Steve Sailer: iSteve: The Last Reasonable Man in America

October 20, 2011

The Last Reasonable Man in America

I review Pat Buchanan's Suicide of a Superpower in VDARE.

My old articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

120 comments:

dearieme said...: "Evidently, it takes a child to raze a village": warmest congrats - that deserves the Nobel Prize for quips.; 10/20/11, 3:22 AM
Steve Sailer said...: It's commenter Mr. Anon's line.; 10/20/11, 3:29 AM
Anonymous said...: The headline is apposite. Perhaps jet lag and vin rouge are making me more lachrymose than usual, but... Where is the next Pat Buchanan? And, where is ANY Pat Buchanan of the Queen's realm?
Gilbert Pinfold.; 10/20/11, 3:36 AM
dearieme said...: You did, Steve, you did.; 10/20/11, 3:43 AM
Anonymous said...: nuff said
MTV Casting Looks for Occupy Wall Street Protesters
http://goo.gl/Sv8Vg; 10/20/11, 4:33 AM
Anonymous said...: who will admit freely that his biases are tribal as well as ideological.
the neocons of course are only concerned with democracy and the welfare of the iraqi/iranian/syrian people!; 10/20/11, 4:37 AM
Anonymous said...: And, where is ANY Pat Buchanan of the Queen's realm?
That would be peter hitchens - read the "Abolition of Britain" -the "deth of the west" british style, and "Rage Against God"; 10/20/11, 5:00 AM
Carol said...: Proudest vote I ever cast, was for Mr. Buchanan in our state's primary in 1992.; 10/20/11, 5:19 AM
Anonymous said...: Gaddafi has apparently been killed.; 10/20/11, 5:36 AM
Captain Jack Aubrey said...: "To an old cynic like me, racial preferences for African-Americans seem to be unavoidable. But we can't afford to continue to lavish it on the ever-growing number of immigrants."

I don't believe they're unavoidable.

1) By eliminating preferences for blacks you force blacks to compete with immigrants for real jobs, and that means recruiting more blacks to our side in the immigration wars.

2) Why give racial preferences for the group that votes overwhelmingly for Democrats? I'd rather support preferences for 33% Republican-voting Hispanics than for 9% Republican-voting blacks.

3) You cannot eliminate racial preferences for any group without eliminating them for all.

Great review.; 10/20/11, 5:41 AM
Harry Baldwin said...: To see how much the Establishment Republicans and Establishment Media don't want to talk about immigration, consider once again Bai's New York Times article about Washington G.O.P. insiders' views on Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and other candidates. Although there are 7,179 words in the article, not a single word is "immigration." And Bai published this after Rick Perry blew his lead in the race largely over immigration.

. . . And in the most recent debate, when Perry brazenly accused Romney of having used a lawn service that hired illegals, it didn't occur to Romney to respond that under Perry, about 40 percent of the jobs created in Texas went to undocumented immigrants.

I would have loved to have seen the stupefied look on Perry's face if Romney had thrown that at him, but I guess it would have been rude.

I have a problem with the strategy of courting white firefighters, police officers, and teachers. Obama has really upped the ante by paying those people's salaries from the federal coffer, under his stimulus bill and his proposed Stimulus II. This is a terrible precedent for the federal government to pay government salaries at the local level. The fact that municipalities and states normally have to balance their own books, whatever it takes, is one of the few brakes on our national slide to total insolvency, and Obama wants to remove that. I never hear this brought up as an issue.; 10/20/11, 5:49 AM
Anonymous said...: "He wants to win arguments, but not suppress and personally destroy his opponents."

Well that's pretty stupid. Bringing a cornstarch biodegradable green friendly disposable knife to a gun fight...; 10/20/11, 5:55 AM
Conatus said...: It is my perception that the definition of the word ‘racism’ has expanded in the last 40 years.
It used to mean ‘Government mandated laws or regulations certifying one race as higher in the hierarchy than another.'

An example would be the Birmingham bus regulations where blacks had to sit at the back of the bus. Government-mandated regulations and government-enforced by threat of the government monopoly on the use of violence.

But over the years, the definition of racism has now been expanded to mean ‘merely noticing race and the statistics associated with racial groups.’ But the noticing only applies to whites.If you take the wrong turn off the freeway and you find yourself on Martin Luther King Boulevard you are not supposed to notice race and the stats associated with different races. If you get out of your car to ask directions and get mugged, you are not supposed to notice race.
That is the new definition of racism: whites noticing racial characteristics of other races.

The odd thing about the new definition of racism is it encompasses a double standard. If you are a minority you are allowed to notice racial characteristics all you want. You can talk about it at length, in the public forum, and no condemnation will come your way. However if you are white, even if you live in a jurisdiction that is a minority majority state you still cannot notice race.
Do these double standard rights come with being a minority? How long do they last? When whites are a minority in the country as a whole, in 2041, according to Pat Buchanan, will whites be allowed to notice race and racial characteristics, as all minorities do now?

We do not need a national discussion of race, we need a national definition of racism.; 10/20/11, 6:07 AM
Anonymous said...: facebook goes purple to support gays against bullying. But nothing about supporting white victims from bullying by 'youth mobs'.; 10/20/11, 6:31 AM
Anonymous said...: Interesting piece from Buchanan, as always.

