OUR MISSION STATEMENT (WILLIAM F.BUCKLEY- NR- 1955)

national Review ^ | 11-19-55 | William F. Buckley

[Wegotsarah.com]

Thought some might enjoy reading Mr. Buckley initial article on conservatism in NR. "The Magazines Credenda" at the end seems as topical today as in 1955.

There is, we like to think, solid reason for rejoicing. Prodigious efforts, by many people, are responsible for NATIONAL REVIEW. But since it will be the policy of this magazine to reject the hypodermic approach to world affairs, we may as well start out at once, and admit that the joy is not unconfined.

Let's face it: Unlike Vienna, it seems altogether possible that did NATIONAL REVIEW not exist, no one would have invented it. The launching of a conservative weekly journal of opinion in a country widely assumed to be a bastion of conservatism at first glance looks like a work of supererogation, rather like publishing a royalist weekly within the walls of Buckingham Palace. It is not that, of course; if NATIONAL REVIEW is superfluous, it is so for very different reasons: It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.

NATIONAL REVIEW is out of place, in the sense that the United Nations and the League of Women Voters and the New York Times and Henry Steele Commager are in place. It is out of place because, in its maturity, literate America rejected conservatism in favor of radical social experimentation. Instead of covetously consolidating its premises, the United States seems tormented by its tradition of fixed postulates having to do with the meaning of existence, with the relationship of the state to the individual, of the individual to his neighbor, so clearly enunciated in the enabling documents of our Republic.

"I happen to prefer champagne to ditchwater,"

[Wegotsarah.com]

"The most alarming single danger to the American political system lies in the fact that an identifiable team of Fabian operators is bent on controlling both our major political parties(under the sanction of such fatuous and unreasoned slogans as "national unity," "middle-of-the-road," "progressivism," and "bipartisanship.") Clever intriguers are reshaping both parties in the image of Babbitt, gone Social-Democrat. When and where this political issue arises, we are, without reservations, on the side of the traditional two-party system that fights its feuds in public and honestly; and we shall advocate the restoration of the two-party system at all costs."

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Words to live by. _:)

[ken21]

that’s correct.

some of our pubies reach across the aisles.

odd, the reverse seldom happens.

[ken21]

>And since ideas rule the world, the ideologues, having won over the intellectual class, simply walked in and started to run things.

>Run just about everything. There never was an age of conformity quite like this one, or a camaraderie quite like the Liberals’

that’s correct.

[GOP Poet]

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