[BroJoeK]

Colorado tanker: "Wow, Joe, there's a blast from the past.
I'd forgotten about that little gem from Pat.
I never read the book, but I suspect I'd disagree with a lot in it."

henkster: "My nose crinkles up and my upper lip curls back when discussing Pat Buchanan’s notions of history.
His crimes are the type that led to the promulgation of henkster’s law."

I bought & read Buchanan's book the year it was published, 2008, so my memories of it today are quite vague.
But I did highlight and mark interesting passages, and just to pick one example, you'll note here that Buchanan is both historically accurate and interesting:

On Chamberlain at Munich:

"On October 2, Chamberlain wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 'I sincerely believe that we have at last opened the way to that general appeasement which alone can save the world from chaos'.

"To Western peoples, familiar with shuttle diplomacy, Chamberlain's journey to Germany may seem routine.
But as Graham Stewart writes:

'No British Prime Minister had ever intervened in this manner before.
Indeed Chamberlain had never been in an aeroplane before, let alone one making a trip to the heart of Europe. Chamberlain was to be the first British Prime Minister to set foot in Germany for sixty years.'

"Not all joined the celebration.
The Daily Telebraph was caustic and cunning: 'It was Mr. Disraeli who said that England's two greatest assets in the world were her fleet and her good name.
Today we must console ourselves that we still have our fleet.'

Duff Cooper resigned as First Lord of the Admiralty.

'This is hell,' Harold Nicolson said to Churchill, who muttered in reply, 'It is the end of the British Empire.'.
Listening in Parliament as Chamberlain was feted as the Prince of Peace, Churchill was heard to say in a sarcastic aside, 'I never knew Neville was born in Bethlehem.'

"On October 5, Churchill rose in the House.
'We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat,' he began.
'Nonsense!" cried Lady Astor.
Churchill continued with an address of great forboding:

'All is over.
Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness...
We have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Euroipe has been deranged and... the terrible words have for the time being been pronounce3d against the Western democracies: "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting."

'This is only the beginning of the reckoning.
This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless, by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we rise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden times.'

"Yet Churchill could not contain his awe and envy at Hitler's audacity and nerve.
On October 4, one day before his mighty address to the Commons, he wrote of Britain's need to replicate, 'the spirit of that Austrian corporal' who had bested the British statesmen at Munich..."

Yes, I do recommend Buchanan's book.
You will find all of it interesting, will agree with much of it, and what you disagree with will force you to think deeply about just exactly why.

So, having served on Homer's "staff" now all these years, I think I'll take my own advice and re-read, exactly what are the points Buchanan makes that I agree & disagree with...

[Hebrews 11:6]

I think I'll take my own advice

A practice too seldom undertaken generally to actually be a practice. Let us know your findings.

[BroJoeK]

Colorado tanker: "Wow, Joe, there's a blast from the past."

henkster: "My nose crinkles up and my upper lip curls back when discussing Pat Buchanan’s notions of history."

Picking up where we left off, I've re-read Buchanan's book up through the end of the First World War.
It's infuriating work, because so much of it is spot-on, but then he leaves out important data so as to emphasize his own points.

For example, in historical reality, the First World War was a war of choice for Germany, which first pushed it's Austrian allies to declare war on Serbia, then responded to Russia's partial mobilization with their own declarations of war against Russia and France -- simultaneous to full execution of their long prepared Schlieffen plan to invade Belgium.
But in Buchanan's telling, it was the Germans who were forced into war by... who...?
Why by those nasty Brits, of course, who sneakily failed to tell the Kaiser in advance that they would go to war to protect France.
But in reality, which Buchanan never denies, both the Kaiser and his General Staff full-well knew the Brits were pledged by 1839 treaty to defend Belgium.

And those Germans didn't care!
Quoting Buchanan:

[page 36] "Dismissing quibbles over Belgium neutrality, Moltke's nephew, who now headed the General Staff, declared, 'We must put aside all commonplaces as to the responsibility of the aggressor. Success alone justifies war....'

"...Warned that violating Belgium's neutrality could bring a British army across the Channel, Moltke told Tirpitz, 'The more English the better.'
A few British divisions could not stop the German juggernaut, and any British soldiers in France would be caught in the net along with the French, and unavailable for fighting elsewhere."

For Britain the options were: A). let Germany again defeat France as in 1871, also taking Belgium and Russia, becoming the undisputed dominant European power, or B). stand with France and Russia to defeat German aggression.

In Buchanan's words, here's what Option A would result in:

[page 62] "What would have happened if Britain had declared neutrality and stayed out?
The Germans would have triumphed in France as in 1870 or there would have been a stalemate and armistice.
The United States would not have come in.
No American or British soldiers and many fewer French and Germans would have died.
A victorious Kaiser would have taken some French colonies in Africa, which would have replaced one British rival with another.
The Germans would have gone home victorious, as they did in 1871.

"Russia would have been defeated, but the dismantling of the Russian empire was in Britain's national interest.
Let the Germans pay the cost, take the casualties, and accept the eternal enmity for breaking it up.
A triumphant Germany would have faced resentful enemies in both France and Russia and rebellious Slavs to the south.
This would have presented no problem for the British Empire.
The Germans would have become the dominant power in Europe, with the British dominant on the oceans, America dominant in the Western Hemisphere, and Britain's ally, Japan, dominant in Asia..."

Buchanan's argument, in a nut shell: let the Germans win in 1914.

So here we are, 100 years later, and are we better off?
I think so, but as they say, "it's complicated..."