For those of us who believed history was more or less a straight line from the Magna Carta to Thomas Jefferson to William F. Buckley Jr. or Milton Friedman, the passing of William Buckley is quite a sad blow. There is comfort in all the kind words, most of which seem to say that Buckley's main contribution was to save conservatism for America starting in about 1955 with the publication of his magazine. They might have pointed out too that even the billions in Europe, Asia, and India would have thanked him for much of the freedom and prosperity they are enjoying now if they understood that the track of history ran along side Mr. Buckley.
Interestingly, the kind and knowing words have almost unanimously claimed that a large part of what Buckley did was purge conservatism of racism, anti-Semitism, and the John Birch Society, but they utterly failed to say what was left after the purge? It is certainly true that he did cleanse the philosophy of its errant elements, but far, far more importantly, he revitalized Jefferson's thinking about the freedom that had completely defined and dominated American intellectual life prior to The Great Depression and WW 2. It is no exaggeration to say that without Buckley, we would not have been able to reach back into our history, through those two usually cataclysmic events, to the Jeffersonian America that had been the greatest country on earth. This was because many simply didn't want to reach back to see what they had come to think of as the foundation for depression and world war.
Until Buckley came along, conservatism was widely considered, dead; having been discomposed by Karl Marx's recycled theory of a benevolent state despotism - a theory which still enjoys widespread acceptance; especially in academia - the Depression, and World War 2, all of which involved very liberal gov't involvement in our lives to an extent never imagined by our ingenious, freedom-loving, founders. Lionel Trilling, an obviously disaffected American, proudly announced after WW 2 that there was "no important conservative voice anywhere in America". What he meant was that Jeffersonian anti-Federalism, and the conservative social values that naturally attached to it, were thoroughly beaten, and the door to a brave new American socialism was wide open. It is no wonder that in such an extreme environment people like Joe McCarthy went to extreme lengths to protect the conservative American values that eventually triumphed over socialism to save the world.
Much of pre-war history is left out of the Buckley saga, I think, in large part because Buckley wanted us to properly appreciate that modern American intellectual history was to start with him. And that was fine with us, ......for the most part; notwithstanding Jefferson and his disciples who always had waged a very ferocious and principled Republican opposition that clearly existed and asserted itself all the way to and throughout the New Deal. Also, Buckley had a dream that he could make his Roman Catholicism an integral part of modern American history, and so to that extent too he was content to leave the all-mighty Jefferson mostly out his heroic account of history. And too, out of reverence for all the warring founding fathers, Buckley, and many others, seemed to think it somewhat unseemly to claim Jefferson for partisan purposes. This, despite the fact that Jefferson went to war against big gov't and for freedom the second Washington appointed him, and never took a breath until he defeated the Federalists once and for all, years later, in the real American Revolution of 1800. We will never know what was lost or gained because the simple narrative of American history that features a straight line from Jefferson to Buckley will probably never be drawn. But, perhaps this did not happen fortuitously as Buckley reasoned correctly that Jeffersonian ideas needed a fresh modern face for the fresh new challenges that emerged out of Marxism, the Depression, and WW 2? We'll never know.
Or perhaps, Jefferson had suffered in Buckley's mind as nearly everyone had conceded that Hamilton had seen America's economic future far more clearly than Jefferson, and when Hamilton's particular actions, like Washington's, were seen to have been obviously necessary to our founding.
All this, of course, patriotically excludes Hamilton's desire to have a King rather than a President, the "Newburgh Crisis," during which Hamilton sought to overthrow our gov't for the benefit of the military and upper class, and the Whiskey Rebellion, during which Hamilton personally - despite being Secretary of the Treasury - led an army to crush small farmers in Western PA. who objected to the nation's first onerous and very regressive tax. But did any of that really make Hamilton equal to or superior to Jefferson in his long term understanding of the American Revolution's meaning?
In the fullness of time it is apparent that American History and World History is a battle between freedom and gov't. This, Jefferson understood above all else, while Hamilton, and sadly, most historians, did and do not; or at least will not acknowledge because of their own naive and partisan preference for Hamilton's big gov't schemes, or out of a collective respect for both men who, perhaps, can be seen as heroic prisoners of their time.
The situation is so bad that Democrats - the party that is about to nominate an ever lovin big gov't socialist - are now allowed to claim Jefferson as one of their own merely because the party's name changed over the years from Republican (under Jefferson), to Democratic - Republican, and then to Democratic? The whole world, and to some extent Buckley too, allowed them to get away with this and thus deprived us of the most basic, continuous, powerful, and educational thread in all of World and American History.
But who can argue with Buckley? To all the world it seemed he had prevailed when Reagan was elected. The conservative Joe Sobran captured the spirit of that time when he said, "we've got a world to run now". In the end it was a huge illusion. Reagan was a charismatic fluke who happened along at the right time, and who happened to like Buckley. Now, even with dozens of new Buckley disciples all around - like Rush Limbaugh who alone reaches 15-20 million per week - Republicans are in the minority. So what did Jefferson and Buckley accomplish in the end - just 200 years of relative freedom? Is it all gone now that Jefferson, Reagan, and Buckley are gone?
Perhaps; at least, they taught us that in an age of universal suffrage, chance and charisma matter far more than history or ideas? Buckley oozed a rare intellectual charisma to great affect, but Obama too, for example, oozes a tremendous populist charisma, and a quotidian, brain dead, cookie cutter, Harvard socialism that may propel him to the White House. If you assume charisma is equally likely to appear on either side of the political equation then you have to assume too that the magic of algebra will cancel it out - right? Perhaps so, but does that then mean that only good ideas matter in the end? No, of course not. A cursory look through world history will disabuse anyone of that notion; and quickly.
In the end it would seem that many variables matter: charisma, money, ideas, chance, hard work, and persistence. Buckley employed them all in an heroic effort to buy us time, but the grim reaper Democrat (if that's too harsh just ask yourself what they will socialize after medicine) is still at freedom's door exactly where it has been throughout all of human history.
Buckley's unprecedented success may indicate that intellect is the one variables that Democrats can't consistently match. In the end, freedom is a better idea or it is not! All the other variables may ultimately cancel each other out, but canceling out the idea of freedom, intellectually at least, is nearly impossible one would hope. That is the slight edge modern Republicans will always have to keep them in the game. After all, America is, in the end, an idea; an idea about freedom that became the greatest country in history. How can it be defeated? Jefferson, Reagan, and Buckley showed us that, more than anything, ideas, or an idea, matter. At least that is what we must pray is true now that Mr. Buckley is no longer here, reassuringly, to fight our battle for us. All of us can try to promote freedom, and should, but who can be sure our meager efforts will be sufficient to save America the way Thomas Jefferson and William F. Buckley Jr. once did? Buckley, as always, had an answer for us about the seeming inevitability of gov't: "despair is not allowed", but who can really escape it now that our greatest champion has left us all alone.
Ted Baiamonte
TheDumbDemocrat
The Intellectual Republican
www. thedumbdemocrat
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