He had what Hillary, a bug-eyed political hack in my opinion, has never learned and will never master...how to smile while you stick a shiv in your opponents back.

Buckley seating Taki and his wife in places of honor could not so much as slightly undo any of the incalculable damage he did to real conservatism, beginning at least with his willingness to throw Joe Sobran to the rabid Neocon wolves. If anything, the very Neocons Buckley lifted to such heights would have responded to such a slight not by any penance but by becoming more vicious, with ole Bill turning away and allowing them to run wild once more

I guess Gore Vidal gets the last word… adio Bill, what a life

Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, not every tragedy requires “closure” - but every love story does. As tough as it was to hear about Buckley’s agonizing loneliness after Pat’s death, it helped take the sting off hearing the news of his own passing this afternoon.

The lovers are reunited; and the universe, so callous and remote as a rule, allows itself a rare moment of benignity.

there is no traison....like a cleric with oil wells...Yale, Langley, East India Co...what’s the freakin’ difference...nobody adores like an accomplice, an opportunist or a slave...ALL phonies....Long live Le Rosey, eh Mr Taki...Mothers, raise your children to be Fagans with a vocabulary.

Note to all:: please don’t forget...it was dear Bill that gave us Joe Lieberman...and God knows who or what else…

Such nastiness from the nasty.  I reck not of them, for their bile sours their breath and not mine.

We would all have statues of V. I. Lenin in our village squares by now if Bill Buckley had stayed in his house and read Latin all this time, and don’t you ever forget it.  Think of the long lines of idiots we’ve elected since time immemorial who have tried to fling it all away for a mess of pottage.

God and Mary and Patrick be with you, Chairman Bill, and put in a good word for us, if you would be so kind.

God will probably seek Bill’s counsel on reorganizing his orders of fractious angels, and I believe he would profit nicely if he did.

To the sensible grieving, the family, and to Mr. Christo, I pass along to you my sincere condolences.

“We would all have statues of V. I. Lenin in our village squares by now if Bill Buckley had stayed in his house and read Latin all this time, and don’t you ever forget it.”

The sad thing is that this proclamation, which is so outrageously stupid as to have been composed by a Neocon hack in conjunction with the SPLC working overtime to make certain that ‘mainstream’ conservatism is pro-Joe Lieberman and pro-John McCain, does reflect the childish worldview of many who fancy Buckley something other than a kingly rich man who chose to try to kill the careers of most prominent real conservatives once they were no longer needed. He never did penance for any of it.

Judas Iscariot, not the beloved Apostle, comes to mind.

Here is the important question that springs from the quote: what could does it do you to prevent statues of Lenin in village squares if you and your magazine ultimately support the vast majority of key components of cultural Marxism being mainstreamed? Isn’t Bill Buckley’s ‘conservatism’ little more than two things: defense of his and his class’s money and power and acceptance of yesterday’s liberalism is a futile attempt to prevent faster liberalization?

Mr Cantrell, it takes a special kind of horse’s ass to kick a man on the day he dies, and you are that special, special man.  How the world exults that you are here with us! What happiness you spread among your fellow men!  What warm feelings you cause to bubble up from the wellsprings of our very souls!

I wonder if you wouldn’t mind doing us all a favor and checking the flashing around your chimnney tonight, or seeing that your gutters aren’t too clogged with leaves?  We don’t want any of these dreaded wintertime roof leaks or ice dams.  Don’t bother with a flashlight and tell no one of your mission.  Wear dress shoes.

In two tries Mr.Maturin provides nothing substantive in contradiction of Mr Cantrell’s observations; safe to assume he has nothing.

For those of us disappointed with WFB’s political positions over the past decade and more, news of his death is doubly mixed with regret and nostalgia, with thoughts of what might have been. 

It always struck me that Taki’s friend WFB really lost his interest in politics decades ago.  I’ve read that WFB was detached even during Reagan’s administration, which would prove to be the high point of anything remotely “conservative.”

Thus one has to wonder what WFB would make of the prospect that he really outlived the conservative movement, which will likely be declared defunct this very year (and has in fact been nonexistent for some time previous). 

And considering the collapse of the dollar, the growing economic chaos and the foreign policy debacle that the Bush administration has been, it is possible that WFB will not have pre-deceased his country by long either.

Another point:

William F Buckley, Jr was a member of Skull & Bones, along with men such as these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sloane_Coffin

Buckley was a “snake in the grass”, a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”, although a very charming one at that.

I just hope he repudiated his membership of a Masonic sect (Skull & Bones) and came back into Communion with the Church.

Even the most viscerally critical enemies of WFB will always learn from this man.  For one thing, the creation of NR conclusively demonstrated that true conservatives will always need a media network and numerous affluent patrons for support (aside from Taki, where are the wealthy patrons for paleocons hiding? No wonder Ron Paul must depend on the money of his supporters, who tend to be more zealous than affluent.)

It’s also interesting that WFB was one of the first rightists to question the “baffling optimism” of populists who are certain of the innate conservatism of the American populus.  He wrote of this problem back in 1963, even before the Goldwater defeat.  In an age of rock-star candidates like Obama, this optimism just got more baffling.

Grant Havers is widely off the mark when it comes to “populism” of course.  Two of WFB’s most important mentors, Whitaker Chambers and Wilmore Kendall told WFB to trust the common folk of the nation instead of the elites.  One of the biggest mistakes WFB ever made was in thinking that he could use NR to win over some of the existing liberal intellectuals.  WFB seems to have considered the Neocons to be the fruit of that policy, and it has obviously been a disaster. 

As for the common folk, America is one of the examples in history of the populace being degraded from the top down.  But for the elites even that project, mostly completed, isn’t enough.  They must import an even more degraded proletariat to finish the job and prevent any populist reaction. 

As for Obama, he is the fruit of the control of the media (and education) by those aiming at the destruction of America for decades.  The notion that the Obama campaign has been a “grass roots” effort is so beyond belief that one would have to be either a fool or a liar to fall for it.  Or perhaps both, which is pretty much the definition of a Straussian.

My condolences to the Buckley Family

I doubt that a defeatist like Chambers (who fully expected the Reds to take down the West) consistently put his faith in either the people or the elites at the end of the day.  As for Kendall, the more he read of Eric Voegelin the less optimistic he felt about the immunity of the “common folk” to slick-talking demagogues.  True, Kendall put his faith in the good judgment of Congress to restrain the presidency, but how justified is this faith anymore?