Buchanan makes the right call on the so-called 'neo-liberal' globalist orthodoxy that has run (and ruined) the west for the past quarter century, I fear we are reaching an epochal moment just as the USSR did in the late 80s early 90s under the Gorbachev reign of error.
Yes, Pat is right.To start winning again to rediscover its roots the Republicans need to abandon the neo-con dogshit that Bush and McCain wiped all over the carpet and sart addressing the core constituency - Joe Blow, the white, working-stiff backbone of the nation, without whom things don't run - and who's being right royally kicked in the nuts right now whilst being trussed up and pinned to the ground.A big fat bull-dyke wearing a 'Democrat' button sits on his face whilst nasty little gang-bangers who haven't done a day's work in their lives line to take kicks.This has been going on for decades now.Alas, despite the calloused hands, big heart and beefy body, Joe Blow tormented by these insults is likely to give up the ghost a few years hence from now, and Jose from across the border mouth waters at the prospect.
Anyway the disaster of 'neo-liberalism' foisted by a political class weaned on the droppings of the useless knuts who write for the WSJ and Economist has run it's course.Back to old time Eisenhower conservativisim in which Mick Beefmen could buy a home and raise a family on his carpenter wages.
Neo-connery failed and failed disasterously, just like its counterpoint oviet communism.The irony is that the globalist, neo-liberal trash that is killing the west evolved as a reaction to the milquetoast socialism of Carter and Callaghan, mega inflation, oil shocks annd union tantrums of the late 70s and all that.
Out went the pinko milquetoasts and in came Thatcher and her steel gussets and B-movie star Ronnie Reagan - all advised by the rbid, manic round-headed Milton Friedman, the high priest of nasty dogmas.
The pendulum swung too far to the right methinks, and Ken Beefman was left out in the cold as the crporate boys (we must reward talent)grabbed all the loot - and left Beefman with a 1972 wage-packet 2011 college and doctor's bills and the little extra of picking up tens of millions of NAMs mortgage payments.
Buchanan speaks for Beefman!; 10/20/11, 6:32 AM
Anonymous said...: "But over the years, the definition of racism has now been expanded to mean ‘merely noticing race and the statistics associated with racial groups.’"

When GOP whines that Harry Reid is 'racist' for saying 'Negro', cons are no better than libs.; 10/20/11, 6:33 AM
Anonymous said...: Buchanan represents the best and worst of conservatism. He's like half-Mencken, half-Hitler.; 10/20/11, 6:35 AM
Anonymous said...: Buchanan complains of multi-culture but the divisions really began with counter-culture. Before it split culturally, it split generationally.; 10/20/11, 6:36 AM
DCThrowback said...: @harry baldwin

Reagan won those voters by turning them into values voters. Buchanan's argument in a nutshell - look beyond your station and life and look for the life of your children's children.; 10/20/11, 6:41 AM
Anonymous said...: Buchanan waxes romantic about a time when all Americans felt as one because they watched the same TV shows and so on.

But, in a way, that was the problem. Concentration of media power ensured that only one viewpoint got across. (This is still true today. Buchanan complains of excessive division in the New America, but my problem is too-much-conformity in thought thanks to media, academia, pop culture. EVERYONE seems to have the same values about 'racism', 'homophobia', 'xenophobia', 'sexism'. 85% of Americans now support interracism. Even GOP uses the same terminology as the Democrats, with key cons now arguing for 'gay marriage'. I would like to see more dissent and differences of view. Though some conservatives oppose PC, most simply go along out of fear, just as most blacks went along with the white-dominated system out of fear in the past.)

Had there been more diversity and balance in the media, there would have been a viable alternative right for a long time. But since media/academia came to be concentrated in the hands of a few, everyone got to receive one narrative on issues. So, Ken Burns' CIVIL WAR is civil war for most Americans. His JAZZ is the history of Jazz for most Americans. PBS is the source of all documentary history, along with History Channel, 90% of which is 'Hitler was evil and don't you forget it'.
Prior to the internet, there was only one viable intellectual Right, led by William F. Buckley and then hijacked by Neocons. If Sobran had the internet when he got dumped, he would have able to develop a following. But he didn't. He became a nobody. Internet had led to the fragmentation of the Right, but I see it as a healthy thing. Who wants a Right defined only by Rush, NR, Palin, and the likes of Romney, not to mention Bush II?

Also, Buchanan mistakes facade for reality. While it's true that America seemed more united in the 1950s if we go by movies and tv shows--where things seemed well--, reality was something else. There was a lot of alienation among blacks and non-whites. White youths were restless. Women were beginning to demand more freedom and opportunity. 50s conformity and unity wasn't completely a myth, but it wasn't organically real either. It suppressed real divisons and rages which were bound to explode like raisin in the sun. Similarly, old people in Russia may wax romantic about the good old days when everyone loved Stalin, felt unity, sang communist/patriotic songs, and etc. True, it seemed that way according to movies, music, and books of the time. But in reality, the Soviet propaganda hid a lot of unhappy and dark reality in the Soviet Union. Not everyone was happy to be a commie.

Buchanan was a privileged white guy in the 50s and seemed to think everyone else was happy because there was less social upheaval then. But it wasn't because blacks were happy but because they still feared the white man. But already, blacks were marching behind MLK and making new demands. Whose side was Buchanan on back then? Equality for blacks or keeping them down?; 10/20/11, 6:56 AM
Anonymous said...: Buchanan is a 'great guy'. Big personality, which made him so entertainting on TV, which is why broadcasting media kept him on. But, he's also the token Paleo. After he's gone, there won't be another like him. It will all be Tucker Carlsons. Media keeps him on because they know he's the last of a kind.
Also, Buchanan's role in government--Nixon and Reagan--and hims running for president simply made him a larger-than-life figure. Without those credentials, media would not have let him stay.; 10/20/11, 6:59 AM
Anonymous said...: "famously pugnacious in argument, but a gentleman who fights fair and feels the other side is entitled to its say. He wants to win arguments, but not suppress and personally destroy his opponents."

