From God to Godless: The Real Liberal Terror

American Spectator ^ | June 12 2006 | Jeffery Lord

[Reagan Man]

The book reviewers were absolutely hostile, enraged at what they read.

"The book is one which has the glow and appeal of a fiery cross on a hillside at night. There will undoubtedly be robed figures who gather to it, but the hoods will not be academic. They will cover the face," snarled one, ominously comparing it to a work of the Ku Klux Klan. "This fascist thesis," angrily spluttered another, "...This...pure fascism....What more could Hitler, Mussolini, or Stalin ask for...?" Still others piled on. The book was dismissed as a series of "fanatically emotional attacks" that "succeeded in turning the stomachs of its readers." The author drew howls of outrage, the lesser of which focused on adjectives like "rude" and "obnoxious" before descending into cries of "fascist."

The name of the book was not Godless. And the author was not Ann Coulter. The book that drew such ferocious attention was God and Man at Yale. The author, a recent Yale graduate, was a precocious William F. Buckley, Jr.

God and Man at Yale, published in 1951, was a then-startling protest about the liberal bias of a major university, in this case Buckley's alma mater.

[bruinbirdman]

"... the dems are using a 30 yr old playbook."

30 years? How old is the communist manifesto. They think they have updated it, but, alas, to no avail. The Third Way

yitbos

[jeremiah]

Oh so true.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Klansmen are probably macroevolutionists (or of some pseudoCreationist variety).

[wildcatf4f3]

R.I.P. ya S.O.Bs

[singfreedom]

You are absolutely correct. Sometimes it takes going "overboard" to really get people's attention. Buckley certainly has that ability.

[jslade]

Listen up everybody. You MUST read the entire article.

[.30Carbine]

I'm reading Mr. Buckley for the first time: just picked up a copy of The Jeweler's Eye. Ann Coulter so obviously found her 'voice' in William Buckley's; the tone and cadence between the two are so similar, and she comes as close as a mere mortal can to his vocabulary. Mr. Buckley was certainly a prophet in much that he wrote - on Reagan, for instance, before he was even governor of California, and in his projection that one day we all might cast our vote via telephone line (see The Twenty-fourth Amendment, February 18, 1964).

Buckley is so highly quotable! In his article What is Conservatism, October, 1963, he discusses the various branches of our sect by our singular desires and draws a highly rational and also humorous conclusion (his trademark, which Ann Coulter has by God's grace adopted):

Many right-wingers (and many liberals, and all Communists) believe in a deus ex machina. Only introduce the single tax, and our problems will wither away, say the followers of Henry George....Only expose the Jew, and the international conspiracy will be broken, say others....Only abolish the income tax, and all will be well....Forget everything else, but restore the gold standard....Abolish compulsory taxation, and we all shall be free....They are called nostrum peddlers by some; certainly they are obsessed. Because whatever virtue there is in what they call for - and some of their proposals strike me as highly desirable, others as mischievous - no one of them can begin to do the whole job, which continues to wait on the successful completion of the objectives of the Committee to Abolish Original Sin.

[RoadTest]

"I will prefer an athiest conservative over a religious liberal any day. "

I know what you mean. Arianna Falacci makes tons more sense than any Democrat in existence. She is said to be an atheist.

[alwaysconservative]

Absolutely fantastic; thanks for posting this!

[Northern Yankee]

Great read!

[shezza]

From academia to politics to religion, the media and the law, the liberal Humpty Dumpty has fallen from its once dominant perch. No matter how hard they try, liberals will never be able to put it back together again.

Spot-on analysis. This is a great, must-read article. Imagine what might have happened forty-fifty years ago had the lunatic lefties not had a stranglehold on information to the public? Thanks to Al Gore's internet, the left's monopoly on the media is no more.

[prairiebreeze]

CBS News solemnly reported the week of his nomination that Goldwater's first act after the convention would be to travel to Germany for a visit to "Berchtesgaden, Hitler's one-time stamping ground." And what will the conservative Goldwater do once there? "There are signs," CBS reporter Daniel Schorr said ominously, "that the American and German right wings are joining up..." Got that? Barry Goldwater, said CBS in so many words, was really a Nazi. With a presidential nomination in hand, he was literally heading to Hitler's home to get the international Nazi movement rolling. The story, from the trip to Germany to the visit to Hitler's estate was, of course, false from beginning to end.

I had never read about that. Interesting.

I do take issue that FoxNews is a conservative channel, clearly it is not. In fact, we watch hardly anything except Brit anymore due to the increase in liberal perspective we see there.

[Dante3]

He is right.

[steve-b]

To which religion must a conservative subscribe?

Why, the exact same one, to every jot and tittle, as JCEccles, silly boy.

[Coop]

My own preference is for those who can spell "atheist" correctly.

I'm very sorry, but you have to be here over 24 hours to have a preference. Those are the rules.

[hosepipe]

Excellent passage..

[hosepipe]

[ The first is a fraud, the second a farce. ]

Good line.. good sound bite..

[CyberAnt]

Well .. my statement was taken from Rush's statement that the dems continue to use their same playbook from 30 years ago.

[kstewskis]

Imagine what might have happened forty-fifty years ago had the lunatic lefties not had a stranglehold on information to the public? Thanks to Al Gore's internet, the left's monopoly on the media is no more.

Isn't kind of amusing, how every time the left "invents" something, it somehow backfires into their collective faces?