You don’t have to be a Straussian to wonder at the appeal of Obama.  To suggest that he is a construct of elites is a bit of a stretch. Certainly the millions of fans which worship at the feet of the new messiah can’t all be dupes of CNN, can they?  And if they are, so much for the “deliberate sense” of the General Will.

Why don’t some of you throw dice for his clothes?

I don’t want to go to a wake with a dvd commentary from the actors who got no lines talking about how “they” would have made the movie.

He was a great man.  We will not see his like again.  I for one will bare my head as his train passes, for I know what I owe, and what little I paid, and my sadness is real.

WFB once said that he would rather be ruled by the first 2000 names in the Boston telephone directory than the entire Harvard faculty. 

Grant Havers would rather have us ruled by the likes of Allan Bloom, Irving Kristol and David Frum. 

In point of fact, every vital culture has an element of populism.  Presently, a rootless, cosmopolitan elite dominates America.  And that elite is not one based on merit, but on a combination of cunning amorality and a rigging of the game. 

It is only among a remnant of the common folk that one can find any fragment of the “values” of the past.  A new leadership class must be created from that remnant, and it must appeal to those among the common folk from which it came to reject the illegitimate elites and their “project” of global democracy.

Bill was a great man who loved his family, loved his friends, and loved his country.  Bill will be missed but never forgotten. He inspired me and many young conservatives, and we honor him with our fight to return true conservatism to the Republican party.  God bless Bill and the Buckley family.

I wonder if we Joe Sobran will be allowed to eulogize WFB at the upcoming funeral. Somewhow I don’t think that this is going to happen. Sobran was one of the the first writers to comprehensively detail a criticsm we so often hear today: how those that we now call neocons were twisting America’s foreign policy in order to benefit Israel.

Not only was Sobran fired fron National review for these “unsavory” opinions, WFB then took upon himself to appease his masters by devoting almost an entire issue of NR to detail the the inherent anti-semititism of the right. This cowardly mea culpa essentially contributed to Sobran being totally blacklisted and unemployable,a blacklist that he was never able to escape from up to this current day.

In fact, the blacklist was so widespread and complete that even those who secretly shared his opinions at places like Cato or antiwar.com have continued to shun him like a leper. 

WFB’s apology for Sobran’s heresy was so cringing that it made one think of similar apologies extracted from defendants during the purge trials of the USSR in the late 1930’s. It also reminded one of Billy Graham’s similar level of groveling before the minions of The Lobby after the discovery was made of the recordings made by Nixon in which Graham made his fears known about the power of The Lobby in the USA.

The funny thing is that WFB as editor/publisher of NR could have just as easily have censored Sobran’s columns before they were published, thereby preventing any of the the furor that arose once they appeared.

I can only think that the reason this didn’t happen was because WFB approved of Sobran’s opinionsand let them be printed as a sort of trial ballon. When The Lobby voiced its displeasure, WFB let Sobran entirely to take the fall.

This sort of cowardice has always made me wonder what groups in fact were the source of NR’s mysterious funding. Whoever they were, they definitely didn’t want to read in print what what Sobran had to say.

Another thing. WFB only came to oppose the Iraq War when it became apparent that the US was losing. When the war originally started he was an enthusiastic supporter. WFB was also an enthusiastic supporter of Bush Senior’s Iraq War One, a conflict whose justifications were as fraudulent as those given for Bush junior’s present forays into the middle east.

Whenever I think of WFB’s legacy one person sticks in my mind, his political scion, the particularly odious Joe Lieberman. Whatever virtues WFB might have had were completely overshadowed by the support he gave to advance the career of this incredibily repulsive and reptilian senator from Conneticut.

Apparently WFB was so ignorant of Lieberman’s true character that he actually believed that Lowell Wiecker, the senatorial incumbent who Lieberman ultimately defeated, presented more of a threat to our republic than his Israel first successor.

Mr. Buckley was an American hero.  His life was a credit to him and to all Americans, and he will be sorely missed.  Shame on those above (as well as those on liberal blogs) who seek to discredit him this day.  God bless his soul and his family.

To Sam Spade:

I don’t know how this Strausskampf came up in the obits over WFB but let me say for the record:

1) I am not, nor have I ever been a member of the Straussian cabal; personally, I am more comfortable with Voegelin

2) old rightists like Kendall, Kirk, and Sam Francis often saw value in Strauss’s work; neocons like Frum do not

3) what Straussians do in the name of Strauss probably has the poor man spinning in his grave; a critic of the “universal homogeneous state” would never support democratic universalism

WFB was a communist, just not a Red-Soviet-Stalinst-Communist.

After all, would a non-communist join Skull & Bones?  How could he?!  Unless, of course, he was trying to take down Freemasonry from the “inside”.  If so, it was a miserable failure.

Shame on those above (as well as those on other conservative blogs) who seek to credit him this day.  I will pray for his soul that is it is being purified in order to see the Majesty of Christ in Heaven.

De mortuis nihil nisi bonum

O LORD, the God of spirits and all flesh, Who didst put death under Thy feet, didst destroy the power of the devil, and gavest Thy life for the world: grant rest, O Lord, to all the Faithful Departed, especially to William Francis Buckley and those departed being prayed for at this time in other lands: bring them, we pray Thee, to that promised place of light and refreshment, whence pain and sorrow and sighing are driven away; and in Thy goodness and mercy pardon every sin committed by them in thought, word and deed; Who livest and reignest, world without end. Amen.

Memento etiam, Domine, famulorum famularumque tuarum William Francis Buckley qui nos praecesserunt cum signo fidei, et dormiunt in somno pacis.

Ipsis Domine, et omnibus in Christo quiescentibus, locum refrigerii, lucis et pacis, ut indulgeas, deprecamur, per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum. 

Rest eternal grant to them O Lord,
and let light perpetual shine upon them:
May their souls, and the souls of all the departed,
through the mercy of God rest in peace.
May they rise in glory.

Requiéscant in pace

with the exception of reading Taki my only knowledge of Bill Buckley is seeing excerpts of him, in a documentary, interviewing Jack Kerouac on “Firing Line”. Confronted with a Kerouac full of drink and hubris, and the associated aggression and humour, Buckley was neither condescending or patronising. Rather he exemplified tack, humour, compassion and warmth in a situation that would have been difficult in itself without the presence of cameras. All of this in a manner that reflected a genuine, or unaffected (a rarity these days) ease within himself and with the views and condition of his guest. He came across as a true gentleman and model of democracy. We could do with more of his type.

Taki is a noble man saluting a noble. 

We have lost a Grand Knight.

