conservative

One could say that my life has been a series of debates. This is not to say that I’m argumentative. I’ve just been lucky in my life to have had friends with whom I could talk about issues and debate politics and religion. Although I’m fairly liberal in my politics, I’ve had in my life a fair amount of conservative Republican friends with whom I used to be able to debate on points of disagreement and while still maintaining a sense of respect for each other. Somehow, though, those type of talks have become less frequent in the past couple of years. I’m not sure if people in the past few years have just become more polarized along certain positions and are no longer tolerant of differing opinions. It’s become rare to meet that kind of friend, that friendship of opposites, and I miss those type of conversations.

CNN reports:

National Review founder and conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. was found dead Wednesday in the study of his Stamford, Connecticut, home, officials at the magazine said.

He was 82.

Buckley died while at work," said Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of the National Review Online, in a written statement. "If he had been given a choice on how to depart this world, I suspect that would have been exactly it. At home, still devoted to the war of ideas."

It may be a bit unexpected to see praise for William F. Buckley here, but I can't not speak. Bill Buckley helped make me what I am today.

Buckley, and my father, who led me to Buckley's columns, they challenged me, the high school student, to push my political thinking up a notch. Knee-jerk reactions weren't good enough, think, Janet, think. Think first, lay your arguments carefully, think again. Do your arguments lead to what you think you believe, or are they leading somewhere else completely? Are your arguments true? What do you really think?