Posted on 08/21/2006 9:08:47 AM PDT by churchillbuff
Unapologetically conservative and unfailingly provocative, Pat Buchanan has been firing from the right for most of the past four decades. In his new book, State of Emergency--out this week--the politician and omnipresent pundit confronts what he calls the immigrant "invasion and conquest of America." Buchanan, 67, talked with TIME's Jeff Chu about American identity, why conservatives will lose the culture wars and the rewards of being a cat lover.
The U.S. is in a state of emergency?
If we do not get control of our borders and stop this greatest invasion in history, I see the dissolution of the U.S. and the loss of the American Southwest--culturally and linguistically, not politically--to Mexico. It could become a part of Mexico in the way that Kosovo is now a part of Albania.
You liken the immigrant wave to the Visigoths who sacked Rome. Is that fair?
I'm predicting that America will no longer be one nation but more like the Roman Empire--a conglomerate of races and cultures held together by a regime. The country I grew up in was culturally united, even if it was racially divided. We spoke the same language, had the same faith, laughed at the same comedians. We were one nationality. We're ceasing to be that when you have hundreds of thousands of people who want to retain their own culture, their own language, their own loyalty. What do we have in common that makes us fellow Americans? Is it simply citizenship? Or is it blood, soil, history and heroes?
Your '92 Republican Convention speech put another culture war on the agenda. Who's winning?
It's not a battle of right and left but right and wrong. What do we believe about abortion? What do we believe about gay rights? The left has triumphed in seizing the heights of culture--the media, Hollywood, the academic community--and it's fiercely competitive in the political realm. I don't think someone of Bill Clinton's views could have been elected in, say, 1972. And we wouldn't be debating gay marriage in the 1970s. People would have said, "Are you insane?"
Do you think legal gay marriage is inevitable?
Traditionalists still have the upper hand, but there's no doubt which way the trend is going. And it is not going the conservative way.
Can conservatives win the culture wars?
Those of us on the right have been losing ground since the 1970s and '80s. Can we ultimately win? I think you would need a reconversion of the country to a traditionalist, Christian point of view--and I don't see that coming.
You ran for President three times, most recently in 2000. Will you again?
The American people have spoken on that issue. But I loved campaigning. Everywhere you go, people are saying, "Go, Pat, go!" It's like the NFL play-offs, and you're captain of one of the teams. But as [British politician] Enoch Powell once said, "All political lives end in failure."
How would you rate President Bush?
On some things--the Supreme Court, tax cuts--I give him an A-plus. On foreign policy, I give him an incomplete. If it doesn't improve, it's going to be failure. I don't believe interventionism is the way to deal with rising Islamic revolution. We're seen in the Middle East as an imperial power propping up corrupt regimes and giving Israel the wherewithal to do what they did to Lebanon. The President is widely reviled.
You sound a bit like Cindy Sheehan!
Anybody that knows Pat Buchanan knows we're not dealing with Cindy Sheehan here. [Laughs]
I was surprised to read that the animal-rights group PETA gave you an award last year.
I think it was most improved player! I've always been a cat fan, and my magazine ran a couple of articles saying, "Let's stop cruelty to animals." I've always been disgusted by that, even though I'm not a vegetarian.
I confess I always think Pat Buchanan seems to take things so seriously. What do you do for a laugh?
I read the newspapers. There's so much silliness and nonsense going on.
Thanks for noticing that my tagline is a RR quote. It's one of my favorites.
First of all, I am in no way advocating not "looking out for America first." I believe that looking out for America is the purpose of the WOT. It seems to be that many, including Pat Buchanan, fail to understand that very crucial aspect of the reality that is modern day America. We are fighting for our very existence, much like Israel. Second of all, the end of Israel is the end of the USA. Their enemies are our enemies - and make no mistake about it, after the terrorists destroy Israel, they're headed for us.
And we were not "drag[ged]" into wars "in any number of countries." We, the USA, made a concerted and conscious decision to liberate Iraq and Afghanistan for many reasons, namely the security of our own country.
Thirdly, although I respect RR to no end, perhaps his greatest (and one of his only) mistake was allowing the cesspool that is Hizb'Allah to thrive in Lebanon. Terrorism as we know it stemmed from the early 80's when Hizb'Allah's acts of terrorism went mostly unanswered. So, although isolationism sounds good in an editorial or in a speech, the reality is that isolationism is a death sentence for our country. We can chose to ignore our enemies and live a blissful life over here and await another 9/11. Thankfully, however, we have a leader who knows what is best for our safety. Isolationism will only lead to our destruction.
But I'm a little tired of the hysterical demonization of Mexican immigrants by nativists.
And you do make an interesting point about the state of civil society in Mexico - Mexico is exporting more non-Communist voters than Communist voters. Entrepreneurial people come to the US. I'll bet Calderon would have won by a comfortable margin had a million or so Mexicans been in Mexico instead of Texas and California on election day.
--"Fifty years ago, the Protestants of "North European Reformation culture" worried about the influence that the Roman Catholic immigrants from southern and eastern Europe would have on our nation."--
When the great "Second wave" of mostly Catholic and Jewish immigrants from southern and eastern Europe occured, roughly 80-110 years ago, the United States was still a young, robust, fast-growing nation which needed these people. However, nations are living things, and all living things age (as it needed the Irish, Germans and Nordics of the pre-Civil War first wave). Now, the United States is in the autumn of its years, it is slowing down economically, politically, militarily and culturally (not as badly as Old Europe, but we are getting there!), and can no longer absorb large numbers of immigrants. This is perhaps why so many wind up on welfare or in criminal gangs; there is, unlike the case of the european immigrant of 100 years ago, no longer real work for them to do.
We still have room for some immigrants, but they need to be pre-screened. We need to be selective. We need to secure our borders and screen applicants for residency using medical examinations, background checks, psychological profiles, English proficiency, sponsorship by an American citizen that will be held monetarily responsible for the applicant and the possession of useful job skills as entrance criteria.
How long would an American university survive, if they were forced to admit non-English speaking, grammar school dropouts and the criminally insane that they were forced to support forever should they fail to graduate them with a degree and find them gainful employment.
Think about it. That's just what the U.S. Taxpayers are being forced to do.
Non-English speaking, disease ridden, in some cases criminally insane illegal aliens, lacking any useful job skills or education are crossing our borders and we're forced to train and educate them or support them for the rest of their natural lives.
And that's what's wrong with Pat. He is describing something that is already over. If all immigration were to end tonight, at the stroke of midnight, the US would still become a majority Latino country, simply 15 years later.
Pat was right in 1965. But now, he's not offering solutions, just observations about something that already happened. The problem now isn't illegal immigrants, or legal immigrants; it's
without losing our own culture?
Pat has given us a blinding glimpse of the obvious. What do we do about it ?
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