We would all do well to learn from WFB

Yesterday got pretty busy, so I was not able to weigh in on the passing of an American political legend; William F. Buckley. The intellectual father of the modern conservative movement was a giant among men. His conservatism was always honest, pragmatic, intellectually astute, fresh and most importantly effectual to the core -- it worked, and because it did the lives of millions of people were enriched as their freedom and opportunity expanded.

What a wonderful legacy to leave. God bless him for that.

As I have been reading tributes, one thing in particular caught my attention. This is from yesterday's Wall Street Journal piece, Up From Liberalism:

In his last years, Buckley grew discouraged about what he considered the drifts of the American right. In an interview with this page in 2005, he noted that "I think conservatism has become a little bit slothful." In private, his contempt was more acute. Part of it, he believed, was that what used to be living ideas had become mummified doctrines to many in the conservative political class. At the Yale Political Union in November 2006—Buckley's last public audience—he called for a "sacred release from the old rigidities" and "a repristinated vision." It was a bracing reminder that American conservatives must adapt eternal principles to new realities.

Buckley himself never lost his faith—in God, his country, the obligation to engage in the controversies of the age, and the wonders of the mind. His half-century at the center of the American scene was a model of thoughtfulness and political creativity that remains as relevant today, perhaps more so. Ave atque vale.

Even at the end of his life, Buckley was ahead of his time.

From my perspective, a truer diagnoses of the problems afflicting conservatism today was never made. We are stuck in the past replaying the conservative "Greatest Hits" album over and over again and frankly, the tunes that were popular in the 80's and 90's sound old and stale now. It is time to move past these "mummified doctrines" and offer solutions that fit our own times.