Why I miss William F. Buckley

"This classic footage shows William F. Buckley & a young Noam Chomsky discussing the Viet Nam war. In only the way Buckley could, he threatens Chomsky by casually injecting, "Because, as you would, I'd smash you in the God-damned face." Don't you wish some of our current day leaders had as much chutzpah?"

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Frankly, yes - and as you will also note, the inherent self respect to actually allow Noam to make his point before (as I'm sure he did) shooting it as full of holes as he could manage. There's not a single talking head on the right now who has the stones to wait until they see the white of Noam's eyes. Since it cannot be that those of the intellectual rigor and high personal standards reflected by Buckley are no more, we must presume that for some reason that level of conservatism is thought to be too challenging, too intellectual for the godbothering 30 percenters.

Or it could also be that it's very difficult to imagine a conservative of such rigor putting up with the requirement to pander to the tender sensibilities and laughable delusions of both Cultural Conservatives and the Trickle-down theorists.


First - let me say that WFB often infuriated me with positions that I thought indefensible. And yet his arguments, in many cases, either caused me to grudgingly reconsider the absolute, reflexive moral superiority of my position - or if not that, to softly and silently pocket the rhetorical technique.

He described himself as a Libertarian Conservative, but I regret to say that in that regard, our views of what Libertarianism - and the related topic in both our minds of what politics informed by faith should look like - differ. Wildly.

Nonetheless, the thing I loved about WFB was that one could never dismiss his arguments out of hand. Nor could one seriously credit that he might be making his arguments for any reason other than passionate, personal conviction that he also held at ransom to reason and rationale.

Indeed, he reversed his opinions on many issues over the years, and he was never apologetic of having done so. One of the best things about this great man of the Right was that he was never afraid to be wrong - nor unwilling to amend the wrong, with passion equal to the trespass.

On the other hand, I doubt very much that popularity had anything whatsoever to do with the evolution of his principles.

Now, the only thing that could convince Limbaugh or O'Rielly to change their minds on a topic is the same thing that convinced them to first pick their topics - large sums of money. Ideally placed in an offshore bank.

I learned a great deal from WFB over the years. I learned how important rigor in argument is. I learned to respect fact more than assertion. And frankly, being on the side of his guests as often as not, I learned that while a great and intimidating facade is a valuable thing indeed, there has to be something behind the facade to turn posture into poise.

I loved the fact that he was as unapologetically upper-class northeastern white intellectual with the same "and you can choke on it" 'tude of any rapper from south-central LA.

The most important thing I learned from him was this; how a gentleman behaves when confronted with an idea they find distasteful. They argue, with the goal of ensuring that it's far more effective to get the person advocating a distasteful idea to fully explain it and demonstrate that it is, indeed, distasteful than to simply assert with a patrician snort that it's distasteful nature requires that it be dismissed unconsidered.

Oh, and of course one has to admire a man who was quite capable using words such as cretinous correctly in casual discourse. When a teacher referred to me once as "A little William F. Buckley," I took it as a profound complement. Nor would I consider being compared to him at all insulting today.

A Standing O for LifeLock.

I just had a look at LifeLock, those "This is my real social security number" people. Frankly - and probably like you - I assumed that it was a stunt, and what was said in bold red at the top was completely negated with the small print at the bottom.

Come to think of it, it's damn depressing how complacent we have become in accepting as a given that any service we get from any corporation should be written as "Service*".

Now that I think of it, it's a little embarrassing to realize that it took the promise of $12.00 from a trusted third party to even get me to look, but I plead 40 years of disappointment in my fellow man as my reason.

Fortunately for them, their actual cost will be two dollars, for ten of those promised dollars will pay for my first month of their service.

Why? Well, you don't often read advertising copy like this:

If your Identity is stolen while you are a member of LifeLock, we're going to do whatever it takes to recover your good name. If you need lawyers, we're going to hire the best we can find. If you need investigators, accountants, case managers, whatever, they're yours. If you lose money as a result of the theft, we're going to give it back to you.