I would argue he's been FORCED TO FIGHT FAIR. With the Left controlling everything, he knows he has to invoke fairness because his side doesn't have the power to steamroll the other side.
Buchanan didn't grow up in the 'fight fair gentleman' mode but in the bullying-sucker-punch mode. In his youth, he believed in special power and privilege for whites. He thought media and government should 'unfairly' favor his side. He's been an avid fan of McCarthy all his life. McCarthy didn't believe in fighting fair. He called everyone a 'commie' and used government/political muscle to silence and blacklist people. There is a McCarthyite tinge in Buchanan. If Buchanan had been dictator of America since the 1950s, a lot of good things would have been preserved but also a lot of bad things; and a lot of good things would have been prevented from developing. Also, Generalissimo Buchanan would have all sorts of bullying policies to silence debate, expression, and etc in the name of Tradition, community values, Catholicist holiness, and etc. It was such allegiance to irrationalism which made the Right intellectually irrelevant.

Buchanan in his autobio says his brothers used to suckerpunch opponents. Buchanan suckerpunched a liberal at Columbia. Hardly gentlemanly. Also, his book UNNECESSARY WAR is the most ungentlemanly and nutty defense of Germanocentrism I've ever read by a mainstream writer. It's downright crazy. Having had Polish friends from whom I heard of their parents and grandparents experience in WWII, it is also one of the most repulsive books I've ever read. I don't believe Poles were saints, but to blame Poland more than Hitler for WWII is about as low as anyone can go.

With liberals and leftists dominating everything--and with neocons having taken over the Right--, people like Buchanan have little power left. People without power call for fairness and freedom of speech since it can be taken away by those in power. When whites ruled South Africa, Buchanan was for Afrikaner privilege. When blacks rule, Buchanan is for 'fairness' to whites. When whites had mastery over US, Buchanan was for white privilege. Now that whites don't control this country like they used to, Buchanan speaks about fairness. But Buchanan grew up supporting McCarthy and calling for censorship of ideas and views that were unpatriotic and violated 'community values'. So, there's an element of hypocrisy. He's no Ron Paul, who's been consistent on the issue of freedom and liberty for a long time. Paul of the Anglo-Western tradition. Buchanan is steeped in arch-Catholicism and dogmatism.; 10/20/11, 7:14 AM
Anonymous said...: "The crudeness of our public debate is matched by its incivility. In politics it is insufficient to defeat an opponent. One must demonize, disgrace, and destroy him."

Hmm, sounds like McCarthyism.; 10/20/11, 7:15 AM
Anonymous said...: "Buchanan's genial honesty helps explain why relatively few liberal Bigfoot journalists have piled on to the two decade-long neocon jihad against him. They are ideologically closer to Buchanan’s neocon detractors, but they know from personal experience that Pat is the better man."

It's because personality sometimes matters more than ideology. Buchanan's fun to be around with. Hunter Thompson felt the same way. Buchanan is like a crazy drinking buddy or crazy uncle. He's also a relic of another age. So, libs know he's the last of the Mohicans, so they tolerate him.; 10/20/11, 7:17 AM
Anonymous said...: OT:
"Chinese Students Lose as U.S. Schools Exploit Need"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-19/chinese-lose-promise-for-52-000-as-u-s-schools-exploit-need.html; 10/20/11, 7:21 AM
Anonymous said...: "clash of culture and creed are intensifying"

I wish this were true. Instead, I see rising interracism in all areas of culture, I see most white conservatives bitching about the evils of 'racism' and 'antisemitism'--try criticizing Israel on facebook with mainstream conservatives and they hiss that you're a 'Nazi'--, I see Kanye West videos on youtube getting 200 million hits, etc.

I look at facebook profiles of white kids in the most privileged high schools and their heroes are Lil' Wayne and Jay-Z. I drive around small town America and see so many white women at McDonalds with black men and mulatto kids.
Where is the white fight? Where is the white right? In the past, unity was maintained with non-whites trying to merge with whites--and with white ethnics melting with wasps. Today, whites are desperate to meld with non-whites. There is no visible white resistance. And black-brown tension is nothing like tensions between Anglos and Irish in the 19th century.

Of course, youth mob violence and such things do cause a stir, but there's far less political turmoil--despite the recession--now than in the past. Most whites gave up, and many are enthused about New America. Favorite movie among cons is BLIND SIDE or adopt a 300 lb Negro to show we're so anti-racist. And even National Review is gaga over Oprah.; 10/20/11, 7:24 AM
Anonymous said...: "An important element in Buchanan's good nature: he is one of the few pundits who will admit freely that his biases are tribal as well as ideological. Sportsmanship is one of Buchanan's defining traits."

There's a problem here. If Buchanan believes he has the right to be tribal about his whiteness, German-Americanness(to the point of sickeningness in UNNECESSARY WAR), and Catholicism, why shouldn't others be just as tribal in their Jewishness, gayness, blackness, and etc?

