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