Bill Buckley’s death reminds me

that a vacuum is being left by the passing of these men from “the Right,” and no leader is coming close to fulfilling it. There is a market. Fox News and the Ron Paul campaign (however poorly it did, it still beat Giuliani to a pulp) prove that.

But there is no one who can unify them. Two or three conflicts in conviction conspire toward fragmentation, depending on how one interprets them:

  • International interventionism v. bringing the troops home
  • “Patriotism” v. liberty
  • “conservatism” v. “libertarianism”

In some cases, these could all be seen as the same thing, but I think they actually result in many different convictions.

In the eighties, in the aftermath of the now returning Carter years, there was enough common cause to pull enough of these different people together. But not anymore. So no one can lead a unified group within them.

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