Also, Buchanan's sometimes even divisive for the Right. UNNECESSARY WAR made sense up to the point: in retrospect, UK and France should not have declared war on Germany in 39. It sent Germans marching westward. He made this point in REPUBLIC, NOT AN EMPIRE, a book I rather admired. But with UNNECESSARY WAR, he goes much further and blames OTHERS more than Hitler for the whole mess. The book is not only ludicrous, but it's the sort of thing that has divided the Right since the end of WWII. Germanophiles, even if not necessary pro-Nazi, have made excuses and apologies for Hitler. Given the hellish memories of WWII among many Europeans, this hasn't been a viable way to develop a pan-white unity except for neo-nazi nutjobs and skinheads who are an embarrassment to the Right. My Polish friends who used to be fans of Buchanan now hate him.; 10/20/11, 7:32 AM
Anonymous said...: "Unlike so many others, however, Buchanan has emerged from all those years and all those conflicts wiser, more judicious, more empathetic, more broadly informed, and more principled."

This is half-true, but losers learn the value of humility. Buchanan, as outcast and cultural loser, knows what it's like to be castigated and denounced.; 10/20/11, 7:34 AM
Anonymous said...: ROMNEY DID MENTION THE ALIEN JOB GROWTH IN TEXAS:

An exchange between Perry and Mitt Romney went:

"ROMNEY: With regards to the—to the record—to the record in Texas, you probably also ought to tell people that if you look over the last several years, 40 percent, almost half the jobs created in Texas were created for illegal aliens, illegal immigrants.
PERRY: That is an absolute falsehood on its face, Mitt…
ROMNEY: It's actually—it's actually...
PERRY: That is—that is absolutely incorrect, sir.
ROMNEY: Well, take a look at the study.
PERRY: There's a third—there's been a third party take a look at that study, and it is absolutely incorrect. The fact is, Texas has led the nation in job creation..."; 10/20/11, 7:44 AM
Anonymous said...: Steve, you wrote "...Lewis' article...", then "...Lewis's reporting..." A balanced approach, indeed!; 10/20/11, 7:48 AM
Anonymous said...: "Buchanan laughingly quotes Dan Quayle telling the Japanese that "diversity is our strength.""

In terms of social cohesion, no. But in variety of music, food, innovation(Japan has no Jews), ideas, books, etc, Yes. If US were all Anglo-American, it could culturally be like Canada.
Idaho is culturally more homogenous, but what came out of there culturally, intellectually, or etc? NY, SF, Chicago, and LA have been centers of American creativity and innovation.
The problem of places like Detroit is lack of diversity. It's all black.

There is a price to pay with diversity. Also, not all groups are good at everything. Jews are good at ideas and innovation. Blacks are good at sports and music. Mexicans are good at menial jobs without complaint. Asians are good at being office drones If the balance is right, they can all be a plus. But an imbalanced diversity--too many blacks, for instance, can be a minus.; 10/20/11, 7:49 AM
Anonymous said...: Japanese homogeneity is a strength but it wouldn't hurt Japan any to have some non-Japanese with the guts to stand up and complain about what's wrong with the country. They are all such sheep.
Besides, much of the ideas and technology that made Japan rich originated in the diverse world of America.; 10/20/11, 7:50 AM
Anonymous said...: "After thirty thousand interviews, Putnam concluded that ethnic and racial diversity devastates communities. In diverse communities, people not only do not trust strangers, they do not trust their own kind. They withdraw into themselves, they support community activity less, they vote less."

There is a good deal of truth to this, but I wonder if that's the main reason.
Whether a community is or isn't homogenous, there's been more atomization of cultural and social consciousness. Boys wanna be boys with their toys than grow up and get married. Girls want the Sex and the City lifestyle.
Pop culture is about pimps, hos, thugs, punks, weirdos, and etc. This is as true of Black Metal as of Rap. Japan is homogeneous, but entire generations have grown up as videogame freaks, pachinko freaks; many don't get married, and after work, slink away into their own little space.
With rising expectations, people want the perfect partner in marriage, but rising freedom has also made many people more slovenly and unattractive.
Black communities are homogeneous, but no longer led by middle class elders but by thugs and hos.

I live in a mostly white community, but I don't see most unity. Everyone likes to do his or her own thing. They wanna be left alone and leave others alone. The group that seems to be most cohesive, ironically enough, are gays. I see LGBT signs all over libraries. A neighbor hung a gay flag outside the house. It's all over schools. When I took a trip to Madison Wisc 5 yrs ago and biked around Lake Menota with nice homes, nearly every house had a pro-gay sign outside. I think they were voting for something. So, the gay agenda seems to serve as the new cause of unity, even for people who are not gay.; 10/20/11, 7:59 AM
Anonymous said...: In a way, diversity is the reason for people bowling alone. But the other reason could paradoxically be the loss of true diversity--with it being replaced by a generic pop culture homogeneity and political correctness that make people listen to the same music, watch same movies and tv shows, spout the same nonsense, but aren't powerful enough to really form a united community.

In some ways, American was more truly diverse in the past. Take NY. It was more a mosaic of different ethnic groups: Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Jewish-Americans, German-Americans, Anglo-Americans, Polish-Americans, Catholic-Americans, and etc. Due to this diversity and differences, there was more ethnic conflict among groups back then. But each community was more cohesive. Italian-Americans felt part of the greaseball community. Irish-Americans still felt a connection to their potato munching ancestors with horridly pale skin. So, even if different groups didn't always get along with others, people WITHIN a specific community felt part of that community and developed a tribo-civic sensibility. Sometimes, this civic feeling could be half-criminal, as among Italian-Americans with the mafia and stuff. But even so, when we watch stuff like GOODFELLAS, there is something more than 'me' but something like the 'we'. When the fellas steal and loot, they make sure to give a piece to Paulie. It's a kind of civic-gangsterism. But in GOODFELLAS, as the 60s rolls around, Henry is into Rock music and hip culture. He feels less Italian. He disobeys Paulie and sells drugs. He drifts apart from the community.

