Posted on 01/03/2002 7:56:52 AM PST by sinkspur
Pat Buchanan is aware that potential readers of his new book already either adore him or disdain everything he writes "because I am the one writing it."
So in The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, $25.95), the ex-presidential candidate and conservative pundit is trying to back up his apocalyptic projections with facts and figures provided by such disparate sources as "Russian leader Mr. Putin, a British archbishop and the United Nations. By drawing on what anyone would have to consider neutral sources, this makes my message far more powerful."
The gist of The Death of the West's messages:
Low birthrates are decimating the population of almost every European country - by 2050, only one-tenth of the world's population (America included) will be of European descent.
The unchecked influx of immigrants into America, legal and otherwise, is gradually handing the nation over to insurgents who come to force their foreign values on us rather than accepting ours.
Political correctness on the part of unwitting Americans plays into the hands of those who intend to obliterate our culture.
The events of Sept. 11 may provide enough of a wake-up call, Buchanan says, to make "the death of the West" only a threat rather than a certainty.
"The book is about a point I've been making for a long time, that the West is dying," Buchanan says during a lengthy phone conversation. "If we don't change how we do things, we'll be gone by the middle of this century, if not before. The horror of Sept. 11, I think, awoke a lot of Americans to new realities. It's a healthy thing to remember there are people out there who want to destroy us."
In Buchanan's opinion, it took terrorist attacks on New York City and the Washington, D.C., area to drive that message home to an American public more intent on hedonism than heroism.
"The '90s were a time of prosperity I've likened to the 1920s," Buchanan says. "The '20s were about money, drinking, jazz. The '90s were money, drugs, rock. The '20s ended with the stock market crash, the Depression, then on to Hitler, Tojo, Stalin. The 1990s ended on Sept. 11. We're at the kind of place Walter Lippmann called 'a plastic moment,' a time when people can change their destiny. I hope this book helps that. I'm not so much predicting these awful things will happen as saying, 'This is what the end is if the numbers remain the same.' "
Not that he holds much hope: "To many American young people, people like me belong to a bad old era. They've been taught that in school, indoctrinated in it. They want to say goodbye to the way our generation did things. This is why I don't think much will be done about the problems we face."
Buchanan acknowledges he's saying things that most Americans would prefer not to hear and that many condemn as racist and inflammatory.
"My response is that it's too late in the day for political correctness," he says. "After Sept. 11, with those acts perpetrated by people we literally welcomed into this country, Americans ought to be aware there is such a thing as too much diversity, too much welcoming. Look: I've said that if you bring 100 Zulu tribesmen into Virginia and 1 million British, the British would be assimilated more comfortably. I base that on those British coming into an American culture based on English law and tradition. And when I said that, something that seems like a simple statement, I've been accused of racism."
Now, Buchanan says, "I could substitute Iranians or Saudis for the Zulu, and people might understand." And, he adds, originally citing the Zulus was in no way racist "because I'm friends with the Zulu ruler. It's just a matter of acknowledging the differences in culture."
Potential immigrants should be judged by one measure, Buchanan adds: "Are they likely to carry on our culture, which makes America a unique country and civilization? Or are they not?"
Population explosions in Islamic, African and Latin American nations are coinciding with a decline in the U.S. birthrate, Buchanan notes, citing U.N. studies. To bolster "American cultural" numbers, Buchanan concludes in The Death of the West, American women should be encouraged via tax breaks to increase the country's population: "A free society cannot force women to have children, but a healthy society can reward those who preserve it by doing so."
Though he doesn't broach the subject in The Death of the West, in conversation Buchanan is willing to also discuss his own future.
"Politically speaking, I ran two times for the Republican nomination," he says. "We came close in '96, and we'd have gotten it instead of [Bob] Dole with one more primary win. In 2000, we tried to create a new party. It didn't work. So my political career is probably over."
But Buchanan has no intention of abandoning public debate.
"I've done my best to say the things I thought necessary, and I intend to keep writing books and to keep speaking out," he says. "I love doing it. I hope the Lord gives me 25 more years. If people don't like me or my message, well, that's not my concern. Political correctness is almost an impenetrable shield of basic realities."
For education and discussion purposes only.
As is your wont, you're trying to change the subject.
The article I posted quotes Buchanan, extensively.
Trying to slander Guinn is kinda like...what you accuse others of doing to Buchanan.
Well, now that you know how to search, perhaps you can find that information about those Marxist organizations.
No, I just find abusrd the statement that ideals are what hold together Western civilization. Saying skin color makes the West great is also absurd, but I haven't see anyone make this claim. The anti-Pat group seems to have a large propensity to make strawman arguments.
