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One must recently have lived on or close to a college campus to have a vivid intimation of what has happened. It is there that we see how a number of energetic social innovators, plugging their grand designs, succeeded over the years in capturing the liberal intellectual imagination. And since ideas rule the world, the ideologues, having won over the intellectual class, simply walked in and started to run things. Run just about everything. There never was an age of conformity quite like this one, or a camaraderie quite like the Liberals'.
William Francis Buckley
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The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents.
William Francis Buckley
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The duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world, and the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level.
William Francis Buckley
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He [Cassius Clay] became a Black Muslim, which is a pseudo-religion for unbright neurotics who feel the need to hate all white people.
William Francis Buckley
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They [Theodore White and Lou Harris] took turns weeping, and finally concluded that Rockefeller got the votes of everyone in California who is a Negro, a Jew, a Mexican, and a college graduate, while Goldwater got the votes of every millionaire. Which certainly makes California the land of opportunity.
William Francis Buckley
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You cannot paint the Mona Lisa by assigning one dab each to a thousand painters.
William Francis Buckley
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Enthusiasm for conservation can be fashioned into a nasty weapon for those who dislike business on general principles.
William Francis Buckley
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Those who suffer from the abuse of drugs have themselves to blame for it. This does not mean that society is absolved from active concern for their plight. It does mean that their plight is subordinate to the plight of those citizens who do not experiment with drugs but whose life, liberty, and property are substantially affected by the illegalization of the drugs sought after by the minority.
William Francis Buckley
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Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich.
William Francis Buckley
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We have got to accept Big Government for the duration-for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged, given our present government skills, except through the instrument of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores. … And if they deem Soviet power a menace to our freedom (as I happen to), they will have to support large armies and air forces, atomic energy, central intelligence, war production boards, and the attendant centralization of power in Washington-even with Truman at the reins of it all.
William Francis Buckley
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Friendship is strengthened by...that which ever so lightly elevates us from the trough of self-concern and self-devotion.
William Francis Buckley
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I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.
William Francis Buckley
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The sobering anwer is yes - the white community is so entitled because ... it is the advanced race ... it is more important ... to affirm and live by civilized standards ... than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.
William Francis Buckley
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Everyone detected with AIDS should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common needle users, and on the buttock, to prevent the victimization of other homosexuals.
William Francis Buckley
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Industry is the enemy of melancholy
William Francis Buckley
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The real threat, as seen by the ACLU, is that religious behavior might give secular behavior a bad name, and that is, surely, unconstitutional.
William Francis Buckley
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Reagan is both too fatalistic and too modest to be a crudaser. He doesn't have that darkness around the eyes of a George McGovern.
William Francis Buckley
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If only the left hated crime as much as they hated hate.
William Francis Buckley
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Government can't do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you.
William Francis Buckley
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Why does baloney avoid the grinder?
William Francis Buckley
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Not everything that is legal is reputable.
William Francis Buckley
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If Bach is not in Heaven, I am not going!
William Francis Buckley
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No one since the Garden of Eden - which the serpent forsook in order to run for higher office - has imputed to politicians great purity of motive.
William Francis Buckley
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It is not a sign of arrogance for the king to rule. That is what he is there for.
William Francis Buckley
