Posted by
Steve on Thursday, February 28, 2008 12:55:29 PM
William Buckley died yesterday at age 82. He was one of the first conservative intellectuals. At Yale in the 1950’s he wrote, “God and Man at Yale”. That launched him as a conservative thinker. Later in 1955, he launched National Review. National Review has been one of the leading conservative magazines since that time.
I would like to say that William Buckley was important in my becoming a conservative. He was not. I would like to say I knew William Buckley. I did not. But, people that have influenced me were influenced by him. So, indirectly he has been an influence in my life.
Since I became a conservative in the 1970’s, William Buckley was sort of the father figure in conservative circles. Everyone talked about him in reverent tones and gave him a lot of credit for being one of early leading lights in the conservative movement. But, he was not really an important leader of the conservative movement in my period of time as a conservative. When I was becoming a conservative, he was turning over the leadership of the movement to people like Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan had more to do with my being a conservative than did William Buckley. But, Ronald Reagan got a lot of his early direction from William Buckley.
The conservative movement will miss people like William Buckley. He was a conservative intellectual before that came into fashion. When he became the conservative intellectual, conservatives were really without intellectuals in the lead. Conservatives instinctively knew what to do and where to go, but were short when it came to making sound arguments. William Buckley changed all that. He made sound arguments and did so with wit. That he made successful arguments is a testament that today, conservatives will consistently win discussions with liberals. Liberals have no facts to stand on. All their ideas have been shown to be full of baloney. Conservative ideas have been shown to be successful and good for large numbers of people.
Today there are a large number of conservative intellectuals. Who would be the person that would be considered the leading conservative intellectual? The mantle probably would fall on Rush Limbaugh, probably because more people listen to him than any other single person. I am not sure that makes him the leading conservative voice, but it at least makes him the most visible one. I doubt that there will ever be a single conservative voice that is the leading voice. There will always be multiple voices, each leading in their own way. Any strong movement would have that sort of arrangement. A weak or young movement would have a single strong voice. Conservatism is too strong to be reduced to a single person. If there were a strong conservative politician, he or she would be considered the leading voice in the conservative movement. That is because politicians have so much power. Power dictates leadership.
Right now, the conservative movement is in a state of disarray. There is no politician that stands out as THE conservative leader. We are stuck with John McCain, a moderate, liberal candidate for President. He is not a conservative. He is on some issues. He is not on others. Unfortunately, the ones he is not a conservative are the most important. Hopefully in four years, we will have a candidate that will galvanize the conservative base and take the Presidency by storm. Hope springs eternal!