William F. Buckley died this week. You may have known him when he was alive. Or you've seen him in death on The Colbert Report or any other number of shows. I shall always remember him not as a conservative pundit, nor as a Yale Man, Nor even as a drinker of legendary proportions that I could never live up to. I shall always remember him as a character played by the Genie in Aladdin.
He was the one that said "Um, Master, there are certain provisos, a couple of quid pro quos." With the Bowtie and the goofy teeth. You remember him. C'mon, let's face it, if you're reading this, I could reference Song of The Freaking South and half of you would know which late 40s racist, Uncle Remusy film I was talking about.
All the articles and eulogies about him have lamented the lack of intellectual conservatism. And it's true. There are no more smart conservatives of his sheer charisma to counter the collective utter jackassery of Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Pap Bear O'Reilly. But it also bears noting that most liberals are evolving too. While once liberals were impassioned, fervent, unapologetically real people, they've evolved into a detached, smug, holier-than-thou group of pedants who when countered with anything look as though they were just told by a five year-old that the earth is filled with P'sghetti-Os. (NO ONE TAKES THAT CHILDHOOD DREAM AWAY FROM ME!)
Watching politics now for me is like watching one of those mish-mash movies of the seventies where they would force two disparate plots together and make them work. This One is Like The Island of Dr. Moreau's Time Machine. It's like simulatneoulsy watching two men devolve into what the other perceives them to be. One a comically brutish ape, the other an obliviously blithe and smug intellectual.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, in this country, I have no political affiliation. In fact I'm starting to see the logic of Ben Franklin's essays in response to Rousseau, in which he said that "Politics, particularly Popular Politics, is the fastest way to prove that mankind and apes are not so different."
Democracy does not work in this country, in this form, anymore. If the 08 election was Democracy v. Another Alternative, I honestly think Democracy wouldn't pull a 75% majority. Not because the system is flawed. All things are flawed. If I ever see a perfect anything, I'm going to scuff it a little, even if only I know it's there. The system accentuates and aggrevates flaws, and in doing so poisons everything it tries to accomplish.
William F. Buckley managed to for forty or so years hold back this tide through his sheer charisma and his undefinability. We need another one of him, if only to pass along these problems to our children. Because, let's be honest, they're already boned.