I share here a fear. It is not that the conservative movement is ending, that Bill's death is the period on a long chapter. The house he helped build had--has--many mansions. Conservatism will endure if it is rooted in truth, and in the truths of life. It is. It is rather that with the loss of Bill Buckley we are, as a nation, losing not only a great man. When Jackie Onassis died, a friend of mine who knew her called me and said, with such woe, "Oh, we are losing her kind." He meant the elegant, the cultivated, the refined. I thought of this with Bill's passing, that we are losing his kind--people who were deeply, broadly educated in great universities when they taught deeply and broadly, who held deep views of life and the world and art and all the things that make life more delicious and more meaningful. We have work to do as a culture in bringing up future generations that are so well rounded, so full and so inspiring. Bill Buckley lived a great American life. His heroism was very American--the individualist at work in the world, the defender of great creeds and great beliefs going forth with spirit, style and joy. May we not lose his kind. For now, "Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels take thee to thy rest."
The thought that we are "losing his kind" is similar to a feeling that I (and many others) have had about losing the memory of what it felt like to grow up in America in the 1950's and 1960's. There was a kind of American optimism and self-confidence in those days that Bill Buckley personified. I fear that we are losing that and that we're bringing up future generations now with a much more pessimistic worldview.
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