With the rise of greater homogeneity due to mass media, education, and culture, there's been less true diversity along ethnic lines. Italian-Americans married Irish-Americans married Polish-Americans married Jewish-Americans married Chinese-Americans married Anglo-Americans, etc. Though a larger community has been created as a result, it's likely to be less cohesive than communities had been when US was more divided and diverse along ethnic lines. I've had Greek-American and Arab-Americnas friends but what connected us was love of Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Dylan, movies, etc. Outside those cultural references, there's little to really unite us--even though I read books about Greeks and Arabs. Though I may know more about Greek history than your average Greek, it still doesn't make me part of the Greek-American community. I once went to a Greek Orthodox church meeming with my Greek friend. I felt like an outside, but I could see sense of community one doesn't see in the sphere of pop culture or political correctness.

The fun thing about Mike Royko's columns was their culture-specificity. He reminisced about times when there were strong divided ethnic communities in Chicago: how each group maintained its cohesion even as they became 'Americans' and about how the viewed other groups with equal measure of hostility, derision, amusement, sympathy, envy. With rising homogeneity via PC and pop culture, Americans have gained greater generic unity at the loss of more specific cultural/ethnic unity when things had been more divided and diverse.; 10/20/11, 8:19 AM
Anonymous said...: Italian-Americans used to bowl with Italian-Americans, but feeling less ITALIAN-American, they don't even bowl with other Italian-Americans.; 10/20/11, 8:19 AM
Anonymous said...: I'm not sure GOP can make gains with big city firemen and the like. Those districts are so Democratically dominated that it's almost beside the point.; 10/20/11, 8:21 AM
Anonymous said...: I think Buchanan would have felt most at home as a samurai in feudal Japan.
His penchant for rigidity of code, martial spirit, emphasis on proper form(Catholicism), tradition, repressioned passion, ferocity, sense of honor, etc make him seem at times more Oriental than Western. But he also has an intellectual and candid streak. He reminds me of the character TANGO in Kurosawa's RAN. Loyal to the great-horrible lord to the end but courageous enough to stand up to him when he's wrong. Similarly, Buchanan seems loyal to the GOP which dumped him long ago.; 10/20/11, 8:31 AM
Anonymous said...: "...it didn't occur to Romney to respond that under Perry, about 40 percent of the jobs created in Texas went to undocumented immigrants. I would have loved to have seen the stupefied look on Perry's face if Romney had thrown that at him, but I guess it would have been rude."

Actually, I think he did say that, or something similar. Romney stated that Texas's illegal immigrant population had climbed by 60% over the last decade.

What stunned me is that Perry has yet to call Romney on his claim that he signed an order to locally enforce immigration laws. Romney only signed it in his last month in office, and it was never enforced.

Perry's problem is that he comes across as a complete idiot. He knew from the very beginning his pro-illegal stance was a problem, but he goes into debate after debate unprepared to address it. Romney and Santorum have both gotten the better of him on the matter.

Now that Romney's on the offensive on enforcement, it would be nice if we could get some commitment from him, by asking what he'll do to enforce the laws if he's elected.; 10/20/11, 8:32 AM
Spread Eagle said...: There's a lot to like about Pat Buchanan, but rightly or wrongly the anti-semite label attached to him decades ago, and his career and overall effectiveness was thereby diminished.; 10/20/11, 8:33 AM
Anonymous said...: But whiskey says Pat is bad because he is not pro Israel. Plus Pat just doesn't get it that we have to clean out Yemen to prevent the next 9-11.; 10/20/11, 8:37 AM
Captain Jack Aubrey said...: From the New York Times Matt Bai article: "What more pragmatic conservatives like Kristol are trying to do...:

I really, really would like to know: in what way is Bill Kristol a pragmatic conservative? The mans's for unlimited immigration and invading every Muslim country in the world. I'd like to know how that makes him a pragmatist. Why does this man have so much influence on the party, and why do people care what he has to say?; 10/20/11, 8:46 AM
Kylie said...: From Steve's review: "He[Buchanan] wants to win arguments, but not suppress and personally destroy his opponents."

I can't imagine anything nicer, if the argument in question were being waged in a gentleman's club in England circa 1890.

But against an opponent like Obama, who famously, if metaphorically, said in reference to Republicans, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun", it's of limited use.

Even more troubling, it often seems that people who share Buchanan's view of argumentation spend more time trying to avoid suppressing and destroying their opponents than they do winning the argument.; 10/20/11, 8:49 AM
Bill said...: An important element in Buchanan's good nature: he is one of the few pundits who will admit freely that his biases are tribal as well as ideological. Sportsmanship is one of Buchanan's defining traits. He's like a wise old Notre Dame fan who has no illusions that the Fighting Irish are more cosmically deserving of victory than the other football teams. But they're his team. Thus, he can discuss with perfect objectivity the prospects of other teams because he isn't the puerile kind of fan who furiously argues that his team should win. He just wants them to win.

It is bracing to see how beautifully you write what is true.; 10/20/11, 9:26 AM
Anonymous said...: Buchanan is very confused about
'Christianity'. He of course means cultural Christianity: one that historically, culturally, and tribally defined the West as either unique or superior to other peoples. Spanish Catholics, for example, used Christianity as justification to rule over brown heathens, not be to be equal with them. Brown heathens in Latin America were converted, but the historical fact that morally/spiritually superior European Christians brought the faith to savages served as the justification for white power and privilege.

