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.
1. The population explosion in Latin America is over. Pat is out of date. Mexico will be at a replacement rate fertility rate in 10 years. Brazil already is.
2. I think it was the Wall Street Journal that had a piece that 25% of Hispanics in the US do not speak any Spanish. Some are now taking lessons
3. I was amazed to see in a poll of American Muslims (which I posted) just how upscale they are. A majority have incomes over $50,000 per annum, and about half are professionals. I suspect the majority of them will assibiliate rapidly, except maybe for a continuing hostility to Israel.
4. Whatever our immigration policies, the world demographic numbers are what they are. Pat may wish that folks had more kids, but in a free society that is the choice of the individual, not Pat.
As usual, Pat is not very careful with his facts. He lets the demons of his own mind get in the way of a dispassionate analysis.
I know that on immigration, he propose a total ban (for 5 years), to allow the current immigrants time to assimilate. It was a total ban, regardless of skin color. Pat does ask the question how quickly can an immigrant assimilate (i.e. developed vs undeveloped nations). But that's an issue of culture, not race.
Do you have any examples of racism??
I know that on immigration, he propose a total ban (for 5 years), to allow the current immigrants time to assimilate. It was a total ban, regardless of skin color. Pat does ask the question how quickly can an immigrant assimilate (i.e. developed vs undeveloped nations). But that's an issue of culture, not race.
Do you have any examples of racism??
I sure hope you guys aren't implying that ONLY white people have held this country together.
You all are beginning to sound vaguely like you're reading from the David Duke playbook.
Pat Buchanan's tax break makes no sense. America would be paying these 'problem people' to have more children- which means more poor blacks, more Spanish speaking children and a bigger mini-Hanoi.
I cannot see Buchanan desiring something like that. So exactly WHO gets his tax breaks?
[Does Buchanan bother to think through these things before he speaks?]
Correct, except they are getting less vague all the time.
Buchanan wants to put everybody on the welfare gravy train.
(/sarcasm for the sarcasm impaired)
Social engineering through whatever mechanism is collectivist.
Changes to help stay at home moms, and home-schoolers, private schools, etc.
Nope. Tax cuts are needed for everybody (except the ones who are getting special breaks under the current system and would pay more under a simple and fair system, of course).
Well, Pat does have half of that choice in his own family, and has chosen... [drum roll]... ZERO!
Hypocrisy seems to go well with his other traits.
What a fine demonstration of reading comprehension - hope you didn't pull a muscle.
I'd be REALLY interested in hearing how you gleaned this from either of our posts.
I don't believe there is much hope of that happening.
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