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RMS isn't really an asshole, though he has some infamous quirks that some people tend to overemphasize because they find his otherwise straightforward ideas to

RMS isn't really an asshole, though he has some infamous quirks that some people tend to overemphasize because they find his otherwise straightforward ideas to be highly disagreeable to begin with. Hitchens was inflammatory, but also flexible in his thinking. Buckley was an interesting case. To some extent, he was more acerbic towards those he mostly agreed with than those who he had further ideological skirmishes with. For instance, he was friends and associates with Galbraith, but infamously brutal towards Rothbard over his non-interventionist views on foreign policy.

philwelch 11y ago
> Buckley was an interesting case. To some extent, he was more acerbic towards those he mostly agreed with than those who he had further ideological skirmishes with. For instance, he was friends and associates with Galbraith, but infamously brutal towards Rothbard over his non-interventionist views on foreign policy. Buckley probably realized that without vigorous pruning of the anti-Semites, libertarians, Randians and John Birchers, American conservatism would collapse into a fairly terrifying fringe movement; something which has been borne out since his passing.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  Why would the libertarians need to be vigorously pruned?
  - philwelch 11y ago
    Ask Buckley. There's still kind of a libertarian wing to American conservatism, but libertarianism is the kind of thing that can easily be taken to extremes, as we've seen with the Tea Party lately. Rothbard in particular was an anarcho-capitalist, which is a fairly fringe position.
cma 11y ago
>To some extent, he was more acerbic towards those he mostly agreed with than those who he had further ideological skirmishes with. At the start of his interview with Chomsky he threatens that if Chomsky loses his temper he (Buckley) will "smash [Chomsky] in the goddamned face."

philwelch 11y ago

> Buckley was an interesting case. To some extent, he was more acerbic towards those he mostly agreed with than those who he had further ideological skirmishes with. For instance, he was friends and associates with Galbraith, but infamously brutal towards Rothbard over his non-interventionist views on foreign policy. Buckley probably realized that without vigorous pruning of the anti-Semites, libertarians, Randians and John Birchers, American conservatism would collapse into a fairly terrifying fringe movement; something which has been borne out since his passing.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Why would the libertarians need to be vigorously pruned?
- philwelch 11y ago
  Ask Buckley. There's still kind of a libertarian wing to American conservatism, but libertarianism is the kind of thing that can easily be taken to extremes, as we've seen with the Tea Party lately. Rothbard in particular was an anarcho-capitalist, which is a fairly fringe position.

cma 11y ago

>To some extent, he was more acerbic towards those he mostly agreed with than those who he had further ideological skirmishes with. At the start of his interview with Chomsky he threatens that if Chomsky loses his temper he (Buckley) will "smash [Chomsky] in the goddamned face."