William F. Buckley, who recently died, is famous for, among other things, saying somethinc along the lines of that he’d rather be governed by the first 100 names of the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. I say the same thing (okay maybe not Boston, I am after all, a Yankees fan). The only difference is I mean it.

Arguing with Conservatives, or as I call ‘em conserveyourightatives, is always difficult for this reason. They say things, but they don’t mean them; so what are you actually arguing against. The kindof governance Buckley is talkin’ ‘bout above is the kindof governance we have; government by and for the people. However, Conservatives are famous for, among other things, saying that Government is the problem. We are the government. The people in the phone book vote. In fact the question that he was answering on NBC’s Meet the Press that provided the line at the top of this was really pretty smart. Buckley had attacked Truman, Eisenhower, etc., American Presidents all, and the question was what do you think then of the American voter. His reply was the huffy and silly response. The first names in the phone book is telling; Buckley is at the beginning of the alphabet. Yes, the anti-government crusader does like to have it both ways; his television show ran for years -- on "public" television.

You can create a straw man in an argument, that is argue with a creation of your own, and conserveyourightatives certainly do that, but you can also create yourself as a straw man, in other words claim to have principles, values, scruples, that you simply don’t have. There is nothinc ‘bout the conservative project that is in any way democratic, ‘cept in its utterances, jus’ like there is nothinc remotely intuitively conservative ‘bout freedom ‘cept again in its publicity. In essence, this was Buckley’s contribution, he was the madaveman, shill, huckster, for his movement. He repackaged it. If you “stand athwart history, yelling Stop” like he claimed for his cadre in the first issue of his rag, The National Review (how? by using words like “athwart”), you are not being, um, progressive.

The facts are simple. He has said nice words about the dictator Franco, Joe McCarthy, French Imperialism in Vietnam, Southern Segregationist Violence, and the ink tattooing of those with Aids. He has a right to these views, and these views are “right;” meaning they are conservative. They cannot be what they are not though, even if he has at times altered them or supposedly saw the light on subjects like segregation. It is not a criticism to state what a person’s views actually are, and we hold these views to be self-evident. Conservatism is not a cry for freedom, but only the squall of a brat.