Posted on 07/26/2023 10:15:31 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I took a pretty liberal girl on a date to see William F. Buckley back in college, which would probably scandalize the current senior staff of his National Review, but I bet it would have made WFB smile. Buckley was also a graduate of the Army's former Ft. Benning School for Boys, but since his death, the Officer Candidate School has become Ft. Moore School for Boys, Girls, and Non-Binary Two-Spirits. This change for the worse is emblematic of how NR's conservatism has failed to conserve much of anything. In Buckley's absence, NR has tried to stand athwart history yelling, "Stop," and instead, the left just gave it a wedgie and continued on its long march.
The latest headshaker is Kathryn Jean Lopez tut-tutting that "Jason Aldean Isn't Helping," presumably by not being the kind of cerebral invertebrate that some at NR confuse with being a proper conservative. WFB went to Ft. Benning to become an Army officer and fight Nazis; the current NR leadership seems committed to fighting against anyone else on the Right man enough to fight back. A song hailing communities that come together to defeat crime and chaos? Apparently, that is not who we are. Oh, well, I never. That sound you hear is my pearls being clutched.
The current incarnation of National Review generally offers readers a conservatism that demands we use our inside voice, placing form – "Jason Aldean is so mean!" – over substance. The substance includes defeating evil when it comes for us, sometimes using violence. But apparently, this is too real. Well, it's real life for millions of us. Theory is fun, but sometimes you gotta throw a punch. WFB got that. These guys and gals don't.
It's sad for me. Like most cons of my generation, notably Rush, I subscribed to National Review back in the day, and it was vital to shaping my thinking. You whippersnappers do not understand what the 80s were like for real conservatives. Sure, the music was awesome, as were the clothes and movies and all that, but if you were a committed conservative, particularly in the hinterlands, you were often alone. NR coming in the mail was my lifeline to an ideology that America embraced but barely understood. You could not go online and get a thousand different conservative views, or turn on your AM radio and get any at all. Buckley's publication was it, and that is why its fall to effete establishment mewling is so painful.
There are still some people on NR worth reading and who I will not embarrass by listing. I read and like their work even when I disagree, and disagreement is good. But this pervasive vibe of prim submission is something else. I could fisk through Lopez's sorry take on "Try That In A Small Town" to explain why no, it is not bad to protect your home from rampaging criminal scumbags even if you have to use violence. But I should not have to. That is a self-evident truth. Lieutenant Buckley knew that – he famously once threatened commie-symp Gore Vidal that "I'll sock you in the…face" if the leftist weasel called Buckley a Nazi again.
I am at a loss as to why Kathryn Jean Lopez fails to understand this. Being a conservative does not mean being a pacifist, though that pacifism does not appear to extend to Ukraine, only to Americans defending themselves. It is of a kind with NR's tendency to embrace a neutered, weak conservativism that offends no one, defends nothing, and always goes down in defeat. But it is not the only kind of conservatism now. We have an alternative. There is the muscular conservatism of the Reagans and Trumps and DeSantises, and then there's whatever dog's breakfast the new NR seems intent on serving up.
Kinder, gentler, a thousand points of light. To again evoke the 80s, gag me with a spoon.
The problem is not that Ms. Lopez does not appreciate Mr. Aldean's tune but that she does not appreciate Mr. Aldean's people. One of the great problems with conservatism, or rather with the intellectual conservative elite, is that so very many of them have never been in a fight. In the real world, most of us have. But NR conservatism grows within the DC/NY hothouse; the idea of it outside in the real world where today's conservatives live would make one of those hilarious fish-out-of-water movies where the guy in a bow tie from the Big City has to milk a cow. I'm not saying you must tromp through the woods stalking deer to be a con – post-Army, my idea of outside recreation is sitting on a lounge having someone bring me G&Ts – but it helps to get out a little and visit America and meet some Americans. Maybe someone on the venerable rag's masthead drives a Ford F-150, but if he does, there's a good chance he does it ironically.
It's not so simple as "non-NR macho/NR sissy," though that is a useful razor. It is that the kind of conservatism that WFB led became something else along the way, something more concerned with strict adherence to appearances and long-dead notions of propriety. While the new NR was fussing over its principles – norms and rules that were worth using to bludgeon less-worthy cons but were never worth fighting hard for against the left – the people conservatism was supposed to be helping were suffering. Their jobs went to China, and their kids to Ramadi, at least the ones that did not die from overdoses. Kevin Williamson, then at NR (and soon to be at The Atlantic for about 10 seconds), had a prescription – cultural euthanasia, because they deserved every misery inflicted upon them.
Conservatism that conserves only the middling cachet of a dying brand within the DC/NY political milieu is not worth conserving at all. NR has found out what it is like to lead a movement without adherents. It has been barely scraping by for years, and if you are still on its mailing list, which I am both out of nostalgia and for the occasional good column, you will be dunned for cash even more unmercifully than if you somehow find yourself on the RNC text roster.
