Re: Reason on Buckley

Bob Poole’s fawning eulogy helps illustrate the split between libertarians who think that libertarianism has something to do with, oh, I don’t know, THE STATE, and those who see it as a kind of hip and fashionable lifestyle movement. Poole is happy that Buckley “kicked out the racists and conspiracy-mongers from conservatism” and that Buckley was “far more cosmopolitan and sophisticated about sex, drinking, dining, and other human pleasures than his fellow-travelers among today’s religious right.” He praises Buckley’s “open-mindedness and tolerance.” But not one word about foreign policy! Buckley’s embrace of the perpetual warfare state must have been a minor deviation.

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12:05 pm on February 29, 2008