Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: What Have We Learned from the Failure of British Socialism?
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Views: 145,172
Rating: 4.8288589 out of 5
Keywords: Firing Line, William F. Buckley Jr, Margaret Thatcher, Conservative Party, Labour Party, Socialism, Poltics and Government, Great Britain, United Kingdom
Id: nO44vzTLa7g
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 56min 30sec (3390 seconds)
Published: Mon Jan 30 2017
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Hm. In retrospect, if I had hoped for conversation around the content of the interview rather than (completely valid) criticism of Buckley as an individual, I should have put Maggie's name in the title rather than his.
William F. Buckley is a total hack. The patrician cadence and barbed wit lies in stark relief with with much modern conservative dialogue, but it's just an elegant shroud for Buckley's horrifyingly racist and otherwise regressive ideological positions. He is to some extent a con artist in the inverse sense of someone like Trump or other earthy populists in that the veneer of his speech and debate skills convinces more educated, high-minded types that his ideas are worthwhile and his opponents are foolish.
Maybe some will find this video instructive, but I find it impossible to get past Buckley, and I would encourage anyone capable of being more open minded than me to at least take much of what he says with an enormous grain of salt.
American conservativism, in spite of the occasional good idea on economic policy, is ideologically bankrupt and is rooted in a thinly veiled white supremacy. Although Buckley makes good arguments about socialism and excessive government intervention, that in itself isn't hard. His smug attitude and apologism for America's history of white supremacy is disgusting. Supposedly Buckley chased the paleoconservatives from the party for a time, but I think if recent history proves anything it's that he just gave them a coded language from which to hide their repugnant ideas.
He is nothing more than another manifestation of white nationalism which has dominated much of the American right since it's founding. Right wingers can and should do better than this hack.