by Rod D. Martin
February 27, 2008
William F. Buckley's passing today surprised everyone, and greatly saddened millions who have been touched by his life.
Perhaps the greatest sadness in this -- for Buckley is surely with his Lord this day -- is that it is mere millions and not billions who will miss him; for surely the entire world has benefited from his wisdom and tireless advocacy for freedom, the transformative global change his ideas begat, and the spread of a renewed belief in liberty which had been all but exhausted when his work began.
From Prime Ministers to Presidents to a little girl -- my Sherri -- sitting with her daddy watching Firing Line, those indelibly marked by his insight are all around us, in a world far better than that which Whittaker Chambers and Joseph Schumpeter imagined possible, believing in the inevitability of Communism as surely as they passionately promoted a different path. They did not believe their work could bear fruit; but Buckley did, the impetuous yo…