It seems that some people on this site are more upset with Buckley about Joe Sobran than Sobran is himself.  This column was written back in 2002 when WFB was diagnosed with emphysema: (sorry, I can’t figure out how to add the hyperlink)

http://www.sobran.com/columns/2006/060530.shtml

As to WFB’s being a commie--oh puhlease!
Like the guy who responded to someone saying Eisenhower was a communist, saying “Ike’s not a commie, he’s a golfer”.  Buckley wasn’t a commie, he was a sailor, a writer, a harsichordist, a lover of Bach, a bon vivant, a devoted husband and father, and a Christian. 

My sister, who is more liberal than me, loved his sailing books.  She gave me Nearer My God, his spiritual autobiography for Christmas one year and I enjoyed it thoroughly. 

It’s too bad the neocons took over NR, I used to love that magazine, and since Buckley stepped down, not so much.  But don’t forget Buckley stuck by his friend Taki when the Frum crowd was anathematizing him.

Rest in peace, Mr. Buckley and thanks to Taki for his moving remembrance of his friend.

Mr. Buckley was a very interesting man with his magazine, TV show and activism. I used to enjoy his “Firing Line” PBS TV program and the debates he held in affiliation with it.  He had many friends and acquaintances and the warmth they hold him in says a lot. His philosophy put him in opposition to the prevailing zeitgeist, but in latter years, he seemed to adopt more of a “if you can’t beat ‘em humor ‘em” attitude, which is maybe understandable for a man of his talents.  He put his great energy and gifts into the battle to put Godless Soviet Communism on the ash heap or history, but when that was done, didn’t seem to engage quite as fully in trying to prevent western civilization from going there too.  It’ s been noted that his magazine was much more interesting then than now - even some of the questionable excommunications issued by Buckley were done more civilly than the ones done lately.  The great Joe Sobran got the boot for his lack of fealty to Israel and the Jewish lobby - but in spite of that Joe Sobran still loved his mentor and will be one of those crushed at his loss. William F. Buckley was one of the great personalities of his time - I recall his debates with the atheists and no doubt Heaven would be a more interesting place with him there.

It is interesting to read these posts and to observe how much we have become like the liberals we oppose.

We have adopted one of their mortal errors. We make everything political.

How typical of the slobs and vulgarians Taki, and Bucley,
opposed via example to take the opportunity of a man’s
sad and heartfelt last words about a good friend to
trash that friend.  Take heart, your wretched numbers
grow daily.

Errol, my boy, are you perchance related to Charles Maturin, at least intellectually and culturally? If so, that would explain your positions, perhaps most especially your declaration that the Eternal Triune God use Bill Buckley to whip those angels into shape. Of course, we must wonder which angels are fractious and why God would profit from the help of Bill Buckley. Is this some contemporary Gnosticism, the specifics of which are best, perhaps only, known to Neocons and other Imperial Conservatives (which group in every Empire features significant numbers of extremely cultural and religious liberals), and perhaps to various types and degrees of Masons? Is not such an assertion of Bill Buckley’s immortal skills not merely a harkening back to Emperor-worship (in this case, the Emperor not of the State but of the putative conservative organs of thought) but also at best utterly ignorant of even the basics of orthodox historic Christian theology?

Like Andrew Capp, I hope that Buckley repented of his Masonism before his passing, and I also hope that on his deathbed he repented of his backstabbing Joe Sobran, and a few others. Who knows, but those specific repentances might have led him to repent of his entire course of work, which was slowly revealed to be forging a ‘conservative’ movement that was essentially the pro-Empire, pro-Mammoth government one that his beloved CIA coveted.

Isn’t it interesting, Errol, that your diatribes to almost deify Buckley turned to hope that a serious accident would befall me? Which anti-Christ religious tradition informs such a mind frame?

“we have got to accept big government for the duration...for neither an offensive nor defensive war can be waged....except through the instrumentality of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores”...Bill Buckley.  We overcame the English, the French, the Spanish and the Russian Empires...we defeated Fascism, National Socialism & Bolshevism....you are what you eat....Now, even you have to live with Amerikanism...No one worked harder than ole Bill to see this come to pass...Bill Buckley was the quintessential Statist....put in charge of preventing any untoward interruptions, disturbances or defections....from the “Right”....he succeeded in his mission both by betrayal & evisceration...no one ever rises above power and no one ever leaves the COMPANY..right Bill!!....the only perfection left...is for Cardinal Avery Dulles to bury him…

Correction:

What Buckley really said was:

“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.”

My sincere condolences to his family.

Mr. Buckley’s National Review magazine saved me from the dreary leftism of my public high school. Thankfully, National Review was available there in the public library.

I came to know Pat Buchanan, Joseph Sobran, Frank Meyer, F.A. Hayek, Russell Kirk, James Burnham and many other great thinkers through the pages of his magazine. I also discovered Firing Line and spent every Sunday glued to the television set watching the hour long and later 1/2 hour long show.

Requiéscant in pace

@ Capp and Cantrell, Your hearts are filled with hatred, or you have none.  A man has passed.  Just because you disagree with some, or all, of what he accomplished, is no reason to act in such a fashion.  I am reminded of Teddy Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena.” Or perhaps, an even older note:  “Thou hypocrite, first cast he beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” WFB RIP

@ I forgot to add “jim” to the list.

Answers to James Cantrell:

No, no, hell no, yes, and the Irish strain of Roman Catholicism, which sometimes thinks it’s the shame of the world if some people fall off the roof and break their blasted necks.

@mcbrown:

My heart is filled with hatred of the heresies contained in Freemasonry, of which, for some time in his life, WFB was an adherent.  By joining such a sect, he excommunicated himself from the Church.  Why should I not hate apostasy?

I am not, nor have I ever been a member of a Masonic sect, so casting out THAT beam from my own eye isn’t a problem.  I am free to admonish sinners; albeit, WFB is no longer among the living, so I admonishing his past sins, something that might convert a few sinners out there.

all the obits--left, right, andmiddle, have been paltry.  would like to see more on him w. kendall, strauss, and where his intellectual distinction lay. would be fun to hear the history of family money and the contentions with Gulf. interesting that Chapel at Yale has been sanitized--religion moving further off campus.

The Godfather of Modern Conservatism is gone.  May he meet his love, Pat, and his Lord in Heaven.

