Some 30 years ago I was a callow lad in his 2nd year of college. I got there after a misspent youth that needed four years in the US Air Force to straighten out. I majored in History, that great discipline that lists the past crimes and dreary evils of man. Done correctly—and matched with a heady dose of Christianity—it will teach an acolyte that human nature is as constant as the Northern Star.
I had to spend many an hour in the college library writing this paper or researching that topic. In the magazine rack I came upon something called National Review. It was put together by a man named William F. Buckley. I had never heard of him, but then there was much then that I had never heard of. (There is much now that I wished I had never heard of.) I opened its pages and discovered a new world. And I was not the same thereafter. My life as a conservative began then and there.
Certain truths learned from Buckley’s mag have become as much a part of me as my ageing skin. Such as:
1. A small government is less prone to tyranny than a big government.
2. All government relies upon force.
3. Government cannot do much outside of keeping the streets clean and patrolling the seas.
4. Untrammeled democracy leads to tyranny.
5. A man is the best protector of his family and home.
6. America is a force for good in the world.
7. Politics is not about goodness but about power.
8. It is cool to be Catholic.
There is more—there is much more—but you get the idea.
Yesterday I read that Buckley was dead. He died working of course, a death befitting a man who did more in his life than any ten men selected at random.
What we own him can scarcely be calculated. Like Reagan, his kind will not be seen again.
Requiescat in Pace.