intimation of what has happened. It is there that we see how a number of energetic social innovators, plugging their grand designs, succeeded over the years in capturing the liberal intellectual imagination. And since ideas rule the world, the ideologues, having won over the intellectual class, simply walked in and started to run things.

Run just about everything. There never was an age of conformity quite like this one, or a camaraderie quite like the Liberals'. Drop a little itching powder in Jimmy Wechsler's bath and before he has scratched himself for the third time, Arthur Schlesinger will have denounced you in a dozen books and speeches, Archibald MacLeish will have written ten heroic cantos about our age of terror, Harper's will have published them, and everyone in sight will have been nominated for a Freedom Award. Conservatives in this country — at least those who have not made their peace with the New Deal, and there is serious question whether there are others — are non-licensed nonconformists; and this is dangerous business in a Liberal world, as every editor of this magazine can readily show by pointing to his scars. Radical
conservatives in this country have an interesting time of it, for when they are not being suppressed or mutilated by the Liberals, they are being ignored or humiliated by a great many of those of the well-fed Right, whose ignorance and amorality have never been exaggerated for the same reason that one cannot exaggerate infinity.

There are, thank Heaven, the exceptions. There are those of generous impulse and a sincere desire to encourage a responsible dissent from the Liberal orthodoxy. And there are those who recognize that when all is said and done, the market place depends for a license to operate freely on the men who issue licenses — on the politicians. They recognize, therefore, that efficient getting and spending is itself impossible except in an atmosphere that encourages efficient getting and spending. And back of all political institutions there are moral and philosophical concepts, implicit or defined. Our political economy and our high-energy industry run on large, general principles, on ideas — not by day-to-day guess work, expedients and improvisations. Ideas have to go into exchange to become or remain operative; and the medium of such exchange is the printed word. A vigorous and incorruptible journal of conservative opinion is — dare we say it? — as necessary to better living as Chemistry.

We begin publishing, then, with a considerable stock of experience with the irresponsible Right, and a despair of the intransigence of the Liberals, who run this country; and all this in a world dominated by the jubilant single-mindedness of the practicing Communist, with his inside track to History. All this would not appear to augur well for NATIONAL REVIEW. Yet we start with a considerable — and considered — optimism.

I think what I appreciate most about the conservative voice, and what I think that last excerpt exemplifies, is that the voice is not one that is harsh, irrate, or loud. Rather, it is better characterized as pleading, informative, and full of hope. The discovery and fashioning of that voice is perhaps William F. Buckley Jr.'s greatest, and longest-lasting achievement.