James Buckley Quotes

when both can’t be true. In 1946, in the days after World War II, presidential advisor Bernard Baruch said, “Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.” Variations have been uttered by U.S. Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger, U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and others. Today this seemingly indisputable truth no longer holds. Propaganda is indistinguishable from fact and we find ourselves living in the frightening pages of a George Orwell novel.

Along

bicycle kick.

No writer ever knows enough words but he doesn’t have to try to use all that he does know. Tests would show that I had an enormous vocabulary and through the years it must have grown, but I never had a desire to display it in the way that John Updike or William Buckley or William Safire do to such lovely and often surprising effect. They use words with such spectacular results; I try, not always successfully, to follow the pattern of Ernest Hemingway who achieved a striking style with short familiar words. I want to avoid calling attention to mine, judging them to be most effective as ancillaries to a sentence with a strong syntax. My approach has been more like that of Somerset Maugham, who late in life confessed that when he first thought of becoming a writer he started a small notebook in which he jotted down words that seemed unusually beautiful or exotic, such as chalcedony, for as a novice he believed that good writing consisted of liberally sprinkling his text with such words. But years later, when he was a successful writer, he chanced to review his list and found that he had never used even one of his beautiful collection. Good writing, for most of us, consists of trying to use ordinary words to achieve extraordinary results. I struggle to find the right word and keep always at hand the largest dictionary my workspace can hold, and I do believe I consult it at least six or seven times each working day, for English is a language that can never be mastered.* [*Even though I have studied English for decades I am constantly surprised to find new definitions I have not known: ‘panoply’ meaning ‘a full set of armor’, ‘calendar’ meaning ‘a printed index to a jumbled group of related manuscripts or papers’. —Chapter IX “Intellectual Equipment”, page 306

Romans fought off pirates who wanted the valuable olive oil carried on Roman ships.

1876,

and

Cases in which the unvarnished truth really was the only option—even though a predictable and negative response was guaranteed.

ideas about what might have happened,

Because their friends knew the brothers were good at fixing things, they began bringing bicycles into the print shop for the Wrights to repair. Orville and Wilbur suddenly

As Buckley imagined it, the radical confrontation that might happen would be between "the United States" or "the Americans" and "the Negro people." In this framing, "the Negro people" are not counted as real Americans. This way of thinking was nothing new for Buckley. It was suggested in the very title of his infamous "Why the South Must Prevail" piece nearly a decade earlier. [Emphasis added.] In his formulation, black people were not actually part of "the South"; they were merely a problem that existed in the South. By framing matters in this way, Buckley was demonstrating the truth of what Baldwin considered to be his most damning indictment: "the country which is your birthplace, and to which you owe your life and identity," he had told the students earlier that night, "has not in its whole system of reality evolved any place for you.

Instead of pushing the engines of concern argument any further, Buckley revived his attack on Baldwin's radicalism. Before describing the next phase in his assault, it is worth noting what is revealed by this rhetorical choice. As he had demonstrated time and time again throughout his career, he was far more comfortable on the attack than he was when he attempted to build an affirmative case for his views. If he had chosen to defend his claim that the United States was providing a world historical model of how to treat minority groups, he would have had to confront many uncomfortable questions. Was it true that the United States was showing "dramatic concern" for "the Negro problem"? If so, what did the policy of concern entail, and what problem, precisely, was being addressed? Was the American example really unprecedented in the history of the world? And perhaps most interestingly—assuming for a moment that Buckley was right about these matters—it would be worth asking why and how this policy of concern was activated and sustained. Was it primarily because of the enlightened humanitarianism of those in power or because of the radicalism of freedom fighters?    As a conservative who had been dragging his feet on civil rights for more than a decade, serious attention to these questions would have put Buckley in an awkward position. To the extent that the United States was giving "the problems of a minority" exceptional concern, it was in spite of the intransigence of Buckley, writers he commissioned to write for The National Review, and political candidates he supported. He likely surmised that he had better not dwell too long on what was animating "dramatic concern" for the Negro problem or whether he was personally devoted to this "primary policy of concern." If the engines of concern had been working in the United States, it was no thanks to Buckley and his allies.