We will do whatever it takes to help you recover your good name and we will spend up to $1,000,000 to do it.

We don't think you will see a guarantee like this anywhere else from any other company. If you do, let us know because we'd like to do business with them. There isn't much fine print in our Guarantee. To see the details, click here.

Any half-decent lawyer will tell you the reason why you should never ever EVER write something as direct and unqualified as this. You WILL have to live up to those words in court, and they will bury you in frightening examples of the consequences of unwise and unguarded words costing businesses hundreds and thousands of words.

One of the examples I remember most clearly from my journalism and advertising courses is the case of a car dealer who promised that during his "Jungle Madness" sale, you could drive away in a new car for "just a thousand bananas."

Sure enough, someone showed up with a lawyer and one thousand fresh, golden, LITERAL Chiquitas.

They were very over-ripe bananas by the time his lawyer was sent from court by a laughing judge and a snickering jury, but that just added fruit flies to injury.

Speaking of contractual language, I'm in violation of the terms of the agreement by being clear about this being a paid post within the post and it would be technically possible for them to refuse to pay, or request a re-write. You see, they didn't want me to call attention to the fact they paid me to do this - no doubt because they are as cynical as I am for pretty much the same reasons.

It's tempting to gloss over the fact that it took the smell of money to get me to write this - but I'd prefer to be honest, and use the risk of not being paid to underline what is my real reason for going so far beyond the 200 words requested. This, you see, is no longer about that.

These are the sort of people you should absolutely do business with, even if you don't absolutely need to. And I'm not embarrassed at all to be seen doing business with people like this. Hell, if they write employment contracts and job descriptions like they do websites, they might actually be the sort of people I'd be willing to work for.

That advertising copy above is the reason. They have deliberately created conditions they will have to live up to.

That lack of weasel-wording, the complete absence of equivocation, the blunt promise of "Whatever it takes, up to a million bucks" is damn refreshing.

If you believe in the idea of the free market, as I do, and believe that it absolutely depends on people who are not just willing, but absolutely determined to play fair, then you need to sweeten the pot for them. You have to choose to deal with people who are willing to stand by their word, live up to their obligations and go the extra mile. You also have to start expecting that standard from everyone else, with no excuses.

Putting binding promises into one's advertising copy inspires in me ten thousand times the deep warm fuzzies that can be derived from a kiloton of adhesive imitation chrome fish.

The promise implied by a chrome fish over the door of a place of business is one that cannot be enforced in a temporal court of law, one not even as impressive as membership in the BBB.

Todd Davis - well I don't know what or who else he believes in - but he surely does believe in the sort of fish you could fry in front of the ninth circuit court and it's a big enough fish to feed a multitude.

I can count on the fingers of one thumb the number of times I've had the legitimate opportunity to say something as nice as this about anything regarding the economy or the practices of American business institutions. I've gotten so damn jaded and cynical, so bleak and depressed that frankly it's become difficult to blog.

What started out as a five minute, money-making chore turned out to take a couple hours of utterly blissful wordsmithing and the high point of my day. And that, Mr. 457-55-5462, is worth ten bucks to me. Hell, it's worth twelve.

I would love to be able to write a story like this every week, and have every word be true and as heartfelt as these. I'm rubbing your nose in the fact that AT THE MOST, I was paid $12.00, in response to the obvious rhetorical question.

My skills are for sale, my my good name is not. Even if it WAS, it would take a minimum of five more decimal places plus benefits, a golden parachute and a pension to compromise my virginity in that respect.

One should should set one's price high enough that it discourages temptation. And I'm afraid that many "persons of significance" have lowered the bar to a point where even minimal standards make a decent assessment of self worth seem positively inflationary.

But it's nice to be recognized for a job done well and honestly. One of the few ways I'm sure something I've said has been read and appreciated is the sound of virtual coin clinking into my PayPal account. Money, as Robert Heinlein said, is the sincerest form of applause.

And by that means and in the same spirit I am suggesting to you that you give Lifelock a standing ovation. "Pour le encouragur le autres"