@capp, Anyone with your track record of posts of hatred toward almost anyone who doesn’t live in northeast Alabama, isn’t white and Catholc doesn’t portend well for YOUR final abode.  Go back to picking your banjo

I feel that Bill felt the pain of what he felt he had to do to keep his magazine alive.  He no doubt made some deals with devils.  But let us not judge lest we also be judged.  For all we know the man was being blackmailed over something in his past.  We do know that those who eventually took over his magazine would stop at nothing to get want they want or wanted.

To McBrown:: You luxuriating Slave...you & many, much more worthy, decent & dignified have been HAD....on matters vital....by nothing more than a masquerading oil maven, who wrangled, dangled and mangled the sacred for the profane…

<<Anyone with your track record of posts of hatred toward almost anyone who doesn’t live in northeast Alabama, isn’t white and Catholc doesn’t portend well for YOUR final abode.  Go back to picking your banjo>>

I actually “LOLed” upon reading this!

I don’t hate anyone!  I detest the horrible “culture” that has descended upon the USofA, especially the Negroes and the up-and-coming American-born Hispanics that have embraced that same “culture”.  As for my regional allegience, it is to Southern Appalachia, which includes much of northern Alabama, Western North Carolina, a sliver of upcountry South Carolina, East Tennessee, western and West Virginia, Southeast Ohio, West Maryland, and I’ll throw in some parts of West Pennsylvania.  I also include the Interior Highlands of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri, as well as some pockets of places settled by my people in Mississippi, and the Pacific Northwest: the diaspora.

Your analysis of my “racism” is suspect because I doubt, very seriously, you would even begin to understand “race relations” in Appalachia.  Exhibit A: Homecoming Queen at Franklin High School, Western North Carolina in Macon County:

http://www.maconnews.com/images/stories/10112007/oliviarusch.jpg

Macon County is about 1% Negro.  How is it us “racist hillbillies” would elect an obviously “non-Aryan” for Homecoming Queen?  Probably because race plays a much less important roll to us than culture.  Our [very few] non-White neighbors have more in common with us than what you see in the rest of the country.  It is because the vastly dominate culture of Appalachia was able to remain intact, and is only now beginning to succumb to the Cultural Marxism of modern America, unfortunately fueled by television and Crystal Meth.

By the way, I don’t play the banjo, but the harmonica.

@ jim, And I enjoyed every minute of it!

@capp, I din’t call you a “racist”, see my post.  Nor did I say anything about “non-Aryan” or “racist hillbillies”.  However, if the shoe fits, wear it.

To McBrown::my friend, you & yours have, are and will get hours of it, eons of it...you are obviously “publicly” educated & “publicly” sustained....clearly, your only concern in life is how to make your Slavery more “enjoyable"… as you are determined to live off the backs of others through “eternity"…

Following Voegelin, Buckley once contrived a slogan worthy of a t-shirt or bumper-sticker: “Don’t let them immanentize the eschaton!” The “them” referred to leftists at the time, but today can just as easily apply to rightists today.  A Christian politics is at once humble and realistic, and hostile to all attempts to remake the New Jerusalem, right or left.

RIP, WFB.

@ jim, Sorry to disappoint.  Private and private.  However, I can laugh at myself.  And at others.......Over and out.  RIP WFB

To McBrown:: “However, I can laugh at myself”...curiously, Mr McBrown....what is it that you find so funny about yourself and/or other matters??....

Someone on here is quite convinced that Buckley was a member of the Masons.  I have never heard this.  Is there any reason for this assertion?  And don’t say it’s because he was supposedly a member of the Skulls and Bones thing at Yale.  I have not found any evidence that the S&B;is a Masonic organization but as they’re very, very secretive, how would anyone know?  Most of the web sites that I have seen that assert that S&B;is Masonic are on the tinfoil hat black helicopters are coming for us level.

I think it best not to accuse people of things for which you have no proof.  If Buckley ever said, sure, I’m a Mason, fine, but otherwise we should avoid false accusations, detraction, speculation and gossip. 

I am a Catholic and I know Catholics are not supposed to be members of the Masons.  However, my grandfather (a Baptist) was a Mason and as far as am aware, he was not engaged in any sort of top secret conspiracy to bring the Church to its knees.  He just liked to hang out with the guys and get the ritual that is lacking in the Baptist Church.  While I certainly would never join the Masons myself if I were a man, I think there’s a lot of overblown hysteria about them.

Buckley’s biggest crime was to render the left....the other wing of that STATELY, beastly bird of prey....the Vidals, Choamskys, et. al.....legitimate, prescient, damn near prophetic....job well done, young William!!

Jet is right, condolences to the family of Mr. William F. Buckley Jr., none but a cretan would post anything eles. a gentleman doffs his cap when an opponent falls!

Please, write more, Mr Taki! Even a neocon can appreciate the feeling the love in your words. You are a gifted essayist; please, more memories of your friendship with Buckley!

Dear Misha...Mr Buckley was not an “opponent”, nor a “rival”...he was a Fagan, a sorcerer...a distinquished Pied Piper...who devoted his life to deliberatedly misleading the young, the un-matured & the inexperienced...in the name of God & country....Mr Buckley was plainly a willed, intended inversion...and one “doffs” one’s hat only when playing “games”....Cheerio, ole chap…

<<I have not found any evidence that the S&B;is a Masonic organization>>

Then you haven’t done an ounce of research on either S&B;or the Masons.  You have access to the same “internets” as I do, I insist on you doing your own research.  If you insist, I’ll give you one link:

http://altreligion.about.com/library/glossary/symbols/bldefsskullbones.htm

<<The skull and crossbones is also an important emblem in Masonry, where it symbolizes the transience of the material world, and is used in initiation rituals as a symbol of rebirth.>>

Tempus Fugit Memento Mori…

Vivat Jesu!

“Then you haven’t done an ounce of research on either S&B;or the Masons” Well, well, aren’t we condescending.  Like, how do you know this, you don’t know me and you don’t have access to the history record in my internet browser.

I mean, I Googled them, what do you want?  I even dogpiled. And visited “Ask Jeeves”.  I searched Wikipedia!!!  And Yahoo! 

But after discounting all the conspiracy mongering nutter websites, didn’t really find much.  Not that it matters much really.  Buckley seemed to be a serious and convinced Catholic and it would be strange for him to have joined the Masons though I supposed he could have in a fit of youthful Yalie-ism or something.  S & B seems to be a mainly a good old boys club for the rich, famous, and well connected.  But he’s dead now so it’s sort of a moot point, I suppose.

It’s just too bad that Taki tries to post a beautiful and meaningful tribute to his fallen friend and then all these finger pointers start piling on.  Well, that’s the risk of the internet I suppose, and I appreciate Taki allowing comments on this site, unlike the blogs on NR which are sort of an echo chamber as we in the hoi polloi are not allowed to post on them.

