"I share about 90 percent of the views of most libertarians"

Reason's 1983 Interview with the late William F. Buckley

Tibor Machan | February 27, 2008

Twenty-five years ago, William F. Buckley, Jr., sat down with reason to discuss, among other subjects, libertarianism, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and the decriminalization of marijuana.

Comments

|2.27.08 @ 6:15PM|#

Reading what Buckley said about the Whittaker Chambers review made me think how little things have changed. I guess we're all still dealing with the same issues.

I think this is the review Buckley was talking about:

http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback200501050715.asp

Tumbledore|2.27.08 @ 8:10PM|#

If you don't want to open a PDF, you can view the interview here:

http://www.pdfmenot.com/view/http://www.reason.com/files/456e1d0436886ab0751f51502d4fb2f8.pdf

KJ|2.27.08 @ 9:51PM|#

Two words: nice fellow.

RIP.

|2.27.08 @ 10:36PM|#

Chomsky vs. Buck on youtube from the 60's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYlMEVTa-PI

|2.28.08 @ 1:18AM|#

Buckles vs. Vidal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRjZR8j4-z4

jkii|2.28.08 @ 2:48AM|#

Buckley didn't answer the questions about Ayn Rand because is not as intelligent as Rand. I am not nearly as intelligent as either, but I can clearly see the difference.

Fluffy|2.28.08 @ 9:02AM|#

I don't think it's a matter of intelligence, jkii.

It's more a matter of the fact that Buckley [and Chambers, for that matter, whose review is at issue] like most mid-century Americans - even writers and academics - knew virtually nothing about Nietzsche, other than some half-baked propaganda they had digested during the war. The United States was a remarkably parochial place when these men were being educated.

It's striking to me that Chambers writes at length about Atlas and about Nietzsche while making truly abysmal freshman-at-a-community-college errors about both. For Buckley to assert that he agrees with 90% of it leaves us with only two possibilities: despite his apparent erudition, WFB wasn't really all that educated in philosophy, or he was playing politics by playing dumb. I tend to think it's a little of both.