William Howard Taft | The Literary Lawyer: A Forum for the Legal and Literary Communities

Posts Tagged ‘William Howard Taft’

Academic Freedom, Ayn Rand, Birchers, Carl T. Bogus, Cold War, Communism, Conservatism, Conservative, Fox News, fusionism, H. L. Mencken, Happy Days Were Here Again: Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist, James Burnham, Libertarian, Libertarianism, Murray Rothbard, National Review, neoconservatism, Objectivists, paleoconservatives, religious conservatism, Robert Welch, Rush Limbaugh, Russell Kirk, Senator Robert Taft, The American Mercury, William F. Buckley Jr., William Howard Taft

Bogus on Buckley

In America, American History, Arts & Letters, Book Reviews, Communism, Conservatism, Historicism, History, Humanities, Libertarianism, Politics, Writing on February 9, 2012 at 8:34 am

It was customary practice in my family to gather at my grandparents’ house for Sunday dinner after church. Loyal to our Southern traditions, we would, after eating, divide company: men into the living room, women into the kitchen or den. My brother and I, still children, would sit silently, for the most part, while my grandfather, father and uncles bandied about the names of politicians and discussed the day’s sermon or newspaper headlines.

I first learned of William F. Buckley Jr. during these Sunday afternoons, as he was often the topic of conversation. I was too young to know much, but young enough to learn a lot quickly, so I began to follow this man, this Buckley, to the extent that I could, from those days until the day that he died in February 2008.

Overcommitted to supposedly universal political ideals and to the spread of American liberal democracy throughout the world, Buckley was not my kind of conservative. He could be tactless and cruel, as when he violated the ancient maxim de mortuis nil nisi bonum (“Of the dead, speak no evil”) in an obituary to Murray Rothbard wherein he wrote that “Rothbard had defective judgment” and “couldn’t handle moral priorities.” Buckley then trumpeted some unflattering anecdotes about Rothbard before likening Rothbard to David Koresh.

Despite such tantrums and vendettas, I always liked Buckley. Something in the way he conducted himself—his showy decorum, flaunted manners and sophisticated rhetoric—appealed to me.

Carl T. Bogus, an American law professor and author of the biography Buckley, seems to share my qualified respect for Buckley, despite disagreeing with Buckley on important political and theoretical issues. “I should tell the reader up front,” Bogus warns, “that I am a liberal and thus critical—in some instances, highly critical—of Buckley’s ideology.” Yet, adds Bogus, “I admire William F. Buckley Jr. enormously.”

Unlike bobble-headed television personalities and think tank sycophants, Bogus does justice to his subject, treating Buckley’s ideas evenhandedly on the grounds that he (Bogus) is “disheartened by the present state of partisan animosity,” one solution to which, he says, “is to take opposing ideas seriously.” Bogus not only takes Buckley’s ideas seriously, but credits them for changing America’s political realities. Read the rest of this entry »

▶ Comment

Abraham Lincoln, Albert Jay Nock, Alexander Hamilton, Allan Bloom, Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Lytle, Ayn Rand, Barry Goldwater, Charles Murray, Clyde Wilson, Conservative, Daniel Webster, Dick Cheney, Dinesh D’Souza, Donald Davidson, Donald Rumsfeld, Eric Voegelin, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Meyer, Friedrich Hayek, George Fitzhugh, George Santayana, George Ticknor, George Will, Gerald Ford, H. L. Mencken, Harry V. Jaffa, Henry Clay, Herbert Hoover, Irving Babbitt, Irving Kristol, James Burnham, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, John Adams, John C. Calhoun, John Crow Ransom, John Marshall, John Randolph of Roanoke, Leo Strauss, Ludwig Von Mises, M. E. Bradford, Michael Novak, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Newt Gingrich, Norman Podhoretz, Orestes Brownson, Pat Robertson, Patrick Allitt, Patrick Buchanan, Paul Elmer More, Paul Gottfried, Ralph Adams Cram, Richard Weaver, Robert Bork, Robert Taft, Roger Kimball, Ronald Reagan, Rufus Choate, Russell Kirk, Samuel Huntington, Strom Thurmond, The Conservatives, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas DiLorenzo, Thomas Fleming, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Sowell, Wendell Berry, Whittaker Chambers, William Cobbett, William F. Buckley, William Graham Sumner, William Howard Taft

