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Pat Buchanan
2000 Reform Party Presidential Candidate; Author, The Death of the West: How Mass Immigration, Depopulation and a Dying Faith Are Killing Our Culture and Country
Answers to Written Questions from the Floor:
Q: Some feel that there might be a tinge of racism to your thoughts on immigration.
A: Usually I don't even respond to that kind of accusation. But the point is very simple. The American-born, native population - incidentally, that includes African Americans as well - have a birthrate that will not enable them to survive. It is true not only of the European nations, which are predominantly white, but also of Japan. People who don't want this discussed, smear, intimidate and silence you and convince the younger generation, which has been conditioned as soon as they hear the word "racist" or "homophobe" to respond, shout, boo and tune you out. That is the objective of cultural Marxism - to tear down the immune system of the West, so that opportunistic infections can come in and destroy the West. Unlike Leninism, which took power at the point of a gun, its whole objective - using "critical theory" - is one of constant attack on patriots and patriotism, on anyone who stands up for traditional values. But I am not intimidated. I've never been silenced. As you see on "Crossfire," I never shut up.
Q: Had you won the presidency, how would you have handled September 11 and the war on terrorism? Many people are concerned that the administration wants to expand the war effort beyond Afghanistan.
A: The president, Mr. Rumsfeld, General Powell, Ms. Rice and all of them have fought a just, moral, honorable war in an honorable way to minimize American casualties and even Afghan casualties. Three years ago, I wrote A Republic, Not an Empire. The Cold War was a war we had to fight; we didn't declare it, the communists declared it on us. They used subversion, terror, assassination, open war. They said they would bury us. So we had to fight it. We fought that war all over the world, and a lot of people died in Korea and Vietnam, died in open wars. But when we won that war, we should have returned to the traditional foreign policy given to this country by its greatest president, Washington: avoiding entanglements in permanent alliances and staying out of wars that are none of our business. We entered the 20th century as one of seven great nations or empires: the British Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire, the French Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the U.S.A. and Imperial Japan. Only one of those nations survived as the great nation that had entered the 20th century, and that was the U.S. In both world wars, the U.S. came in after most of the bloodletting had been done. Our casualties as a share of our population were smaller than other countries'. We were not destroyed the way they were. I have argued for a policy of disengagement from areas that are not viable to the national security of this country, from quarrels that are not our own, to let rich countries in Asia and Europe to carry the burden of their own defense.
I predicted in 1999 an act of cataclysmic terrorism on American soil. I said that after the act of terrorism, a man named bin Laden will be killed by U.S. Special Forces. Then, a few years later, some of his cells will get hold of a nuclear weapon and will detonate it - I use Seattle Harbor as an example. These things will happen unless we get out of conflicts and wars and adopt a policy like the Nixon Doctrine of 1969, where other countries have the soldiers to fight their own wars, and we are the arsenal of democracy that provides the weapons, but we are not a front-line, fighting state all over the world. I'm not a globalist. I don't believe in empire. We are Americans. We are not imperialists. I hope the president thinks long and hard before he puts an army into the field and sends it up to Baghdad. Saddam Hussein is an evil thug. He wants to have a dynasty and a legacy. He's got all these statues to himself all over the country. If he drops any weapon of mass destruction on the U.S., all that goes up in smoke, and I think he knows it. So I believe deterrence is the best policy.
Q: In Silicon Valley, we have quite a few immigrant technologists coming in with H-1B visas. Doesn't the U.S. win by attracting the best of the best? And how can mass immigration be cut, given the money, cheap labor and immigrant power interests that only want it to continue?
A: Seventy-five percent of the American population agree that legal immigration should be reduced, and about 95 percent think illegal immigration should be stopped cold. Ninety-five percent think that English should be the American language. So we have won the national argument. The point of that question is exactly right. The corporate elite wants an endless supply of inexpensive labor that competes with American workers and drives down wages. The unions want to organize the service workers because union memberships are declining, and here's a source of vast, new union membership, union dues, and more power for them. The Republicans see that the only way they can hang onto a majority is to try to gather the Hispanic vote. Since the Hispanics are, by and large, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Puerto Ricans and others who are poorer and depend on social programs, they vote to expand government. They vote Democratic, and if you're going to compete with them, the only way you can do it is by selling out your conservative, Republican base. We did get the fence down there along part of the border, and it's working, but that's not going to take care of the whole problem. You've got to keep at it, and I think the vast majority of Americans agree with us; we've got to find ourselves a new leader, frankly, who will stand up and say, If you don't do it, we're leaving your party. That's one reason I left.