He could easily imagine a lifetime of regrets, catching you unawares when you least expect it, haunting you in the small hours of the night.

Blackbeard!

hit the ball 120 miles per hour!

Betsy continued to be busy at work. That spring, she was paid fourteen pounds and twelve shillings (about

week later, Washington tried to attack British forces staying outside the city near Germantown. But the colonial army was beaten back. Wounded soldiers from both sides were carried the six miles back to Philadelphia. Betsy was among the many women who helped take care of the men. They rolled bandages and sewed slings and blankets.

Two years later, Betsy’s old friend John Claypoole asked her to be his wife. They were married on May 8, 1783.

While Betsy was returning to her Quaker family, she and John were starting their own. In 1785, their first daughter, Clarissa, was born. She was joined a year later by Susan. The Claypooles continued to work together in their shop, moving to

John and Betsy could afford to buy a horse and carriage by 1786.

By the spring of 1778, the British had left Philadelphia. Part of their army headed out to attack colonies to the south. The rest of the British moved on to New York City, where the fighting was fierce. In Philadelphia, they left behind a huge mess. Many buildings were ruined,

most of the food in the city was gone, and ships in the port had been burned.

Betsy and Joseph’s first child, a daughter named Aucilla, was born on September 15, 1779.

captured, and Joseph was put in a British prison called the Old Mill.

The Old Mill Prison was a terrible place, with too many men packed into too little space. The prisoners actually sold their clothes to buy bread to eat. Disease spread quickly among the men. Joseph was among the hundreds of men who died there. Betsy Ross Ashburn was a widow once again.

But in the summer of that year, a tragic epidemic spread throughout Philadelphia. Yellow fever struck, and thousands of people died from the disease. Betsy’s parents died early in the epidemic. Betsy’s sister Deborah died, too. Her sister Mary died soon after, also possibly from the fever.

By 1793, Betsy and John had a fine family, a good home, and steady work.

The yellow fever epidemic was over by early 1794.

Back in Philadelphia, Betsy’s life was changing again. She had met a sailor named Joseph Ashburn. On June 15, 1777, Betsy Ross became Betsy Ashburn when the pair married at the Old Swedes’ Church in Philadelphia.

Food was still scarce in the city. People were burning furniture to keep warm. Sadly, Aucilla got sick and died when she was less than a year old. In 1781, the couple had a second daughter, Eliza.

On January 30, 1836, when she was eighty-four years old, Betsy Ross passed away.

Betsy and her neighbors lived and worked in a city

where it became harder and harder to survive

Amid all the chaos, Joseph Ashburn returned safely from his latest voyage. While he and other men worked hard to clean up the mess the British had left behind, Betsy kept sewing. Along with flags, she sewed military supplies

the Continental army.

In 1795, she and John had another daughter, Harriet, but the baby died ten months later. In 1799,

In 1800, John Claypoole suffered what was probably a stroke. He could no longer work. He stayed home—and usually in bed—for the rest of his life. Betsy did her best to care for him, but it was not easy. By 1803,

In 1817, John Claypoole died at home. Betsy had worked hard to care for him, even as she grew older herself. For the third time in her life, Betsy was a widow.

Ten years later, at age seventy-five, Betsy finally stopped working. Her daughter Clarissa, and Margaret, Betsy’s niece, took over the shop.

1962, Pelé injured his leg in a Santos game. Unfortunately, his injury came at a bad time, just as Brazil gathered its best players to defend

Betsy learned even more about sewing from her great-aunt Sarah Griscom, who owned her own business making women’s corsets.

Betsy worked six days a week. She gathered the materials the workers needed, including fabric, needles, and thread. Sometimes she made deliveries to customers. And she became a better seamstress. She had a busy life in a busy city.

In 1765, Great Britain passed a new tax on its American colonies. This was nothing new, as the colonists were all British subjects and expected to be loyal to King George III. But this new tax made many colonists angry. The Stamp Act said that every piece of paper had to have a special stamp on it. Those stamps cost the colonists

Betsy and John eloped. They crossed the Delaware River to nearby Gloucester, New Jersey. On November 4, 1773, beside a large wood fireplace at an inn called Hugg’s Tavern, they became man and wife.

