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29 February 2008
William F. Buckley Jnr., the trailblazer of post-World War II American conservatism, has died at the age of 82.
The New York Times, that foremost promoter and defender of Politically Correct dogma in America has generously acknowledged in its matter-of-fact report that
Mr. Buckley’s greatest achievement was making conservatism — not just electoral Republicanism, but conservatism as a system of ideas — respectable in liberal post-World War II America...
Many reports and tributes to Buckley can be found in the Articles of Note column on the Arts and Letters Daily website. Here I want to draw the reader's attention to the following in the NYT article:
The liberal primacy [Buckley] challenged had begun with the New Deal and so accelerated in the next generation that Lionel Trilling, one of America’s leading intellectuals, wrote in 1950: “In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation.” Mr. Buckley declared war on this liberal order, beginning with his blistering assault on Yale, from which he graduated with honors in 1950, as a den of atheistic collectivism.
The success of the 25 year campaign of vilification and distortion waged unrelentingly against John Howard has meant that the only truly conservative politician in the Australian political arena has been removed, leaving the Liberal Party and the National Party in a state of collapse. What Trilling wrote about America in 1950 can be applied to Australia now.
Although there are some courageous conservatives waging war against Australia's dominant PC class they are few in number. Worse is that that class's ideologies have not only penetrated the breadth and width of Australian society, but they appear to be the only intellectual stream. The plain fact is that the ideas of philosophical conservatism have been marginalised, suppressed or eliminated from the halls of educational institutions and the pages of the mainstream media. To disagree is to be a heretic. Those heretics taking the fight to the Empire are only skirmishing around the edges, engaging in spot contests with its excesses.
Who is meeting PC dogma with solid counter argument? Who in the media, government or education can competently articulate the arguments Edmund Burke brought against the theorists of the French Revolution? The same arguments can be adapted to counter materialist liberalism, Gender theory, Queer theory and so on. Who is familiar with Michael Oakeshott's crucial essay Rationalism in politics? Or with Roger Scruton's writings? Who understands the arguments of realist metaphysics that can be brought to bear on Richard Dawkins' pitiful understanding of his own materialism, an understanding that would fail Philosophy 101?
How can the insane proposition that gender is determined by one's social environment be allowed to stand unchallenged? I don't only mean in terms of a theoretical challenge. More importantly I am talking about the influence that such feminist madness has in generating and implementing social policy. Indeed, we must first deal practically with the havoc wrought in our society by such views.
Australian Conservatives, in default of an Australian William Buckley Jnr emerging, have to understand first the basis of their conservatism and then organise in the way American conservatives organised around Buckley. Conservatives - not wholly identifiable with Republicans - are a powerful force in American politics. They enjoy dominant positions in radio and television. Bill O'Reilly is first among many. His television show 'The Factor' is on the Fox News Channel each day at 12.00 noon in the Eastern states. It is highly recommended. The Australian conservative will be invigorated by his unrelenting well-aimed attacks on what calls secular progressives or the loons of the hateful far-left websites.
One would be surprised, however, at how many powerful conservative female voices are fronting microphones in America. Given the grip that feminists and feminism has on Australian society, it is an irony for me that Laura Ingraham is one of the most articulate conservative voices I hear at the moment. Her spot on Bill O'Reilly's 'Factor' is always informative. Michelle Malkin is another. These are women who have no fear of standing up to the Left, liberals, secular progressives, in brief, to the whole PC class. They are an example for Australian conservatives. Their websites are worth a visit.
Laura Ingraham pays tribute to William F. Buckley Jnr
Michelle Malkin pays tribute to William F. Buckley Jnr
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