But there is another kind of Christianity other than cultural Christianity. It's credo-Christianity. Credo-Christianity says good Christians must follow the spirit of Christian virtues to the letter. If Fundamentalists literally believe every letter of the Bible, credo-Christians literally embrace the spirit of Christianity. Credo-Christians don't have to be religious; many are secular or mainline Christians with willy nilly concern for dogma. But in spirit, they are more into Christian virtues of universalism, equality, tolerance, guilt, etc. It's gotten to the point that a 'good Christian must love and forgive gays too'.

Catholic church used to be more cultural-Christian, but it's now more credo-Christian. It's browning faster than secular Europe. If anything, by supporting immigration, demographic globalism, and moral universalism(and white repentence for past sins), it's the leading the way of de-whitening of Europe. Even before Europe has non-white leaders, Vatican is likely to be have a non-white pope: African, Latin-American of Indian origin, Filipino, or Chinese.

Christian missionaries also go all over the world and lobby Washington for more aid to Africa. Many of them sponsor African and Haitians refugees to America. After the Haitian earthquake, Christians were the first to go down there and call for more aid.
Christians are addicted to moral supremacism. They look for any opportunity to act holier than thou. Buchanan plays this game too, with his opposition to abortion when abortion has been helpful in keeping underclass non-white numbers down.

It was the black Christian community led by MLK that most effectively challenged and undermined white America. Black communist atheists did far less damage to America than black Christians. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Jeremiah Wright have all used Christianity to morally bully white America.

Christianity is a great religion, and it can teach us lessons on humility and sacrifice and suffering. But it can also lead to moral hubris, holier-than-thou moral bullying, and radical universalism and egalitarianism.

Buchanan should know there is more than cultural Christianity. It was credo-Christians who led America into the Civil War.; 10/20/11, 9:37 AM
Mercer said...: "Republicans need to offer Reagan Democrats something in exchange."

They need to offer something to the non wealthy period. Embracing someone like Cain, whose plan would raise taxes on people making less then 200k, shows a party that cares more about not being called racist then about the economic plight of ordinary Americans.; 10/20/11, 9:40 AM
Anonymous said...: It's commenter Mr. Anon's line.

No it isn't. It's Mark Steyn's line. From 2004.

http://www.steynonline.com/4046/king-arthur; 10/20/11, 9:48 AM
Anonymous said...: "Buchanan's genial honesty helps explain why relatively few liberal Bigfoot journalists have piled on to the two decade-long neocon jihad against him."

Indeed. Buchanan was the only one in Nixon's administration that Hunter Thompson liked.; 10/20/11, 10:04 AM
V.I. Kristol said...: "He wants to win arguments, but not suppress and personally destroy his opponents."

Bring up the name "Ron Paul" or "Pat Buchanan" with any neo-con and you'll usually encounter a visceral, irrational and fathomless hatred even from normally the otherwise well spoken or educated.

This near uniform zealous burn-em-at-the-stake our-enemies-must-be-crushed-not-merely-defeated attitude of neocons is both alarmingly reminescent of Lenin and explainatory in tracing how they captured the much larger mainline GOP. Gentlemen don't win back alley fights.; 10/20/11, 10:15 AM
RKU said...: Hmm... Isn't "diverse" Vallejo actually the second most heavily black city in California after Oakland? And hasn't Oakland also been on the edge of bankruptcy for the last couple of years, with huge layoffs in the police department during a massive crime wave?

Maybe there's "diverse" and there's "diverse"...; 10/20/11, 10:18 AM
Dutch Boy said...: The weakness of Buchanan's analysis is that wealth is not being distributed downward - it is going upward to the wealthy. That is why the Republicans will never follow Buchanan's prescriptions. Their wealthy backers benefit from the current system, it is the middle class that is getting the shaft.; 10/20/11, 10:20 AM
map said...: I really enjoyed your article at Vdare.

I think what you are basically saying is that the Republicans need to focus on a white, machine-based politics, not on balanced budgets and small government.

The white middle and working class goes unrepresented. Republicans should step up and reward their loyalty, address their grievances and punish their enemies.; 10/20/11, 10:33 AM
Anonymous said...: Obama has really upped the ante by paying those people's salaries from the federal coffer, under his stimulus bill and his proposed Stimulus II

This is also dangerous from the standpoint of AA, as soon as the police, fire, EMS, and teachers start becoming dependent on Uncle Sam, this is the beginning of the end. How long will it be before DOJ starts putting the screws to any local government that doesn't have "proportional representation" in the ranks of firefighters and teachers? Has Steve would say "Diversity Uber Alles"; 10/20/11, 10:34 AM
Anonymous said...: "Where is the next Pat Buchanan?"

You are reading his blog right now.

"And, where is ANY Pat Buchanan of the Queen's realm?"

You guys had Enoch Powell, for starters.

Nick Griffin is superior to Buchanan in a way, since he built an organization which regularly runs Nationalist candidates for office. Unlike Americans, you at least have the option of voting against the anti-national parties.

Althouth the, er, Reagan Democrats, might not want to admit it, Ian Paisley is an admirable example of tribalism. Ulstermen are just about the only White Protestants in the world who are willing to take their own side in a fight. London is well on its way to becoming Londonistan, Dublin might become Dublinistan one day, but I've got a feeling Belfast will never be Belfastistan.; 10/20/11, 10:35 AM
bummin around said...: @Harry Baldwin: Romney did throw that number at Perry a couple of nights ago at a debate; Perry came back with "that's incorrect, an independent study said .." [[<- paraphrase, not Google-able]], and the two of them got into a close-in fight with no further info coming out. NPR gave a snip of it (don't know the show). Imo, Perry probably successfully blunted it, turned it into just another disputable statistic.; 10/20/11, 10:38 AM
Gabe Ruth said...: Great review. The story of conservative purges needs to be shouted from the rooftops, because to the extent that most people under 30 have heard of it at all, it has been misunderstood or distorted. Paul Gottfried annoys the hell out of me, but he is very vocal about the villains of this story (I'm not sure I've ever read anything by him that didn't meander into this issue).

