William F. Buckley Jr. just died

[Ben.]

The sad part of all this is that there is no one to pick up his work on the right, the derth of talent on the right and indeed across the political spectrum when it comes to folks able to develop, explore and articulate their ideological case... instead we have the likes of Moore and Coulter etc...    

[Ben.]

The sad part of all this is that there is no one to pick up his work on the right, the derth of talent on the right and indeed across the political spectrum when it comes to folks able to develop, explore and articulate their ideological case... instead we have the likes of Moore and Coulter etc...    

The difference is that he grew up during a period when there was actually a 'left' in american politics - true, merely a center-left, but a center-LEFT none the less.  Nowadays we allow only the center-right and extreme-right to be articulated upon TV and in other media, thus, there is no real debate at all.

I would go further and say we only allow a very narrowly defined form of right of centre views to define debate... the up shot being that to a signficant extent there is very little complexity or clarity in the views articulated from either the left or the right, instead we have an amorphus establishment vs anti-establishment narative.