A Man from Yale, with God

While Pittsburghers are presently mourning the loss of the great sports writer Myron Cope, conservatives across the country are focused elsewhere: on the death of intellectual pioneer, William F. Buckley Jr., who passed away today at the age of 82.

William F. Buckley is perhaps the most important figure in the modern conservative movement that arose out of the ashes of World War II. After graduating Yale, and publishing his monumental God and Man at Yale, he founded the bi-weekly magazine National Review. His intellectualization of traditional conservatism (a mix of anti-communist foreign policy and free market economics, with a dash of cultural-religious tradition) inspired people across the country, and eventually seeped into the then-moderate politics of the Republican Party. His influence could be traced then to Senator Barry Goldwater, who changed the face of GOP politics as we knew it. Buckley, along with Goldwater's presidential run, went on to inspire and influence Ronald Reagan, who brought true grassroots conservatism to the federal government. In essence, it was Buckley's conservatism that eventually ended the Cold War, amongst other successes.

I never had an opportunity to see Buckley in person, but I feel like I knew the guy merely from his excellent, and often extremely biting, writing style. Although he left the National Review as editor in the early 90's, and retired to private life in 2004, he continued to write up until his death. The last book he published was Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription: Notes & Asides from National Review, although he was also finishing up a biography of Goldwater. His son, Christopher Buckley, is perhaps better known in pop culture, having written Thank You For Smoking and most recently Boomsday.

A NPR commentator on FOX News this evening made a very astute observation about Buckley's passing: it could not have come at a more interesting time in the conservative movement. It's a time when we conservatives find ourselves in the cold, fighting off the politicians who wish to redefine exactly what it means to be "conservative." Buckley never entered the world of politics (although he famously ran for mayor of New York, promising that if he won he'd demand a recount), but instead stayed back, philosophizing and criticizing. It's my belief that every good political movement needs to have a rooted intellectual and philosophical background to guide it. Republicanism has been guided by Federalism and conservatism since the beginning, but it was the minds of William F. Buckley Jr., Russell Kirk, Barry Goldwater, and the like that made it so successful. It will be interesting to see what modes of thought prevail going forward.

Buckley was a writer, a talk show host, an editor, and a philanthropist, but above all he was a warrior of ideas.