I think the main problem is that NR started as a vehicle for ideas, and when the ideas gained traction and the magazine shifted into a political power broker, the changes that followed in content were not widely understood (by readers or writers, who imagined themselves as carrying on a noble tradition). If the goal is electoral success, it's difficult to fault NR (at least until they started buying their own BS on immigration). If the goal is an informed readership, they are a little lost. When you have electoral propaganda being consumed as a worldview, drift is inevitable.

The irony is that they take their (false and incoherent) political orthodoxy so seriously ("epistemic closure", anyone?). Those who call them on it from the left are even more ridiculous though, not only because the door to the right is the only one that is locked for neocons, but because there is an angry, marginalized left as well.; 10/20/11, 11:21 AM
Anonymous said...: "Third, and most fundamentally, diverse people, by definition, want diverse results—so they are more likely to wind up at loggerheads than a homogenous people."

This is far and away the biggest problem I see right now. Democracy is difficult when I want my children raised as strong Christians and everyone else wants them raised to be SWPLs at best and communists at worst. How can I form a community with them when we can't even agree on the meaning of life?; 10/20/11, 11:46 AM
NOTA said...: Conatus:

Calling someone a racist (or inferring their racism from some convoluted chain of logic based on their words or actions) is simply a form pf poisoning the well in a discussion. Most people will, when so accused, become defensive as hell and drop all other discussions to clear their name. Many people will simply stop listening to someone once they start hearing "X is a racist.". So, its a debating technique. (A parallel case, though not as powerful, is to accuse people of being unpatriotic or anti-American for opposing yet another pointless war. And of course, it's always a good time to accuse an opponent of anti-Semitism for opposing more aid to Israel.)

Once you understand these techniques, they start to lose their emotional impact on you, but they still work to undermine your position in a discussion. One way around that is to embrace them, like Jared Taylor. But that only works if you actually do embrace them, and the usual extension of the attack is to map the worst possible beliefs onto the guy you're smearing, till the target of the smear becomes a Nazi who is already planning out the gas chambers for his society's ethnic undesirables.

The best answer I have for this is to call it out when it hsppens, and to try to make arguments that work for smart rational people who are hard to distract with smears.; 10/20/11, 12:35 PM
Whiskey said...: Excellent article Steve. You keep getting better and better.

One quibble -- I do think that while the OWS lunatics are outside the median, most young people love diversity (read: anti-White guy stuff) and a critical support for diversity is young White women, not the least of which as junior partners they find themselves raised up (over icky beta males) and diversity is a good sorting mechanism for studs and duds.

Plus there's the freak-show side of female culture today (radically different from women of say, twenty years ago). Reality TV with non-stop freaks appeals to women for whatever reason, and diversity provides a non-stop freak show.; 10/20/11, 12:53 PM
Anonymous said...: What's your take on latest study in Nature finding massive variability in IQ over teenage years, accompanied by MRI-indicated brain changes? How does it fit in with human biodiversity?; 10/20/11, 1:11 PM
RS said...: Anon, that's interesting. --Though the lower stability of IQ before age 18 was already known. In those individuals whose scores declined, cognitive power may have been diverted to areas other than general intelligence. Such as social powers (including those related to courtship), powers of physical combat, and so on. These sorts of cognitive abilities - one may very justly assume - affect fitness roughly as much as intelligence does.

Personally I have modest social insight, but I lack other traits of aspergerism ; I've long wondered whether a few mL of tissue that normally govern this insight have been diverted, in my case, to general intelligence - by one or more alleles, or even by environmental cues.

One professor commented that "the brain is clearly, at least in the teenage years, more plastic and amenable to change"...

I think the words plastic and amenable are a bit strong, inasmuch as they (sort of) imply that we can (at least partially) control what changes occur. That much is far from having been demonstrated by this paper, and so far the many attempts along those lines have all failed to impact IQ (once the subjects are adults). It is of course possible - I would say likely - that these changes are wholly or almost-wholly genetically determined, as so many biological changes are.; 10/20/11, 1:49 PM
RS said...: > Besides, much of the ideas and technology that made Japan rich originated in the diverse world of America.

However, 97% of those innovations came from Whites (including Jews)... who also invented extremely large amounts of stuff in Europe in the days when Europe was 98% White.; 10/20/11, 1:52 PM
Harry Baldwin said...: @Harry Baldwin: Romney did throw that number at Perry a couple of nights ago at a debate; Perry came back with "that's incorrect, an independent study said .."

Okay, I must have missed that. Since Perry has nothing to say but "let's drill for more oil" and "look at all the jobs I created," I thought the evidence that a large chunk of those jobs went to illegals would shut him up.

When I first saw Perry, a few months before this campaign started, I thought, "Wow, this guy would kick Obama's ass!" Now that his cockiness has been replaced by desperation, he looks like a loser.; 10/20/11, 2:07 PM
Carol said...: cognitive power may have been diverted to areas other than general intelligence.

