In honor of William F. Buckley's retirement, his views on race

[Sandpiper]

The father of the modern conservative movement speaks on civil rights:

Why the South Must Prevail," August 24, 1957.


"The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes – the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists."

"National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. . . . It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority."

"The South confronts one grave moral challenge. It must not exploit the fact of Negro backwardness to preserve the Negro as a servile class. . . . Let the South never permit itself to do this. So long as it is merely asserting the right to impose superior mores for whatever period it takes to effect a genuine cultural equality between the races, and so long as it does so by humane and charitable means, the South is in step with civilization, as is the Congress that permits it to function."

[hatrack]

1. My personal favorite WFB quote of all time:

"McCarthyism is a movement around which men of good will and stern morality can close ranks."

Though I'll freely admit it's not quite up to the appalling standards of the citation above.

[Sandpiper]

3. Buckley's "National Review"

Was started as a McCarthyite and White Power rag.

And this is the guy that the wingnuts consider to be the intellectual father of the conservative movement.

Telling, isn't it?

[wryter2000]

2. That's it in a nutshell eom

eom

[joeybee12]

4. Was he ever confronted with these deplorable comments, and

did he refute them now?

[DeadHead67]

5. EEEEEEEEEKKKKKK!!!!!!

I've never seen this before. Did he really write that? It could have been written a hundred years before.

[Sandpiper]

8. Yes, he also wrote this

From June 2, 1964:

"But whatever the exact net result in the restricted field of school desegregation, what a price we are paying for Brown! It would be ridiculous to hold the Supreme Court solely to blame for the ludicrously named 'civil rights movement' – that is, the Negro revolt . . . . But the Court carries its share of the blame. Its decrees, beginning with Brown, have on the one hand encouraged the least responsible of the Negro leaders in the course of extra-legal and illegal struggle that we now witness around us. . . .

"Brown, as National Review declared many years ago, was bad law and bad sociology. We are now tasting its bitter fruits. Race relations in the country are ten times worse than in 1954."

[Beware the Beast Man]

6. I'm sure he has...

But still, his were the roots of modern conservatism.

[Fenris]

7. That old corpse is retiring?