New at Reason

Twenty-five years ago, William F. Buckley sat down with reason to discuss, among other subjects, libertarianism ("I share about 90 percent of the views of most libertarians"), Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and the decriminalization of marijuana. You can read the full interview, in PDF format, here.

Comments

Ken Shultz | February 27, 2008, 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 | February 27, 2008, 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 | February 27, 2008, 9:51pm | #

Two words: nice fellow.

RIP.

midbrowcrisis | February 27, 2008, 10:36pm | #

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

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

midbrowcrisis | February 28, 2008, 1:18am | #

Buckles vs. Vidal

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

jkii | February 28, 2008, 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 | February 28, 2008, 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.