To me it makes far more sense than the alternative, which is that there is some kind of magical fairy dust contained in white DNA that makes us superior.
I don't believe in fairy dust. Nature is usually very instructive, and if one "race" were significantly superior or inferior to another, then nature would not permit reproduction of hybrids. Think horses and donkeys.
In the modern world, race-thinking is always the basis of the lazy, inferior man's claim to superiority over others.
Boy, you really do like to read into things. Who ever said anything about racial superiority?
Just the opposite. Anyone who attempts to discuss the need for immigration reform on FR runs the risk of coming away with a confused expression & a swastika tatooed between the eyes, whether deserved or not.
This is exactly why I admire Jews so much They are very aware of their culture. They aren't afraid to speak out about and try to advance their culture. It would be nice to see some so called conservative Christians doing the same thing. The problem is that we (conservative Christians) are so fractured and individualistic that we refuse to work together toward a common goal. I suppose that our individualism is what makes us unique, but I am afraid that it is also going to be our downfall. We just can't seem to put our own needs / wants on the back burner long enough that we can work for the common good, not just for white conservative Christians, but for all Americans.
I've come to the conclusion that Mexicans, Muslims, or any other one group isn't the problem. It goes deeper than that. Our problem is that we have gotten away from America first polocies. Whether they be polocies regarding immigration, foreign aid, monetary policy, etc... Our politicians have sold us out, they only care about us as far as the next election is concerned. I don't see things getting any better, only worse...
You mean welfare, food stamps, tax credits, etc. aren't working?
Aren't you the snide one.
I believe that what Pat had in mind are larger tax deductions for dependents. If the $600 deduction of 50 years ago was adjusted for inflation, it would be at least $3000 now.
Where did I say anything about white people? It is Western people who hold together Western civilization. Westerners are mostly of European dissent, i.e. white, but there certainly are people of different backgrounds who have adopted the West and made themselves a part of it.
However, if you overwhelm Western civilization with outsiders, it will cease to be Western. It's that simple. There's no racism or doctrine of racial superiority invovled in this argument.
Once upon a time it was unequivically western. Your post illustrates Pat's points.
Try not to be so insulting to the rest of us, okay? We ALL know what you AND Pat are talking about.
"Outsiders"=non-whites.
You Pubbies get funnier every day...
Most of the witless neocons just shoot from the hip since they know they are shooting blanks but those who take carefull aim even though they know it is only noise are a real hoot.
Yeah.
Ever decreasing circles of wagons.
No longer a good read (and being one was all he ever accomplished . . seems long ago).
Just what is your point? I suspect that Pat would agree that it is wrong for employers to be hiring illegal immigrants from South of the border in preference to American Negroes who have been here for almost 400 years. That is pretty damn unfair, to say the least.
Of course, birth rates rise and fall. It is always a mistake to predict tomorrow's demographics purely from today's birth rates. Always!
I should not let pass your derogatory reference to American Negroes as "African Americans." That doesn't show a lot of respect for the many generations during which American Negroes have been here. It is also racially demeaning, in that it emphasizes ancient geography over blood lines. The term has been adopted by those who are trying to reduce us all into an undifferentiated ant hill. (It has the same insulting connotations as such terms as "Native Americans" in place of Indian or tribal identity, and "Appalachian" as a catch-all for people living anywhere in the Eastern Mountains of the United States.) These terms should be avoided by all who seek to improve relations between people based upon mutual respect and fair dealings.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
I merely say that it is one of the many factors involved.
In fact, every nation on this planet with a high per capita income (other than one associated with extracting oil from the ground), has a low birth rate, and most with middle of the road per capita incomes are joining the club
Why?
When the male is replaced by subsidies, good paying women jobs, the women become independent , get taken in by government sponsored feminization of the population. It becomes fashionable to not have a husband or kids. Germany and the US attempt control of families and family size by education , taxation, senseless late term abortion, and media male demonization to name a few. The result is to import labor.
How do you explain the fact that 'deprived' Russians don't have a much higher birthrate?
And blah, blah, blah. You didn't type this mental fart with a straight face did you? I am merely using the term which the aforementioned group (or at least a majority thereof) prefer. Do you use the term Negro these days in front of African Americans? I bet you don't.
Well don't bet the family farm on that. I always treat other races with respect. That does not mean that I do not have preferences. But I treat people with respect and fundamental fairness.
But I would be mighty interested in where you got the idea that most Negroes prefer the term "African American." Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, etc., speak more for the White Left than their own people.
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