In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
Half-a-century ago Firing Line celebrated it’s ten year anniversary, and explained the laudable purpose behind it: “Our aim is to get people who have something to say. They can say it on Firing Line without having to jump over roadblocks every few minutes. They can indulge their own styles of thought and speech. They can be frenetic or leisurely. They need only to watch their logic, and be prepared to examine previously unexamined deposits of prejudice, if they are burdened by them. Firing Line is devoted to the proposition that interesting people can be interesting through the course of an entire hour. Failures at this level have been very few. But then, to quote the buoyant observation of Harold Nicolson, ‘Ninety-nine people out of a hundred are interesting; and the hundredth is interesting because he is the exception.’”
Until next Friday.