Taki,

I envy you for the close way you knew Mr. Buckley.

WFB was a class act.

God rest his soul.

When I was a young adult, the only literate conservative voices I was aware of were David Lawerence and William Buckley. I remember Buckley clipping a newspaper story from a Johannesburg paper about a nun being abducted and eaten to the chef at the United Nations.
He added a note saying I thought you would like to know the cuisine of some of your newest members. The later Buckley, thoroughly kosherized,would never have had the guts to do that. But he was one of a kind and I shall always think of the younger WFB Jr.

This essay says it all:

William Buckley’s Permanent Thing

http://www.lewrockwell.com/westley/westley26.html

Thank you, Mr. Theodoracopulos, for this bittersweet but eloquent tribute. William F. Buckley Jr. was a great man, not a perfect man, who did the very best he knew how for his country. May he dwell with the saints in light. Some of the comments here are shockingly ugly. Shame on those who have no respect for a patriot.

Andy Capp:

“Skull and Bones” is also a symbol of pirates.  Are you trying to say Bill Buckley was really a pirate and that pirates are Masons?

Reading through these posts, one wonders what “real conservatives”
are? Are they grotesques like Coulter, O’Reilly and Limbaugh? Are they
the the pathological liars who currently occupy the White House,
their apologists and advisors? If so, the movement is over with.
Personally, I would rather run around with ‘asswad’ tatood across my
forehead than admit to being a conservative if the aforementioned
company are conservatives. Better the sounds of the open ocean, the
wind in a sailboat’s rigging ...

Your forehead reads “dawssa” from where I’m looking.  Is this tattoo you speak of something you notice when shaving?

Three or four years ago I had the pleasure of exchanging a few letters with Mr. Buckley. From that exchange I discovered a gentleman who was kind, considerate, very polite, and intellectually gifted.
I have no doubt he rests with the Lord.

<<“Skull and Bones” is also a symbol of pirates.  Are you trying to say Bill Buckley was really a pirate and that pirates are Masons?>>

Why does the existence of the organization of Freemasonry (and it’s counterparts, such as “Skull & Bones” at Yale) disturb so many?

OF COURSE the “Jolly Roger” has it’s origin in Freemasonry.  Just a little research on the “internets” would prove that.  And OF COURSE many many MANY of the pirates were Freemasons.  Once again, do some research.  Educate yourself.

Taki’s tribute to his friend is very touching.  I often used to see WFB at Mass at St. Catherine’s.

However, my assessment of WFB as a political figure changed over time.  Yes, WFB could be entertaining, and his faux-public school accent was hilarious, but he gradually lost the plot. 

One came to see that WFB was a fame-seeking opportunist and media hound.  His support for civil rights and immigration legislation is deplorable.  His treatment of Sobran, shameful.  And his surrender to the Neocons, unforgiveable.

WFB presided over the disintegration of the “conservatrive movement” he claimed to have founded.  I give him credit for defending the West from Soviet tyranny, but his support for the transformation of the US into a third world country was criminal.

Today, the “conservative movement” is in disarray, our communities overrun by masses from the third world, and our once great country is in swift decline.  WFB was representative of the older generations whose appeasement and surrender on a host of vital issues almost amount to treason.

Sad.

Mr. Capp,

I have seen many a crucifix with a skull and crossbones at the bottom.
They represent the bones of Adam, buried under Calvary.  They are
spattered with the redeeming Precious Blood. 

I am not saying that the skull and bones in Skull and Bones are
Christian.  I am merely faulting this nonsequitur:  Freemasons use
skull and bones.  Skull and Bonesmen use them too.  ERGO, Skull and
Bones is freemasonic.  It could be all sorts of evil, wicked, malevolent
(do I need to add anymore synonyms?) without being masonic. 

Tell me, do the Grand Lodges of the Anglo-Saxon world or the Grand
Orients of the Latin world accept initiated Skull-and-Bonesmen as if
they were Masonic brothers?  Or do they regard them as uninitiated unless/
until they’ve had a Blue Lodge initiation like non-Skull-and-Bonesmen? 
If Skull and Bones is masonic, shouldn’t other lodges acknowledge them
as such?

<<If Skull and Bones is masonic, shouldn’t other lodges acknowledge them as such?>>

No.

Why would a “Bonesman” even feel the need to associate with the “lower class” of the “enlightened”?  They belong to SKULL & BONES!  This isn’t some local Masonic Lodge that dilly-dallies in selling barbecue to help run a homeless shelter - it’s a HELLUVA lot bigger than that!  There isn’t just one “Masonic conspiracy”, don’t get me wrong - but there IS an underlying philosophy behind it all, the philosophies of the Enlightenment; Reason, Revolution, as espoused by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, among others.

When I say WFB belonged to a Masonic sect, I mean it: not that he attended Lodge Meetings down the street at his local [Blue] Masonic Lodge, but that he, at some point in his life at least had to agree with the philosophies of the Enlightenment, something that puts you at odds with the Catholic Faith.

If he repented from those philosophies, then he died in Communion with the Church.

However, given the way National Review was run [into the ground], I feel he either a) did not; or b) gave up on the whole thing.  If he gave up, that’s despair, so he still had sins to confess, which I pray he did.  But that’s not the point.

The point is: one can not be a Man of the Enlightenment and a Catholic.

So you don’t really mean that Skull and Bones is masonic, but rather
masonic-by-any-other-name. 

If Skull and Bones is not a Masonic Lodge per se, then please
demonstrate how merely being a member is evil.  Is the organization
formally committed to undermining the Church?  Is this one of the terms
of membership?  There is nothing *intrinsically* wrong with belonging
to a library or school board, even if a particular board decides to do
stupid and evil things.  There is nothing intrinsically wrong with
being a sworn member of the U.S. government, even though the govt.
does evil things.  From what I see, the common bond amongst Bonesmen
is power.  Power is not inherently wrong.  If most misuse their power,
that does not mean a priori that a token number of members do not
misuse that power.  Does any good come from Nazareth?  I would not say
that much good comes from Yale as a whole, so why would I be surprised
that their elites are corrupt.  Yet I currently attend an Ivy League
school, so obviously I hold out hope that there are exceptions.

<<Is the organization formally committed to undermining the Church?>>

Of course it is.  By the actions if it’s members, is this not obvious?

“Why would a “Bonesman” even feel the need to associate with the “lower class” of the “enlightened”?  “

So, would a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Freemason let a Bonesman into
the secret drawing room in the lodge?

