It's evening in America, Buchanan says, and immigrants are to blame (Buchanan interview)

Fort Worth Star-Telegram | 1/03/2002 | Jeff Guinn (Books Editor)

[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.

[garbanzo]

But you didn't really answer the question - do you object to welfare in general - or just for foreigners?

[11th Earl of Mar]

How do you explain the fact that 'deprived' Russians don't have a much higher birthrate?

It must be the Siberian winters. Ever heard of shrinkage? [/seinfeld]

[FITZ]

I would like to see all welfare including the Social Security program, Medicaid and the rest shut down. But even if Americans choose to provide welfare for fellow Americans, they can't offer it to the entire world. All countries need to start taking care of their own ---Mexico isn't a poor country by a long shot, it's only a corrupt class that holds all the wealth and prevents a middle class.

[Torie]

When the Irish and Germans came, they had to work, there was no free health care

Actually, when they came, there wasn't much of a science of health care at all. It was a non issue. Doctors weren't even licensed until around the turn of the century.

[FITZ]

So yes----I really object to welfare for foreigners. We have enough problems as it is without bringing in more.

[FITZ]

There wasn't free housing or free food except the land given to homesteaders. That was a good program but the land is gone now.

[Torie]

All that yellow on the chart is mostly associated with old Anglo white people. The technology of medicine is running wild, and there are so many more toys to buy now, and many of them are high end.

[FITZ]

Not in my city ----there's almost no old anglo people here but we have a very high rate of Medicare and Medicaid and other welfare program use. Over one out of three children are born into poverty and 38% drop out ---often in middle school. I think most blacks and hispanics need health care as much as old anglos do. If anything it's the anglos who have secondary health insurance which isn't Medicaid if they do use Medicare.

[FITZ]

The blue is about as high as the yellow and probably represents many of the same people ----either way there's no way we can support those kinds of increases.

[DoughtyOne]

Your comments on the impact of economic conditions is valid.  And the comments on race are too.  Let me premise my comments by stating that my observations of recent trends with immigration (both legal and illegal), and the lack of assimilation and the pressures on our Constitution and governmental entities, leads me to seriously ponder our future as a nation.

I am not convinced that if things continue as they have in recent times, our system of government will prevail.  We are handing off trade decisions to institutions outside our control.  We are poised to hand off certain judicial decisions to the ICC.  We are adopting NGO's directives at the behest of the United Nations.  We are seriously considering dropping our borders and establishing a common currency that will see the end of our own sovereign and protected money.  These are not the actions of a government that wishes to adhere to our Constitution.  In fact, our government is clearly heading into unconstitutional territory.  When decisions are handed off to entities outside our nation who are in no way accountable to our voters, we have a problem.

It is my opinion that factors we have already discussed are contributing to a population which is made up more and more by people who do not understand the issues I am raising here.  They are more than willing to accept the Democrats "gifts" rather than protect the greatest gift our citizens have been given, self-determination.

When I raise the issue of race, I would agree that it is very close to going over the line, if not in fact doing so.  Frankly I may address the issue somewhat clumsily.  My intent is to ask that a significant portion of the people who immigrate to the US come from a like society and economic system.  I want them to value what we have here.  And interestingly enough, that generally means northern European nations.  The exception to this would be that small enough numbers of other nation's citizens be allowed to immigrate so that they would be, if not forced to assimilate, have to assimilate to exist.

We have made it so easy for people to come here, that they are flooding in to the point that they are changing us, not becoming a part of us.  As that trend continues there is a growing pressure to alter who and what we are as a nation, even to the extent of abandoning our forefather's ideals, documents and admonitions.

[11th Earl of Mar]

I do see a racial statement in his English/Zulu comparision. Of course it would be easier for prosperous English speaking Europeans to assimilate into America than non-English speaking black Zulu tribesmen.

But that comparision is ridiculous since neither the English or the Zulu's are lining up to get into America.

When the comparision is white, poor, non-English speaking Bosnians versus brown, poor, non-English speaking Latinos, Buchanan still favors the Europeans. Why?

[11th Earl of Mar]

I agree with nearly your whole post.

We have made it so easy for people to come here, that they are flooding in to the point that they are changing us, not becoming a part of us.

Agreed. But OURS is the responsibility to teach these people. A child does not learn good manners on accident. Neither will immigrants learn what is good, true and right about America without being taught.

And don't even get me started on 'public education.'

[WRhine]

But are you arguing that the government should only hand out stolen goods to proper citizens?

The better question is are you arguing that the government should knowingly hand out stolen goods to illegal immigrants instead of deporting them?

[duckln]

That was George's problem, and he was dumped mid vacation. But Russians aren't noted for walking around with their britches around their ankles after a polar dip.

[11th Earl of Mar]

lol

[DoughtyOne]

First of all, you and I disagree on the subject of Buchanan. I think you know that. I appreciate that you were willing to discuss these issues on the merits.

With the influx of illegal immigrants, I am convinced our agencies would be woefully understaffed to be able to process them in a proper manner, even if they did know who they were.

As for public education we're in total agreement.

[WRhine]

Agreed. But OURS is the responsibility to teach these people. A child does not learn good manners on accident. Neither will immigrants learn what is good, true and right about America without being taught.

That all sounds fine and well but first you have to get past the NEA and their entrenched collectivist agenda. Lots of luck on that. If they refuse to teach our own kids the true heritage and history of America how do can you expect that immigrants, who have their own multicultural baggage, will be taught anything about America's past.