On the passing of Bill Buckley and the ongoing life of Pete Seeger

Buckley was one of the lead voices of modern conservatism in America. Seeger was a one-time communist and early leader of the folk-protest music movement. Buckley supported the work of Senator Joe McCarthy. Seeger was blacklisted. Buckley worked for the CIA. Seeger sang for the CIO. Buckley was born to privilege, became a leading conservative columnist and founded the National Review. Seeger grew up more modestly, became a musical troubadour, wrote "Turn, Turn, Turn", and found commercial success distasteful. Buckley attended Yale; Seeger, Harvard. Buckley wrote a book criticizing his alma mater's professors for trying to secularize and liberalize him. Seeger became so involved in leftist political movements during college that his grades suffered, his scholarship was lost and he left school. Buckley was given the Medal of Freedom; Seeger is a Kennedy Center Honoree.

But both men became intelligent and eloquent leaders in the movements in which they fervently believed. They are, at once, shining examples of how polarization can actually co-exist in this country without the violence, finger pointing, shouting, and name-calling as seen on TV and heard on radio. Both also found fault with the movements of which they were a part and adjusted their positions. Buckley criticized and distanced himself from the reactionary fringe of conservatism, the John Birch Society; Seeger left the Communist Party due to the excesses of Stalinism. Both men served in the military and thought that the Iraq War was a mistake, albeit for different reasons.

Each might simply have dismissed the other but it is comforting to think that the two, while they probably never met, could have had a cordial, spirited but civil discussion and then maybe jammed a bit; Buckley on harpsichord and Seeger on guitar. Their styles, mediums, and motivations were truly different but both men enjoyed the depth of ideas, enriched American lives by communicating those ideas, and were adept at listening and contemplating. For years on Firing Line, Buckley would allow those with whom he vehemently disagreed to have as much time as they liked to further their thoughts without interruption (and before an artful, urbane, and sometimes stinging rebuttal.) Today, Seeger peruses both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and wishes he could get writers from opposite ideologies into the same room since both have what he considers to be sound ideas. Both Buckley and Seeger believed in discourse and never would either have been so fearful or so exasperated with the other to tell him to "shut-up".

And so, while sideshow characters in today's circus of the absurd would disagree, American patriotism is ambidextrous.