Their actions being what?  Their actions QUA Bonesmen.  Using your
criteria I would have to say that the Jesuits are formally committed
to undermining the Church, or formally indifferent.  They all belong
to the same group, and many of them do undermine the Church, right?
And the good ones don’t walk rather than be in communion with the
shysters, right?  Well, Buckley, whatever his vices, does not seem
to have been committed *formally* to undermining the Church.  Please
provide the evidence.

<<the Jesuits are formally committed to undermining the Church>>

Today, that may be the case.  I don’t get a lot of positive news about what the Jesuits have been up to over the years; I can see why they have been repressed a number of times - Ignatius of Loyola set up an excellent Order that has possibly been taken over by “Men of the Enlightenment”, for all I can tell.

To quote WFB:

<<The entire point of America is to accept foreigners and transform them into Americans.>>

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780156006187&tabname=custreview

No, the CORRECT answer is that the “foreigners” should be used to transform America into a Catholic country.

THEREIN lies my “problem” with WFB - as typical of (Irish-) American Catholics, he descends into Americanism.

Also:

<<I believe that the Catholic Church speaks with authority initiated by Christ. Those of its tenets with which I disagree I tend to forget or ignore.>>

Forget or IGNORE the Voice of GOD?

These aren’t the beliefs of a Catholic.

It is good-old-fashioned Enlightenment Deism, wrapped in Catholic Liturgy.

“<<The entire point of America is to accept foreigners and transform them into Americans.>>

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780156006187&tabname=custreview

No, the CORRECT answer is that the “foreigners” should be used to transform America into a Catholic country.”

No, that is not the correct answer.  What the “entire point of America”
is and what the Catholic Church wants to do with America are distinct
things.  America is set up to turn foreigners into Americans.  Or that
*was* its point.  Buckley said “is,” you said “should be.” Something
may well be what it should not be, so your quotation alone does not
establish anything. 

And to be perfectly honest, America could become
completely Catholic and *still* have as its point the easy assimilation
of newly arrived foreigners into its political and cultural life.  So
you failed on this point.  He may well be an Irish-Catholic
assimilationist of the Americanist bent, but your quotation proves
nothing without context. 

“<<I believe that the Catholic Church speaks with authority initiated by Christ. Those of its tenets with which I disagree I tend to forget or ignore.>>

Forget or IGNORE the Voice of GOD?”

Buckley is celebrated for his wit.  Who says that he hasn’t made a joke
about his own sinfulness here?  Take an ironic comment out of context
and it becomes blasphemous.  Please provide me with the context that
shows that he was perfectly serious here.  Plus, we all “disagree” on
at least an emotive level with the Church every time we sin.  Plus,
imagine if someone had a really, truly difficult time understanding
why, let’s say, duelling is wrong.  (It has been condemned by the
Church.) Rather than obsessing on this, one might just say, “Okay, the
Church is right, I’m wrong.  Fine.  And I won’t duel.  But I won’t
waste precious time trying to make myself ‘like’ this hard truth.  It
is enough that I believe and obey.  So I can ‘forget or ignore’ the
fact that this doctrine strikes me as wrong on the visceral, subjective level.”
Seems reasonable enough.  You fail again to convict.  If this is the
best you can do, you haven’t done much.

Recap:

If someone really can’t “get” one of the more subtle teachings of the
Church, he might just make an act of Faith and say, “I just won’t
bother thinking about that all that much; my Faith suffices where my
understanding fails.” The refusal to enter into near occasions of sin
by unduly worrying about such things might be regarded as “ignoring or
forgetting doctrines one disagrees with.” This would be inexact, and
would be potentially scandalous if said before an unsuspecting
public, but the speaker or author’s meaning might be perfectly
orthodox.

Those here, whose puny but vehement expressions of derision and meanspiritedness about Mr. Buckley on the occasion of his passing, but especially regarding Joe Sobran, need to read Mr. Sobran’s gracious description of this special man. And, you might consider tending to the hate that grows in your gardens, also.

http://www.sobran.com/columns/2006/060530.shtml

God rest the soul of William F. Buckley

If, for example, one decides to “forget” or “ignore” that automatic excommunication is the punishment for joining, say, Yale’s “Skull and Bones”, then that’s perfectly reasonable?

Now, I can’t tell you what goes on in “The Tomb”, because I’m not a “Bonesman”.  And from what I’ve researched, no “Bonesman” has ever revealed the secret initiation ceremonies.

Now, I COULD criticize WFB for attending an unabashedly Vatican II/Novus Ordo Catholic parish, but I won’t.  That just would smack the face of the various bishops that signed off on the horribly written and, later, interpreted documents stemming from the Second Vatican Council.  I don’t want to do that.

But what I DO want is for Catholics to understand that acquiescing to The Revolution that was the lone fruit of the Second Vatican Council DOES slap the face of the bishops that signed off on the horribly written, and later interpreted documents.

It’s time we stand up to the Modernist heresy that has infiltrated the Church, something, I’m afraid, WFB never did, and seemed to try and push it along, by, for one, setting up a so-called “Conservative Movement” that was so easily steered into what it is today - it was not by accident that Burnham was one of his chiefs of National Review when it began.

I’m not saying WFB was an “evil” person or even a “bad Catholic”.  I’m saying he was a better American than he was a Catholic.

Thank you for ignoring my arguments, Mr. Capp.  I’ll take that as
a concession.  The quotations you provided prove nothing. 

“If, for example, one decides to “forget” or “ignore” that automatic excommunication is the punishment for joining, say, Yale’s “Skull and Bones”, then that’s perfectly reasonable? “

YOU are the one who says that Skull and Bones entails an automatic
excommunication.  You have admitted that it is not formally Masonic,
so it doesn’t fall under the relevant canons against Masons.  You
have not provided an ecclesiastical condemnation of the organization
by name, and you have not proven that it is formally committed to
evil. 

“Now, I can’t tell you what goes on in “The Tomb”, because I’m not a “Bonesman”.  And from what I’ve researched, no “Bonesman” has ever revealed the secret initiation ceremonies.”

In other words, you admit that you are ignorant of what initiation
involves.  Since the ONLY thing you know about Buckley’s involvement
is that he is initiated.  So you don’t have the slightest idea, by
your own admission, if Buckley did anything directly contrary to the
Church.