After her marriage, Betsy was forced to leave the Quakers.

fallen in love with another shopworker named John Ross. There was only one problem: John Ross

break away from British rule would be to fight. In Philadelphia and many other cities, men began gathering weapons and training to fight. John Ross was among

The minutemen soon had to put down their rakes and aprons and pick up their guns. The American Revolutionary War began on April 19, 1775, in Lexington, Massachusetts. The minutemen had clashed with British troops on a road just outside

British soldiers were not in Philadelphia yet, but everyone knew they were coming. Betsy and John worried, but they had to keep working. They made chairs and curtains, they sewed tablecloths for a wedding. But after work each day, John trained with the

Early in 1776, John was badly injured. No one is really sure what happened. He may have been hurt by exploding gunpowder that blew up while he was on guard duty. Another version of events says simply that he was hurt while training. It is certain that John died of his injuries, and on January 21, 1776, he was buried

Three men visited Betsy at her Philadelphia shop. One was George Ross, John’s uncle. He knew Betsy and was aware of her skill at sewing. George Ross had been part of the First Continental Congress and a leader in the colonies. The second man was another colonial leader, Robert Morris. He was a very rich man who helped raise

money to pay for the colonists’ fight. The third man, according to the story, was George Washington.

They asked her to make a sample of this new flag to show Congress.

During this time, Betsy did not know where her new husband was. His ship had not come back to Philadelphia yet. There was no way for him to get word to her. She did not know if he was even alive.

Later that same year, Joseph set sail on the Lion, which went all the way to Europe, chasing British ships. The Lion was

larger home in 1787. They needed the room; by then, they had two more daughters, Rachel and Jane.

Betsy kept working. Her daughters helped as much as they could, but one by one, they married and started their own families.

Hershey

..."fascist" is quite simply a word of disapprobiation. The Communists, you surely have noticed, refer to anyone who disagrees with any...any hemidemimisemiquaver in the Communist line as a fascist. Or a proto-fascist. Or a neo-fascist. It has nothing whatever to do with the political disciplines practiced by Mussolini.

I have written many essays detailing the facts about this so-called “collapse of communism.” In all that time nobody wrote a detailed argument showing I was wrong. They just repeated slogans the communists had given them. In fact, those who warned about the coming fake collapse of communism – James Angleton and Anatoliy Golitsyn – were not dealt with by rational argument. They were libeled in books whose authors did the talk show circuit. They were dragged through the mud and called madmen by leading conservatives like William F. Buckley, Jr. But there was no rational argument against their true predictions of the future. Angleton and Golitsyn had been right. And now the end of the long range strategy is upon us. J.R.Nyquist

talk to

hell

I saw nothing very clearly but I did see this: that my life, my real life, was in danger, and not from anything other people might do but from the hatred I carried in my own heart.”61

In 1948, at age seventy-six, Orville Wright died after two heart attacks.

him off a couple of blocks away so his mother wouldn’t find out. Which also meant nobody else really knew it was going on.’ ‘Did he have an alibi?’ ‘Nothing we were able to check. He said he went for a drive that afternoon because it was such a beautiful day. He showed us a receipt for gas, but

I’m calling the police right now.’ He turned back towards the office, paused again when Evan didn’t move. ‘You hear me?’ Evan heard him, he wasn’t deaf. Wet and cold, feeling slimy, but not deaf. It was now or never. He hated this.

More than a few as well by the look—and smell—of things.’ Evan let out a long, weary breath at the relentless jibes. His head was pounding,

distressed, poor thing, she didn’t think to go into his study and remove the evidence that pointed to her starring role in this sorry little tale.’ Evan sat there completely dumbfounded, unable to think clearly, although one thought

that we found your business card,’ Ryder continued. He made business card sound dirty too, as if it was one of the ones you saw pinned up in public phone booths

Conservatives must do this, Buckley instructed, by resisting when liberals try to respond to every problem with a government program.

Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities. Do you know who said that?’ ‘No.’ It sounded