Q: How do we get back to English as the official language and get rid of multilingual ballots? Are we more "e pluribus" than "unum"?
A: They voted in Arizona to make it the official language on all state documents. A court threw it out. We have a tough situation here. Seventy-five or 95 percent support immigration control, but we can't get it, because the elite people who dominate both parties don't want it. The only thing they care about in Washington is getting reelected. We know who pays the money for their campaigns. It's corporate power on one side, unions on the other. So, the politicians are beholden to the special interests who they think are more responsible for their elections than you are. As Ronald Reagan used to say, in order to make them see the light, we have to make them feel the heat.
Q: In the anti-globalization campaign, the far right and the far left have found themselves to be strange bedfellows in some respects.
A: Have you been to any Reform Party conventions? Talk about where the spectrum goes all the way around and meets. Depopulation, mass immigration, the assault on America's past and de-Christianization - it's tough for me to see how we win them at present. However, on globalism, the new world order, the sovereignty issue - I think we're going to win that. All over the world, there is this drive for globalization, as we see now with the introduction of the euro. These institutions won't have anyone fight or die for them. People will fight and die for America, for country, family, friends and faith. Who's going to die for Kofi Annan and the United Nations? They are elite people with no constituency other than their own elite constituency. So, when they cross some people's national interest, I think the people will rise up and tell them to get out of the country. With the Economic Union, when they have an economic crisis, some country's going to get up and say, Look, we're not going to surrender our monetary policy any longer to you. I think the British could defeat the euro. The Irish just voted against the expansion of the EU. Even Mr. Bush said we're not going to go with the international criminal court. We're not going to go with Kyoto. It didn't hurt him.
Q: President Bush said he may support bringing back food stamps for undocumented aliens.
A: Everybody should write to the president and say, You've done a great job on the war, but this is about the dumbest idea that's come down the pike. You cannot have both open borders and be a huge welfare state in which people can partake as soon as they get across the border. America was a place for people who wanted to come for work and opportunity. They didn't come for food stamps. The president's making a horrible mistake socially and politically. This can't be Bush. It has to be one of those other advisors in other departments.
Q: Benjamin Franklin said Germans would never assimilate, learn English or understand freedom. Irish immigrants once confronted "Irish need not apply" signs. How do your arguments differ from others' who've looked with fear at "unwashed hordes" coming to America?
A: That was Ben Franklin's statement about German immigration was taking place before the Seven Years' War. And the immigration stopped. There's no question that the German immigration population is completely assimilated into America. Folks don't even know that I have German ancestors. They are a European people who came here freely and legally to a country that forced them to assimilate, and they came to become Americans. This is true of the Irish as well, who took a lot longer to assimilate fully into American society. "No Irish need apply" was discrimination against the Irish, and that was wrong. But it did take many decades. New immigration is coming from non-Western countries: different cultures, civilizations and races. If you see the folks who have not fully assimilated yet, who are they? The American Indians and African Americans. We have not done as good a job as we should, but it tells us that certain groups assimilate faster and easier than others. The melting pot has worked over time. We also had a time-out on immigration, a moratorium from 1924 to 1965, when all the assimilation and Americanization took place. When I was growing up, 97 percent of all Americans spoke English as their first language. Of people who come from non-European places, the number was 16 million in 1960. It's now 80 million. We have the most difficult problem of assimilation we've ever had. I fear that what's happening in Europe - Great Britain breaking apart, Corsica seceding from France, the Basque country getting away from Spain, Northern Italy wanting to secede, Czechoslovakia breaking in two, the Soviet Union breaking into 15 countries, Macedonia wanting to break in half - could happen to us. This is why we have to get on with assimilation, teaching history, one language, controlling the borders.
Q: What are your thoughts on public schools and home schooling?
A: I not only think it's a safe alternative, I think it's a superior alternative. Who can better educate a child in its formative years than the parents that love it? Home-schooled kids are doing extremely well. Values are imparted as well as teaching. The public school system is a complete disaster. In some areas there are public schools that work, and the parents like them and want to continue them. But with public school, the whole idea of freedom and choice has got to be introduced: freedom for parents to send children to the schools they want children to attend and to shape the school they want. Mr. Bush has done a good job on the war, but when I see him up there with Ted Kennedy and Kennedy's the one grinning the widest, I'm inclined to think that the education bill was a lemon.