“I’m not saying WFB was an “evil” person or even a “bad Catholic”.  I’m saying he was a better American than he was a Catholic. “

Now are you are just being disingenuous.  You said that Buckley could
only be in communion with the Church if he repented of his alleged
philosophies.  You said that he was a man of the Enlightenment, and
no Catholic can be such.  You said that his beliefs were not those
of a Catholic.  You said he was excommunicated for his membership in
Skull and Bones.  So you may not have said he was a bad Catholic.  You
denied he was Catholic at all!  You should be ashamed of yourself.

Learn how to argue.

“Since the ONLY thing you know about Buckley’s involvement
is that he is initiated.”

I meant:  Since that is so, the argument hinges on initiation.

Forrest: 

I apologize for the formatting of my posts.  I will try to learn.

<<Learn how to argue.>>

Laughable, boy.

Do you honestly believe the Canon of 1917 specifically states that ONLY “Blue Lodge” Masons incur automatic excommunication from the Catholic Church?

Let me quote to you the Canon 2335:

<<Nomen dantes sectae massonicae aliisve eiusdem generis associationibus quae contra Ecclesiam vel legitimas civiles potestates machinantur, contrahunt ipso facto excommunicationem Sedi Apostolicae simpliciter reservatam.>>

Translated:

<<Those who join a Masonic sect or other societies of the same sort, which plot against the Church or against legitimate civil authority, incur ipso facto an excommunication simply reserved to the Holy See.>>

What should have concerned people about WFB’s affiliation with S&B;was that the only other “Catholic” member (from what I have researched) is John Kerry, if one even considers that potentially “crypto-Jew” a Catholic.

The question we must ask ourselves: does S&B;plot against the Church or legitimate civil authority?  I contend, due to the actions of it’s members, YES.

My heavens, we’re tiresome, aren’t we.

I suppose I’m not very pure and thus don’t matter, but I’ll miss him.

I met WFB in person,only once. It was at the entrance of a supermarket in Charlotte Amalia, Virgin Islands, where he had just docked his yacht. Seeing him overwhelmed by the shopping bags full of supplies, I offered him a lift to the moorings, which he accepted with some hesitation. I introduced myself as his admirer explaining my presence on the island as a faculty member of the College of the V.I. which sparked his interest to ask me if I had noticed among my students and collegues any separatist tendencies towards independence (I hadn’t)
Previously, as a teacher at La Salle College in Philadelphia Pa, I met his younger brother Fergus,writer (’The eye of the Hurricane’).Just as sharp as Bill and his spitten image. He was invited by the local chapter of the YAF (then quasi
clandestine organization,created by Buckley himself) whose faculty advisor was myself.
Bill Buckley was my idol practically since I landed first in the Hoboken N.J.
in 1960.
Coming from Europe and being an ardent anti-communist, I found American Conservatism unpalatable, primitive and totally ineffective for my taste. The National Review was the only shining light in the darkness of the prevailing
Leftism especially in the Educational Establishment. The merit goes entirely to Bill Buckley, RIP.
After a long period of a Nomadic life abroad, when I re-established contact with the U.S., I was shocked to discover that Bill Buckley has become unrecognizable from what I thought he stood for.
All what he has created he has apparently deliberately destroyed.
I can’t but agree ,sadly, with JOHN DAVIS.

There is a perverse appropriateness that the host of Firing Line and founder of National Review is eulogized by a mix of sincere condolences and scathing attacks.  I hear his generous laugh and see his wily grin as I read through these.

Give my best to Pat, Bill, and thanks for the many lessons.

Some of teh comments on here about Masons and Skull & Bones smakes more of superstition and internet bogeymen, rather than real research and thought.

So do some of the negative comments about Bill.  It’s scary, folks. Whatever else Bill was, he was certainly an intellectual and a gentleman.

Others seem to engage their mouths long before they put their brains in gear.  This, er, “stuff” isn’t merely wrong, it isn’t based on anything other than self-delusion.

Bill led us to victory in the Cold War. He was a 20th century giant who honored me by inviting me to my first ever appearance on television for a debate on the invasion of Suez and the Soviet invasion of Hungary. His unwavering friendship through the past 50 years was a rare privilege.
Arnaud de Borchgrave
Editor at Large, The Washington Times
Editor at Large, United Press International

I always liked him for his manner.

Mr. Capp,

I am not ignorant of what the canon says. 
1) You didn’t prove S&B;was masonic.
2) You didn’t prove that it is formally against the Church.

Many of its members are rich and powerful.  Many rich and powerful people do evil things.  That does not prove that the organization is any more evil than the local golf club, full of greedy, wicked secularists.  Give it a rest.

And don’t call me “boy.”

There are two Bill Buckley’s. The first was an ardent anti-communist that played a large part in raising the Conservative movement to a position of influence. He was extremely important in the effort to force the Soviet Union underground.

On the other hand, Buckley could be a very vain and egotistical man. He also became disconnected from politics around him, and he gave into the Neocon hoax, welcoming the old Henry “Scoop” Jackson wing of the Democrat party into the Republican party after they had been driven from their party by the McGovern wing. He betrayed the country on immigration to please the Neocons, and turned “National Review” over to people that are fighting way out of their weight. “National Review” has long been without adult supervision. Goldberg, Ponnuru, and Lowry are only three symptoms of a magazine that has become lightweight and leftist.

It would be nice if the only Buckley was the younger version. Alas, he, like many humans, got tired of being considered a rightist fringe nut by the left - he weakened and gave us the deeply flawed, vain, and egotistical man that supported mass immigration, and Neocon hoax of big government “conservatism.” The disarray of the American core also lies at his door.

The death of any man is a tragedy. But that is simply something that will happen, and has been happening since God passed judgement on Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. Doubly sad is the death of a man who was so promising in his youth and descended into failure in his dottage.

WFB, RIP.

“Now, I COULD criticize WFB for attending an unabashedly Vatican II/Novus Ordo Catholic parish, but I won’t.  That just would smack the face of the various bishops that signed off on the horribly written and, later, interpreted documents stemming from the Second Vatican Council.  I don’t want to do that.

But what I DO want is for Catholics to understand that acquiescing to The Revolution that was the lone fruit of the Second Vatican Council DOES slap the face of the bishops that signed off on the horribly written, and later interpreted documents.
“

Plus, Mr. Capp, the reports I have read say that Buckley *did* attend the Latin Mass and publicly stated his preference for it.

I respect Taki for remembering the personal side of his friend.  But Jimmy Cantrell and John Davis (and Peter Brimelow over at Vdare) are right to remind us of the callousness of Buckley in his public life.  Not enough can be said about his purge of some of the best thinkers of our time and his turning over National Review to mental lightweights who promoted, and still promote the most perverse political agendas.

