I never read any of his books but did some of his other stuff. I did not find much to agree with but I did admire his style and his arguments. If ever i came across him on TV I would watch. I probably agree with about 5% of what he said and believed in, but he was the kind of guy I would have loved to share a few beers with anyway. Whats more, he was also the kind of guy who would be willingly and graciously spend time with people that he did not agree with. He was wise enough to know that there are other parts of people besides their opinions and philosophy. He was not at war with humanity in the pursuit of proving a philosophical argument, as so many partisan hacks are today.
With his use of big words, he was the ultimate pedant. Moreover, he was consistently wrong on the issues.
He did used to irritate me, but I enjoyed being irritated.
The crypto nazi/queer spat: not a great moment, but a bit of a window into the news that others than a2kers can get into name calling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-3-8eH-xv4
didn't share his views but did admire his style .
anyone remember :
BUCKLEY : LEGALIZE POT !
i don't think drug use has diminished despite THE WAR ON DRUGS .
i enjoyed his book about sailing across the atlantic .
if i remember rightly , plenty of the stuff was smoked on that TRIP :wink:
hbg
Last night, on a Charlie Rose replay, he said that Ayn Rand refused to speak or be at the same public gathering as National Review writer panned Atlas Shrugged. Buckley said he finally did finish "Shrugged" under threat of a crop. He did enjoy Fountainhead though.
One of the things I want to do before I die is read Atlas Shrugged.
Bill Buckley was wrong as much as he was right (tatoo AIDS patients, stay out of WWII) but he was larger than life and truly one of a kind.
The conservative and liberal communities mourn his loss.
I subscribed to National Review for a long time. Buckley could not convert me, but he did a fine job being interestingly entertaining. It has been quite a few years since I really paid attention to him. Still, I mourn his passing.
edgar :
that's about what i felt about him .
while i could never have agreed with his kind of politics , he never came across as spitefull or mean - today's commentators could learn a lot from him (of course , they won't) .
hbg
hamburger wrote:edgar :
that's about what i felt about him .
while i could never have agreed with his kind of politics , he never came across as spitefull or mean - today's commentators could learn a lot from him (of course , they won't) .
hbg
He was different from even the other true conservatives, I thought.
I didn't know Buckley well but encountered him in groups on numerous occasions. In person he was a very pleasant and unassuming individual who spoke little of politics at all, but had wide-ranging interests, a very playful nature and the ability in discussion to get to the heart of the matter quickly. I have the impression that he used his many affectations, the grimmaces, the widened eyes, the pauses and shifts in tone only as weapons when it suited him.
He was a Catholic, but then so was Mother Theresa, Popes Alexander Borgia & John Paul II, Gen. Santa Anna, Cortez, John Sweeney, and even me. BBB need have no fear.
I found the Chomsky interview fascinating. I believe Buckley chose his tactics in the conversation very well; jabbing and moving about. Hard to pin Chomsky, a master at at choosing favorable openings on any argument, down on anything.
I do find that I hold him in less respect than most due primarily to his association with Robert Welch (John Birch Society) but note that he disavowed that affiliation when Welch labeled Dwight Eisenhower and his brother as communists.
What I meant to say was exploded with what dys just mentioned, my cousin's husband being j/birch, at least early on.
But, to my view of Buckley...
I was taken by whomever's post that mentioned that Buckley adapted views with further thought, in recent years.
I had stopped paying attention, as a tv less person.
There will be a large number of recollections and analyses of the fellow over the next while. Many will be ideological garbage but others will be worthwhile. I'd expect the NYRB to have something(s) of quality up fairly soon and I'll note them here when that happens. I hadn't known, until it was noted in something I read today, that Joan Didion had written for the NR early on. I continue to try to convince people that her "Political Fictions" (a significant portion of the book is drawn from NYRB pieces) is one of the very best books on modern american politics and elections one might read but, so far, no takers.
I read most of her earlier books. So it lays, or goes. Drive, she said. I was around at the same time she was, though obviously not such a writer. Not sure I need her take, but willing to listen.
Big selection of pieces on Buckley in the link below...see under "articles of note" second entry (presently).
http://www.aldaily.com/
Buckley once proposed that blacks should not be allowed to vote. When criticism was heaped on him for this, he said that uneducated blacks and whites should not be allowed to vote.
I really should read A & L Daily more often. Got to put it in my blog list in my browser toolbar, yep. Thanks, Blatham.
(I know it's not a blog but a newsletter. But that's my category and I'm sticking to it.)
oss
Yep, it's a dilly.
And in respect to Buckley's odious tendencies. The following was written towards the end of his life...
Quote:The objective is to identify the [HIV] carrier, and to warn his victim. Someone, 20 years ago, suggested a discreet tattoo the site of which would alert the prospective partner to the danger of proceeding as had been planned. But the author of the idea was treated as though he had been schooled in Buchenwald, and the idea was not widely considered, but maybe it is up now for reconsideration.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/
I think all of this fretting about Buckley ideas that seem unappealing is missing the forest for the trees. This is not a guy who through that ideas should be pushed on anyone, who thought that he was in an ideological war. He thought that all of the possibilities should be talked about in the open, and he had the courage of his convictions. I have already said that I agreed with very little that he said, but I admire a guy who stands up and says what he believes and is willing to accept what ever the group decides. By all accounts he was a friendly man, a man of principles and morals, we could use a lot more like that. I don't see why anyone should get all hot and bothered about him thinking that tattooing aids carriers is a good idea, there are good arguments for doing so and they don't go away just because we find the idea an assault upon our sensibilities. In any case he was never going to push to make it happen, he was talking about what he believed, not what he was trying to do.
