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.
Well...my well-diversified portfolio and my children are going to support me when I retire. If I get any social security and medicare (which I doubt I will since they will be bankrupt before I retire), I'll consider it to be gravy. But I'm not counting on it.
As for you...I suppose that you can rely on the third world immigrants and the federal government...but its not a wise plan, in my humble opinion.
I am perhaps more negative on the consequences of our out of control immigration than you are. Yet, no one can accurately predict the future. Who knows, maybe the neo-cons are right. Don't let your trepidation of a bleak future stop you from moving forward with your life.
They vote Democrat because they associate the GOP with the massive thread from yesterday - which is again one of my main concerns with Buchanan - I really do hope the GOP establishment does everything it can do distance itself from him. Granted he's no longer a Republican (thank goodness) but people do associate the GOP with the attitudes expressed by Buchanan which is why the James Byrd ad during the 2000 campaign was so effective. It wouldn't have mattered unless people thought the accusation was credible.
What you said, derisively, was
If you are not "saying anything about racial superiority" then why do you find the idea that it is western ideals, and not western people, who hold together western civilization so funny?
The West is the dominant civilization in the world. There are ONLY two possible explanations:
2) We are born better than everyone else.
I know which one you believe.
Where I live and in many places that is very true. There isn't anything wrong with Spanish per se but we now have in many places a majority of people who cannot read the Constitution in it's original language or the writings of the Founding Fathers in the language they wrote them. I like the Spanish language but I also like and respect the English language ---I think the US should remain English speaking but it seems it may not.
Or do they only know or care about their own history, traditions and culture?
Many studies indicate that too many modern immigrants don't have a clue about America's history
I agree more immigrants need to be taught American history. But in the same regard, we need to teach AMERICAN children our nation's history.
White suburban schoolchildren do not know who Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin are. How can we hold these immigrants to a higher standard than we have for our own children.
If we are to assign blame, we must look to ourselves and our school system that is not doing its job.
First of all you should realize that the next generation regardless of the ethnic mix in America is NOT going to finance our social security as it is structured today. Actuarially it is doomed to failure without major reform. The only long term solution is to do what GW originally proposed before he got shouted down by the liberals, which is to introduce an element of privatization into the system and increase the percentage of privatization as time goes on. Even then, retirees in 15 years and after will never receive anywhere near the windfall their parents and grandparents got out of the system. That was a one-time event as are all pyramid schemes.
One thing people don't realize is that one of the fastest growing immigrant group is people over 60. It was stupid for anyone to believe the immigrants would abandon their own elderly. They don't ---they are bringing them here to get them on Medicare, Medicaid, and SSI. Also the immigrants will also demand their Social Security payments.
The other thing people don't realize is that the immigrants actually paying into Social Security are legal and have SS numbers ---they tend not to have anymore children than Americans do. Illegals get paid under the table and Social Security isn't taken out. The only people who can afford many kids are the welfare mothers.
Many of the Mexican invasion doesn't have a high school education and their kids drop out at a rate of 38%. They'll barely be scraping by for themselves and won't be too interested in paying for you. In fact many of our taxes now go to support them ----the county hospitals and schools and jails all along the border are requiring massive amounts of federal money just to keep them afloat. Federal money that could prop up the Social Security system instead. The border counties take in $4 or more of federal dollars to every $1 they collect from their tax payers to support the needed programs ----and that isn't likely going to change as more and more indigent people move in.
Just plan not to retire ---your payroll taxes are going to be needed and you have to plan to provide for yourself.
I think you will agree that the dynamics at work here are the political and economic conditions of the countries from where immigrants come from. Europe is relatively prosperous compared to the rest of the world. Thus, there is no pressing reason for a German to root up his family and start all over in America. Undeveloped nations, on the other hand, that have terrible poverty are more likely to have their citizens come to the US seeking a better life. Most of these nations, are filled with non-caucasians.
Do you or do you not accept that the Democrats pander to people based on race? Do you or do you not believe that those that vote for Democrats because they seem to support their freebies, help to further the leftist agenda? And do you or do you not accept that the Republican party is being forced to compete for those voters, thus creating an atmosphere where they also pander to them? Do you feel that this creates an atmosphere that is positive or negative for our political, educational environment, or even our culture?
Yes. Yes. Unfortunately, yes. And negative.
Still, can you think of any other race on the planet that is being demanded to relinquish their majority status other than the United States and European nations?
No.
We do have a problem. We need to limit immigration to people who are not known troublemakers in their own country, who can show a means of support in this country and other common sense ideas. Sensible limits should also be placed on the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country. [Illegals should be booted immediately.]
But I don't see how skin color could or should be used as a factor for determining policy.
If Buchanan is speaking on America's immigration policy as it relates to race, then it was HE that brought up the subject. Correct?
The assimalation of people into America has nothing to do with race but everything to do with our laws and values... What good does it do us to make this a racial thing when it is really about American Culture.
I agree.
Notice the welfare graph in the 90's ---the so-called decade of prosperity. We've only got markedly increasing welfare rates ---how can we be bringing in millions of more indigent people when we already have so many? When the Irish and Germans came, they had to work, there was no free health care or food stamp program for them to get on. There was also plenty of land to homestead ---that's gone now. So are all those jobs NAFTA took out of the country.
I disagree.
Our whiteness did not give us the Constitution. It was not the color of our skin that made America the first nation to have free elections. It was not our race that enabled America to survive, and prosper, with minimal interference from a central government.
It was the ideals, and the principles, EMBODIED IN THE PEOPLE who founded America which made this nation great.
If you think that our success was based on our race or the color of our skin, why are other caucasian countries [like in eastern Europe] so poor?
We definitely need to quit handing them out to people who don't belong here. We can not much longer provide for our own citizens much less the citizens of every other country. Mexico has as many billionaires as Germany ---let them start paying some taxes and have their own welfare programs. Illegal immigrants don't often make enough to pay taxes even if they were willing. But they qualify for food stamps and free health care.
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