William F. Buckley Jr. Dead at 82
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William F. Buckley Jr., author of dozens of books and founder of National Review, died this morning at his home in Stamford, Connecticut, according to The New York Times. He had been suffering from emphysema and diabetes. His son told the The Times that he was found at his desk in his study.
Great Man of WIsdom.
One of the principal public figures in the West to assist in exposing the Soviet regime's genocidal policy that resulted in the Famine in Ukraine of 1932-33.
Thank you Mr. Buckley.
A delightfully intelligent man who taught us to examine all sides of a story before coming to a conclusion for ourselves. His droll sense of humor along with his intellect was an attraction to views, readers and those of us who were privileged to have been in his presence. He will be missed enormously.
The man had a decent vocabulary.
The comments on this site and others are almost universally cordial, a tribute in itself to Buckley. Unlike the pundits who fill today's radio and television airwaves with their noxious blather, he was a gentleman. He could and did disagree with his opponents vociferously, and he had an acid tongue, but he always demonstrated too a compensatory (should I say exculpatory?) sense of humor.
I have noticed, too, that while many of the articles now being published note his role in resurrecting conservatism in the U.S., they rarely point out the tangible consequences of his efforts, beyond the creation of an American electorate that chose Reagan and Bushes. I believe both Reagan and Bush Sr. would been among the first to note that with his life Buckley pulled off an astonishing feat. As a young fellow in his mid-twenties, Buckley declared that he would "stand athwart history, yelling Stop." By which he meant he would stop the global expansion of communism, growth which at the time seemed inevitable.
So he did. In the end he played as large a role in the collapse of the Soviet Union as did Reagan, Thatcher and John Paul II. After all, Buckley provided much of the intellectual source material -- and the confidence -- that undergirded the efforts of Reagan and Thatcher.
We rarely in this world make heroes of conservatives. We prefer the fiction that liberals care about others, while conservatives care only about themselves. I wonder if Buckley will ever get full credit for his role in freeing hundreds of millions of people?
I disagreed with just about every political position that Buckley espoused. Further, I found his conservative populism (the "Boston phonebook" nonsense) to be terribly disingenuous and hypocritical. That said, he was eminently civil; highly literate; and, by all accounts, a gentleman.
Though I disagreed with Mr. Buckley on just about everything in a political sense, still he was an charming and engaging man. I last saw him at the memorial service for Rosalyn Turek in 2003. It's funny, but just a few days ago I thought how I would like to someday, and maybe soon, play Bach for him. His death is, in some certain ways, profoundly saddening, possibly because we are CERTAINLY not going to see his kind again.