Yeeeaaarrrggghhhhh! Help me live without him!

@Mr. Capp

Excellent points (as always).

For those who are interested, there is a very good site on the subject of freemasons and their activities:

http://freemasonrywatch.org/1index.html

And to quote one of their illustrious brethren:

“We shall unleash the Nihilists and Atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effects of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will be from that moment without compass, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view, a manifestation which will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time.”

Illustrious Albert Pike 33°
Letter 15 August 1871
Addressed to Grand Master Guiseppie Mazzini 33°
Archives British Museum
London, England

“Masonry, like all the Religions, all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanations and misinterpretations of its symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled, to conceal the truth, which it calls Light, from them, and to draw them away from it. Truth is not for those who are unworthy or unable to receive it, or would pervert it.”

Brother Albert Pike 33°
Morals and Dogma, page 104

“Lucifer represents.. Life.. Thought.. Progress.. Civilization.. Liberty.. Independence.. Lucifer is the Logos.. the Serpent, the Savior.” pages 171, 225, 255 (Volume II)
“It is Satan who is the God of our planet and the only God.” pages 215, 216, 220, 245, 255, 533, (VI)
“The Celestial Virgin which thus becomes the Mother of Gods and Devils at one and the same time; for she is the ever-loving beneficent Deity...but in antiquity and reality Lucifer or Luciferius is the name. Lucifer is divine and terrestrial Light, ‘the Holy Ghost’ and ‘Satan’ at one and the same time.” page 539

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky 32°
The Secret Doctrine

http://freemasonrywatch.org/occultrevival.html

@ JARitchie

Since you seem to prefer “real research and thought,” I hyperlinked the above quotes for your benefit. It’s not like this information is just made up or inherited from superstitious internet bogeymen. And no one ever said WFB wasn’t a gentleman or an intellectual. I guess the problem is that in his last twenty odd years, lunch with Kissinger was more important than a principled and dedicated apologia for genuine conservatism.
And those who expected as much from him, based on his early work, were disappointed by the betrayals.

What did the Jews have on him?

Teachem2think:

Please prove that S&B;was Masonic.  Otherwise those quotes aren’t relevantt.

“S&B;” ??? Satan and Buckley??? Masons???
Well, Satan for sure !!!

The quotes are relevant to the subject of freemasonry.

The statements were directed to two specific writers and anyone interested in the subject.

There’s another fellow skulking about these blogs who demands us to “source [our] claims.” And when we do, it changes nothing in his bigoted predispositions.

There seems to be quite enough information above which would allow for any research for or against any of the
issues discussed. Have at it.

Teachem2think:

I despise Masonry, too.  I know what the Masons want. 

But this post is about William Buckley, who was not a Mason.  He did belong to Skull and Bones.  Is that organization inherently evil?  I am playing devil’s advocate.  None of the sourced statements *prove* that it is inherently evil or that it is masonic.  So Masonry shouldn’t come up in this discussion of *William F. BUckley*.

Well, none of the sourced statements above were meant to discuss S&B;. As I stated, they were in response to another comment. If I wanted to discuss S&B;, then I suppose I could have hyperlinked the following as only one starting point:

http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=6663554&pageid=r&_charset_=utf-8&bcd;=&#xC3;&#xB7;&scs=1&query=skull+and+bones&Find=Search&mode=ALL

But whether S&B;is masonic or whether WFB was masonic is, presently, an exercise in speculation: “...by their fruits ye shall know them....”

When information was presented about P2 and the masons in the Vatican Curia; and Albino Luciani attempted to remove them from their positions of power; and then he was found dead within two days thereafter, it remains treated as a rank “conspiracy theory.” You can have the names, the dates of initiation, statements of witnesses, everything except the video; it does not matter:
if it does not comport with a belief, it does not exist; it is a “conspiracy theory”; and, besides that, “you’re insane.”

No, you’re not insane.

Prove that Pope John Paul I was murdered by Masons, though.  Speculate all you like, you haven’t proven it.

I would never say that I am conservative, we live in a mass society and drivers licences for immigrants are responsibility etc, yeah, but I like Taki for many reasons. When he said something on people I know he allways nailed it down, hope that makes sense in english, yes, yes, no, no, and what I heard of Buckley reminded me to my dear and old friend Valentin. Another world..

And sorry, people who call themselves conservatives are not much less ridiculous than people who call themselves artists. True artists just paint. And Eric Voegelin, how can he be such a genius? He had no simple answer and as far as I can see, he just had some overview over the history of ideas. He knew that there are many contradictions and that no idea is enough for itself, to put it simple. Common sense, morals, experience, and some law background, that means systematic thinking. Not so unusual in Germany, which does not say much. A great German prof with a certain music in his voice, there were many.

I first read National Review in !1960 and got it for 42 years. I was a financial suporter for many years and had dinner with Mr. Buckley twice. I have a picture of myself with him at a dinner.It is very sad what happened to him in old age,may he rest in peace.

When I was the chairman at YAF, I arranged for William F. Buckley to speak at our University, and got to pick him up at the airport, and usher him to the speaking engagement. We stopped off at his friend’s home for some dinner, and Buckley was provided an after dinner drink and cigar.

The enduring image of WFBJr. for me was him puffing on a big churchill while savoring a huge brandy snifter with some fine cognac in it.

Me thinks he drank a lot, his complexion showed it. Obviously he did enjoy his strong drink and cigars.

He was every conservative college kid’s hero back then...and amazingly afterwards at the University, he floored the crowd, and his elogance and the power of his personality cowed and silenced the freaking SDS crowd that came out to boo him.

He was a real man. It’s sad that his magazine has been taken over by neo-cons.

My dear Caper:

Well, Of course I’m not insane; I was being rhetorical.

I do not have to prove anything to anyone. I present information and/or opinion. If I choose to hyperlink, I will. Usually, I do not. I believe most of the writers here exercise the same option.

Naysaying (which is the essence of your argument) is not a cogent argument.

As far as Albino Luciani is concerned, I read David Yallop’s book (In God’s Name) and I have drawn my own conclusions. You are quite welcome to do the same but, in the mean time, please do not expect everyone or anyone to do your research. There is more than enough information above and elsewhere for you to find whatever evidence you seek for whatever proposition you wish to hold. Have at it.

I believe he was a heavy drinker as well he drank 3 martinis and three large glasses of wine before he made his speech at the dinner I sat with him at, all in an hour and a half.No wonder he was ponderous of speech.