Although I’ve been cutting back on subscriptions to second-rate (and worse) magazines lately, I’ve been sinking a couple of hundreds bucks into back issues of two worthwhile periodicals — Liberty and Chronicles. Both mags have fire-sales of low-priced archival copies underway. Loads of Bill Kauffman, Murray Rothbard, and other greats in the issues from the late ’80s and early ’90s. I bought ten years’ worth of Liberty (’87 – ’97) and about six of Chronicles (’89 and ’94 – ’98, though there might be a gap somewhere in there). Here’s the link for Liberty back issues. The ad for the Chronicles offer — back issues for $2 or $2.50 apiece — isn’t on-line, but you can find it in the current issue of the magazine (with McCain and Obama on the cover).

Of course, this stuff is of more than archival interest. This passage from a Thomas Fleming editorial in the September 1989 issue of Chronicles, for example, is if anything truer now than the day he wrote it:

… contempt for learning and principle has been communicated to the younger generation of conservatives who are hardly out of school before they have managed to write books on vast subjects that it would take an educated person several years to master and a “third generation conservative” at least a decade.

Far more serious than their lack of information church fathers, fundamentalism, the American Constitution, or nuclear physics is their more basic educational deficiency. … Since virtually none of the aspiring Buckleys have done postgraduate research or apprenticed themselves to a  decent newspaper, they are in the comfortable position of being able to adopt any opinion that is handed to them by their masters. So far from displaying the impudence and arrogance of youth, they are pathetically eager to ingratiate themselves with the influential editors and foundation executives who decree the rule on what is acceptable opinion. Only ignorance, vast and deep, explains the conservative about-face on globalism, immigration, the congressional role in foreign policy, free trade, and the welfare state.

Speaking of magazines, I should take this opportunity to urge any stragglers out there who have not yet signed up for The American Conservative‘s free three-month trial-subscription offer to do so. It’ll save you from having to buy back issues later!