First Word

William F. Buckley has a place in the intellectual history of right-wingers of my generation analogous to Francis Schaeffer for apologetics: we read them in high school, and they were the springboard for more serious reading in college and beyond; but the more serious reading overthrew the original mentor.

Actually in Buckley’s case an aura remained for a decade or two. When I was staying over in New York in the late 80’s, I made the pilgrimage to the address shown on the banner of National Review: somewhere in the caverns just south of the Empire State, between mid- and downtown. It was not a slick suite of offices with posted tour schedule. Hardly anyone was there, but a young man did emerge and dutifully gave me the tour, including of Buckley’s office. I left somewhat impressed by the bohemian and intellectual atmosphere — though this was mitigated a bit by the pile of rosary beads, crucifixes and other popish paraphernalia I saw heaped up on Buckley’s own desk.

At that time, I was still reading Buckley’s spy/sex novels. With typical coy self-justification — picture him making the point in a Firing Line pose, head tilted, eyebrows arched, lips pursed, stammering the words slowly out — he justified the pornographic bits by saying he couldn’t help it: the Federal government and the governments of all fifty states had passed legislation requiring that all fiction must include such stuff to be published.

Chuckle chuckle.

But the subtle promotion of internationalism by means of glamorizing limitless covert American entanglements — including assassination of foreign political leaders to further “the cause” — may be the feature of his novels that does more lasting harm than the pornography to the unaware reader.

For a while, I latched on to the back-page editorialist in that period, Florence King. She was witty and keen. I bought her books. Turns out, her books celebrate her coming to the point of, how shall we say it discretely… that she likes to do things while in the private company of another woman that cannot be written about in a decent blog. At the time I dropped my NR subscription, a full house of Florence’s books was being offered as a gift for resubscribing. You also got a form letter from Buckley asking, if you decided not to resubscribe, to write to him your reasons. I dropped the offer into a file with the intent to explain the serious compromise to NR, as the putative flagship of conservatism, represented by the prominence given to Florence’s lesbo-celebratory books; but my intent died the death of procrastination.

But Buckley was a shrewd man and he knew what he was doing. The fact is, Buckley did not have an outlook of Christian law as the foundation of his conservatism. His was the varnished morality of the man more interested in the “good life” of yachting and hobnobbing with the Manhattan important people than with taking a rooted stand against our national slide into degeneracy. He was not standing athwart that slide shouting “stop,” but reclining in the rearguard murmuring “not so fast.”

Just like Dabney said about American conservatism.

About that time, plus or minus, Buckley came out with an entire issue devoted to “Anti-Semitism,” which was the pre-apology for sacking Joseph Sobran. Though at the time I was still a philo-semite, I found Buckley’s screed troubling. What rankled most of all was his willingness to expose the nakedness of his father in service to his zionist friends. Apparently, his father’s breakfast-table banter was often “anti-semitic.”

Knowing what we now know, that reference can only increase our respect for Buckley’s father, to the detriment of William Jr. But leave that aside: there is surely something despicable in what Buckley junior did. The hebe Murray Rothbard uniformly showed far more honesty and integrity than Buckley, and called Buckley on the carpet for degrading his father. That his days were long in the land the Lord his God gave him shows, at least, that the converse of the fifth commandment does not necessarily follow.

When Buckley first fell seriously ill a couple years ago, Sobran wrote an affectionate and filial tribute, but this does not change the serious blight on Buckley’s character surrounding his treatment of Sobran; nay, it further deepens our perception of the stain. And clicking off the rosary beads heaped up on his desk certainly did not expiate that sin.

Sobran is one of the most original, insightful political writers of this generation. And, he is honest.

Actually, he is original and insightful because he is honest.

No Christian can be called both honest and informed, who does not point out, at least when the subject arises, the evil of Talmudic religion, and the great threat to our national survival as Americans posed by the influence of jews on our national policy, money, and now, “homeland security.”

Sobran’s comments were far more modest than that. He simply applied the same advocacy of limited, non-intrusive government allegedly advocated by NR to Israel. This sent the Podhoretz’s ballistic, and Buckley obediently put the button on his erstwhile friend in service to that evil cabal.

Isn’t it amazing how many globes rotate around the semitic axis? Can you imagine someone being fired for “anti-Nepalism” or “anti-Columbianism”? It is amazing, and once realized, shows its own insanity.

Those that criticize jews are to be badgered, beaten, fired, black-listed, ridiculed, fined, or even imprisoned. That is the jewish way. “Free speech” is merely a slogan, appealed to only on behalf of pornographers and leftist academics, and the occasional jew that falls into his own trap (or properly philo-jews as Mark Steyn recently in Canada). Buckley did not use his wealth and influence to resist it. On the contrary, he compliantly threw friends and others that should have been his friends overboard on the mere whiff of displeasure emitting from jews.

Not all of his fratricide was motivated by that; indeed, some of his victims were themselves jews. In common, however, was the pursuit of “respectability” that induced Buckley to throw every rightist overboard that showed deep courage or honesty, including those that thought they were his friends. Murray Rothbard the libertarian, the Birchers, the Ayn Randians, Samuel Francis, Pat Buchanan, Peter Brimelow, Joe Sobran, and others were, in turn, drop-kicked out of the park by punter Buckley. On issues, Buckley always ended up respectable as well. After some initial “confusion,” Buckley came around to the respectable position on civil rights and immigration, and supported the national holiday to honor the adulterous plagiarist.

Thus, Buckley is widely praised for having single-handedly “made conservatism respectable.” Besides entailing the abandonment of loyalty, there is something very wrong about seeing that as something good.

When you believe something, you don’t care if it is respectable. You want everyone to believe it, because true. But that is not to desire its respectability. You desire the conversion or persuasion of the deluded. You want the unbelievers to stop blaspheming.

But it is of no concern to the honest man that those that persist in believing falsehood should regard the position they oppose as “respectable.”

By now, we should realize that making any ideology “respectable” means, making it dishonest, craven, and above all subservient to zionists. So, making conservatism respectable is certainly not something praiseworthy, if conservativism is something to be valued.

That the powers-that-be pay that “compliment” to Buckley really says all that needs to be said.