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 for the UN, in its current state no transnational government is possible and it simply isn't a concern that the UN will take over the world. At absolute best, the UN is much like the US was under the Articles of Confederation - and even that's a kind of historical stretch. My guess is that at some point, some successor organization based more or less along the same principles as the US Constitution will arise but not for decades at least.
You have a problem with democracy being spread around the world? If all the countries of the world shared the same democratic values what would be the problem with a global federation of sorts with constitutionally limited powers? As it stands today, other than having to learn a new language, there'd be no problem with me moving to Canada or most European countries.
And if my interpretation of history is wrong - then it might be a good idea to specifically point out where it is wrong. It's a simple matter of history to note that the first nation-states arose with the decline of the feudal systems and the rise of republicanism.
I hear what you are saying, but that is another reason I admire them so. What other group of people have the chutzpah to go out and do what is GOOD for them and say to hell with the consequences? How is it that they are able to further their own goals so succesfully when we flounder about like fish washed up on the beach?
They are able to do it because they are united, and they have goals.
Maybe we (Christian conservatives) should try to be a little more like that...
Amazing how you change the whites to blacks and blacks to whites in this paragraph and this sounds a lot like what black "leaders" in this country spout off unencumbered from criticism.
Do you Brits still place the eugenic loving pig Churchill high on a pedestal?
The Leilani Muir civil trial continued last week, with the court hearing evidence that eugenics and the forced sterilization of mental defectives enjoyed wide support in North America during the early half of the 20th century. University of Alberta law professor Gerald Robertson said Winston Churchill, Alexander Graham Bell and Tommy Douglas all advocated the improvement of the human race through eugenics.
-SNIP
Don't you think America's form of government, that of a limited Constitutional Republic, makes for a better export?
If you're fond of democracies, I suggest a sojourn to any of the Latin American 'Narco' Democracies south of our border...
Riddle me this...
“This is the first time in history that a major indigenous population has voluntarily become a minority, rather than through war, famine or disease.”
London Observer
by Andrew Browne,
“UK Whites Will Be Minority by 2100”
September 2, 2000
On this side of the pond, dear Ivan, we the people are the government. So the answer to your question is the American people decide.
Question 2: How will this "Americaness" (sic) be determined? You can be born in America, speak English as a native tongue and have an American passport yet be on "the other side" - witness Berkeley.
Since I and countless others believe that America has a rich and unique culture, those ‘on the other side’ are Americans in name only. I’m quite certain Sir Winston would have considered them for some eugenics study had they been British during the London blitz...
Question 3: What happened to the idea that the government should not play a role in social engineering? It didn't work when the leftists tried it, why should Pat be any more successful?
Since when is the acknowledgement and acceptance of our American culture ‘social engineering’?
I fear if I don't, he'll do a 'Churchill' on the carpet...
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