A Few More Words on Patrick Allitt’s The Conservatives

In American History, Arts & Letters, Book Reviews, Conservatism, History, Humanities, Liberalism, Libertarianism, Politics on October 9, 2011 at 4:51 pm

Many American politicians call themselves “conservative” despite never having read Paul Elmer More, Irving Babbitt, Robert Taft, Donald Davidson, Frank Meyer, Richard Weaver, James Burnham, or Russell Kirk. Television pundits recycle the term “neoconservative” without even a passing reference to Leo Strauss, Irving Kristol, or Norman Podhoretz. A welcome respite from the ignorance of the talking heads, Patrick Allitt’s The Conservatives (Yale University Press, 2009) is an engaging and informative book, even if it is more of an introduction to American conservatism than a critical study. I recently reviewed the book here at the journal 49^th Parallel, but I have more to say about it.

American conservatism is rich and complex but too often simplified or ignored by academics who think they know what conservatism means. I applaud Allitt for taking conservatism seriously and for marshaling a wealth of evidence to support his thesis. Those who cannot identify what generally distinguishes a paleoconservative from a neoconservative, or who’re confused by the apparent hypocrisy of conservatives who call for big-government spending on military and surveillance while griping about big-government, need to read this book. Allitt provides clarity and direction for the uninitiated. He deserves not just our attention, but our admiration.

Allitt attends to several figures in this book, including John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, William Cobbett, John Marshall, John Randolph of Roanoke, George Fitzhugh, Rufus Choate, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, George Ticknor, Abraham Lincoln, Orestes Brownson, William Graham Sumner, Andrew Carnegie, Theodore Roosevelt, John Crow Ransom, Andrew Lytle, H. L. Mencken, Herbert Hoover, William Howard Taft, Albert Jay Nock, Ralph Adams Cram, George Santayana, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig Von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand, Whittaker Chambers, William F. Buckley, Milton Friedman, Barry Goldwater, George Will, Ronald Reagan, Michael Novak, Robert Bork, Allan Bloom, M. E. Bradford, Thomas Fleming, Clyde Wilson, Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, Patrick Buchanan, Jerry Falwell, Roger Kimball, Thomas Sowell, Charles Murray, Dinesh D’Souza, and others. One book cannot address every major figure that influenced American conservatism, and Allit’s failure to mention some names (Strom Thurmond, Gerald Ford, Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, Donald Rumsfeld, Wendell Berry, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, or any of the Bob Joneses) is understandable. Paul Gottfried appears just once in the book, and passingly. But a case could be made that Gottfried’s paleoconservatism is more European in origin and thus worthy of analysis. And surely Eric Voegelin warrants more than a casual reference in a single paragraph.

For some, Allitt’s most objectionable suggestion will be that the Civil War was a conflict of two conservatisms: Calhoun’s versus Webster’s. This interpretation illuminates and simultaneously complicates such recent debates as the one held between Thomas DiLorenzo and Harry V. Jaffa over the issue of Abraham Lincoln’s legacy.

Allitt also suggests that the Federalists represent an early manifestation of conservatism. This classification would mean that Jefferson and his ilk were not conservatives, which would in turn imply that current Jeffersonians are not in keeping with a purely conservative tradition. Allitt offers this helpful and accurate note about Jefferson: “He might not have been the Jacobin his Federalist foes alleged, but neither can he easily be thought of as a conservative.” Many scholars and enthusiasts consider Jefferson to be a “classical liberal,” but the signification of that word relative to “libertarian” or “conservative” merely confounds definitional precision: All three words have been used interchangeably and negligently in recent decades. It may not matter if Jefferson is called “conservative” or “liberal,” especially if those terms cause people to short-circuit reflection or affix a contemporary label to a complicated man living in a complex, radically different era.

Allitt’s book is a fine contribution to and about conservative letters. I recommend it to anyone who thinks he can explain conservatism.