The whole thing is sad, but the world moves on. NR moved on from Buckley, and now conservatives have moved on from it. I will not celebrate its fall, and I will read the good stuff it runs for as long as it struggles on, but NR is not a conservative thought leader. It is unclear whether it is a conservative anything.
“Buckley wasn’t who a lot of us thought he was towards the end.
He erred when he fired Sobran and Francis, in my opinion.”
Exactly. And that was far worse than error. It was capitulation to some influential neocons who had always despised actual conservatives. They still do.
But Buckley is to blame for the ruin of National Review. It was WFB who turned over his magazine to the useless sissy Rich Lowry. It only has gotten worse over time.
I remember hearing that Buckley had a sister who played a much bigger role in running NR than he did, back when it featured great writers. For me that was late ‘70s to maybe 1989. I suspect that NR went to hell after she retired or died.
Joe Sobran, Sam Francis, Chilton Williamson and some other NR refugees migrated over to Chronicles magazine and it became the redoubt for paleo and populist conservatives. The roots of MAGA were there 30 years ago.
I went to some NR fundraiser in Newport Beach in the early 1990s when we in California were battling illegal immigration with Prop 187. That NR crowd was utterly indifferent to what we were trying to do, just like the Bush GOP toadies that they had become.
Yep, I subscribed from 80-89, it was a good read then. But then again, so was the WSJ editorial page.
When I moved back to KC from Los Angeles years ago, I had to throw away all my back copies! One great thing about NR was I discovered Rob Long’s political writings. I knew he was a TV writer but was thrilled when his articles were in the magazine.
Sam Francis.
https://www.unz.com/print/Chronicles-1996mar-00012
Sam Francis was bitterly hated by the SPLC and politically correct Republicans. A young opportunist named Dinesh D’Souza (yes, that one) tried ingratiating himself with the MSM by smearing Francis with a racism charge.
“Sobran, Francis, Pat Buchanan and Robert Novak to a degree all warned Buckley about neoconservatives. They were right.”
This will be the best political memoir that you’ve ever read:
“The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington” - Robert Novak
https://www.amazon.com/Prince-Darkness-Years-Reporting-Washington/dp/1400052009
” But then again, so was the WSJ editorial page.”
I used to read it back then, too. But in retrospect, at least for me, that WSJ editorial page was the brain trust of neocon globalism. “Proposition nation America” ruling the world.
The WSJ editors had zero concern about China turning America into an industrial wasteland. They same lack of concern they’ve always had about the transformation of America through mass immigration.
When Welch declared Ike to be a Conscious agent of the Communist Conspiracy for a start.
I don't think so. Buckley had been fighting for private property and free enterprise for 50 years. In 2000 it seemed like the war had been won and there were no more battles to fight. The USSR was no more, and Clinton was saying that the era of big government was over. Conservatives, it seemed, wouldn't have the experience of being outsiders in a minority who won over the country or world. So Buckley said that if he were young and wanted the same life he would be a socialist. He wasn't saying that socialism was a good idea or that private property should be abolished. Think of him as a lonely old Indian fighter who misses the fight and realizes that he has more in common with the Indians that with what replaced them. He wasn't wishing that the Indians had won. He missed the fight and missed the world of his youth.
Rush got sucked during W, but he was fierce during the Obama and Trump years. And NOBODY had his humor.
Rather goes to far, but he was definitely obtuse.
That goes to far.
Where is the far it is going to?
I don’t think he was actively pro- Communist. But, I NEVER forgive him for what he did to McCarthy.
Rich Lowrey raped and killed NR.
Especially after the Venona transcripts came out and vindicated all of McCarthy’s names.
The JBS was a fascinating organization.
They made some wild charges, no doubt about that—but they did amazing research on topics nobody else would touch.
When I was in college I would sneak in some of their original research in my papers—and of course the profs have never read any of their stuff so had no clue where it was coming from—and it worked well.
Example—they were responsible for the “flouridation is a Commie plot” silliness—but when you dug deeper they had a book discussing how Alcoa had used their corporate power to push their flouride waste products on municipalities and bribed dental authorities as well.
This was covered nowhere else but most folks now understand that flouride’s benefits were overstated and the risks were understated.
I did get a chance to meet some of their senior folks—they were brilliant and had to be super-tough to take all the heat they were getting.
Bottom line—I respected them a thousand times more than my professors that towed the “party line” or were afraid to risk offending powerful people.
indeed...
a quote from your home page bears repeating:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
—Robert Heinlein
And when he said it was all right to kill Terri Schiavo.
Unbelievable! One can only hope that it was due to senility...
_______________
PS: I also really liked Joseph Sobran!
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