LIBERTY: February 2008 Archives

What is not clear is exactly when the American Conservative movement itself died. However, while the date of this event cannot be known with the same precision as Buckley's death, what is known is that it undoubtedly proceeded William F. Buckley Jr. to the Grave:

Buckley emerged as a public intellectual in 1951, shortly after graduating from Yale University, with his book God and Man at Yale, the first conservative complaint against the dominance of liberals at leading universities. Four years later, he started National Review, the magazine that really launched modern conservatism.

Buckley's home in Sharon, Conan., also served as the birthplace of Young Americans for Freedom, which became the nation's largest conservative youth group. The group's Sharon Statement outlined the principles of modern conservatism: individual liberty, limited government, the U.S. Constitution, federalism, the free-market economy and a strong national defense . . . through the Barry Gold water presidential campaign in 1964, [to] the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and culminating in the 1994 Contract with America [when] conservatives declared that they would deliver the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money. (David Boaz, San Francisco Chronicle, 02 . 28 . 2008).

Then in 2000, it all began to fall apart.