William F. Buckley died today, and I was very sorry to hear this. Back in the 1980s when I first took an interest in the conservative movement, I began reading National Review. This magazine, and its founder William Buckley, had a very large influence on me. Here for the first time I could get well-reasoned alternative points of view to what you found in mainstream newspapers, magazines, and on TV. William F. Buckley, with his ideas, wit, intellect, civility, tolerance, and powers of persuasion was a giant of the second half of the 20th century.

I used to enjoy watching Firing Line back in the 1980s. The thing about Buckley was that he was incredibly combative in arguments - yet he was civil and cordial at the same time. In today’s debates on TV they seem to pick the people most hostile and disrespectful towards each other and then let them shout each other down. On Firing Line the conversations were long and deep and the debates were illuminating.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that he was the founder of the modern conservative movement? Ronald Reagan said National Review was his favorite magazine.

Buckley, when starting to build the conservative coalition in the 1950s, purged many of the groups of kooks and conspiracy nuts from the conservative movement. Without that, the conservative movement would never have become respectable.

I miss watching Firing Line and reading National Review. William F. Buckley was someone I truly admired. I even liked the one novel of his that I read. I am genuinely sad that he is no longer with us.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 11:22 pm and is filed under Culture, Media Bias, Movies and TV, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. For Trackbacks to this post, use URL: http://nospeedbumps.com/wp-trackback.php?p=1474