WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.
By Greg Ganske | JohnKassNews.com
“A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop!” William F. Buckley
Many conservative baby boomers like myself picked up our political leanings from two influences. In 1995, a high school friend loaned me a 115-page book written by L. Brent Bozell, a speech writer for Arizona U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater. When Bozell showed the “Conscience of a Conservative” manuscript to Goldwater it is said the Senator thumbed it for a few minutes and told Bozell to go with it. Regardless of authorship, I and others of my generation were blown away by it. (By the way, “Profiles in Courage” was ghostwritten, too.)
The book spelled out the conservative position on limited government, civil rights, the welfare state, and the Soviet menace. It fused capitalism, anti-communism and Constitutionally–limited government. Though a bit outdated, in the 1960s it was topical and practical. Its fundamental point: is that to flourish, both economic and political freedom are necessary. Without economic freedom we are dependent on the state and without political freedom we are slaves to it.
For many of our generation, the second conservative influence was William F. Buckley and his TV show, Firing Line. In the days before 24/7 news channels and their political panels there wasn’t anything like it. Buckley would debate guests on various political topics. His wit, command of English and gladiatorial style were mesmerizing. Leaning back with his eyes half closed he would skewer his debate opponent in his Mid-Atlantic accent with High Church overtones and Southern drawl. His style was honed at Yale where he and Boz
ell were national debate champions. Many conservatives today remember him better for his lancinating repartee than for his often libertarian, progressive positions.
In some ways he predated Trump, Buckley, “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard university.” Through his speeches Buckley brought together the three-post war conservative intellectual currents of traditionalism, libertarianism and anti-communism. He sought to exclude from the Republican Party the John Birch Society, George Wallace, racists, white supremacist and anti-Semites.
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Note: Greg Ganske, MD is a retired plastic surgeon who cared for women with breast cancer, children with birth defects, trauma patients and farmers with hand injuries. He represented Iowa in the U. S. Congress from 1995-2003. He is a retired Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Corp.