Gee, you'd almost think that a high-IQ adolescent would be wise to apply himself to substantive academic subjects, while in high school, so as to capitalize on a promising IQ. As opposed to screwing off until college, because he doesn't like math or science, and anyway academics are not relevant, and stuff.; 10/20/11, 2:24 PM
RS said...: > London is well on its way to becoming Londonistan, Dublin might become Dublinistan one day, but I've got a feeling Belfast will never be Belfastistan.

Thing is, Belfast can't control her own fate, to a reasonable degree, alone. Not enough power. 1 M or 50 M Whites won't be able to control their fate. The number's more like 200 M, whereas we now have 1 B.; 10/20/11, 2:27 PM
Anonymous said...: It's kinda ironic. Buchanan grew up with GOP as his home and he likes the idea of HOME.
Jews have been defined by wandering and exile, and GOP was the bastion of wasps and conservative Catholics.
But GOP is now the home of Neocons, and Buchanan has been exiled from it. Neocons run the homebase of conservatism, and Buchanan is the wandering conservative in exile.

In a way, there were two kinds of Jewish immigrations. The historical one of arriving in the US and taking over the power.
But also the ideological immigration of former-leftist Jews being exiled--or choosing self-exile--from the Left community and arriving in the new promised land of conservatism. But just as Hebrews took over the promised land from the Canaanites, Neocons took the GOP from Buchananites.; 10/20/11, 2:32 PM
Anonymous said...: It's no wonder Buchanan identifies with Palestinians to some extent. What happened to him by neocon settling of GOP happened to Pallies by Zionist settling on Palestine.; 10/20/11, 2:33 PM
Simon from Ulster, in London said...: anon:
"Althouth the, er, Reagan Democrats, might not want to admit it, Ian Paisley is an admirable example of tribalism. Ulstermen are just about the only White Protestants in the world who are willing to take their own side in a fight. London is well on its way to becoming Londonistan, Dublin might become Dublinistan one day, but I've got a feeling Belfast will never be Belfastistan."

Here's hoping! The Powers That Be have been importing lots of 'asylum seekers' into Belfast, though, same as everywhere else.

When I was growing up in Ulster the middle class white Protestants would not vote for Paisley & the DUP, we voted UUP. The UUP under David Trimble betrayed us in search of media plaudits; now the DUP gets all the votes.

Anyway, the one good thing about general economic collapse is that it ought to disrupt the asylum seeker (US: 'refugee') conveyor belt and some of the other third-world immigration into the West; I just hope it happens in time.

Otherwise, when the worst happens, Ulster will just be the Vendee, they'll fight and be cut down.; 10/20/11, 3:16 PM
Anonymous said...: Neocons took the GOP from Buchananites.

What are you smoking? GOP was never in the hands of Buchananites. They weren't even a substantial fraction of the Republican party. Depending on the times we are talking about, most of them voted Democrat anyway.; 10/20/11, 3:25 PM
RS said...: > But it wasn't because blacks were happy but because they still feared the white man. But already, blacks were marching behind MLK and making new demands. Whose side was Buchanan on back then? Equality for blacks or keeping them down?

Blacks are not better off than they were in the 50s. Would you really choose 2011 (or 2007) over the 50s if you were being reincarnated as Black? I wouldn't. And I'm sure that in 15 years they'll be suffering worse than they are now.

As for McCarthy, it's likely that the great bulk of those he attacked were quite deserving of it. Read Moldbug etc on this sort of thing.; 10/20/11, 3:35 PM
Anonymous said...: Back around 1992 I disagreed with a lot of what Buchanan had to say.

I've spent the last twenty years saying "I guess Buchanan was right about that after all" on all sorts of different topics.; 10/20/11, 3:50 PM
Anonymous said...: In his youth, he believed in special power and privilege for whites.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

McCarthy didn't believe in fighting fair. He called everyone a 'commie' and used government/political muscle to silence and blacklist people.

The people blacklisted by McCarthy (which was not "everyone") deserved to be blacklisted.

his book UNNECESSARY WAR is the most ungentlemanly and nutty defense of Germanocentrism I've ever read by a mainstream writer.

It's not a defense of ethnocentrism. (I notice that you are pretty ethnocentric yourself, my "Polish" friend.) It's an argument that WWII was a dumb war which should never have been fought. It's hard to disagree with that argument.

So, there's an element of hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy - the greatest sin in the eyes of adolescents everywhere.; 10/20/11, 3:59 PM
Anonymous said...: It's easy to make the case that the Saudi government is just as despicable as the former Libyan one. They're both dictatorships and Saudi Arabia enforces by far the most extreme medieval version of Islam in the world. But it goes without saying among the media elite that a government organized assassination is monstrous crime if the victim is a Saudi Arabian and a cause for celebration if it's in Libya.; 10/20/11, 4:05 PM
Anonymous said...: "GOP was never in the hands of Buchananites."

Officially no, but there were lots of closet-Buchananites in the GOP in the 80s.; 10/20/11, 4:18 PM
Dave said...: "Reagan won those voters by turning them into values voters."

This misses the more important point: they could afford to be values voters because their economic security was taken care of already (by their high-paying, union jobs). Conservative talk radio hosts today idolize Reagan but completely forget that context. When a guy is making $30 per hour, plus benefits, on a factory assembly line, he doesn't need government handouts. So he's free to vote Republican for cultural reasons.

As Republicans let millions of manufacturing jobs get offshored, they gutted the ranks of Reagan Democrats. The closest thing to those sorts of voters now is are white enlisted troops, for the same reason: their economic security is covered by the military. Except with military voters, they're not just voting for cultural reasons, but because they know the GOP will keep the money flowing to defense.; 10/20/11, 4:21 PM
Anonymous said...: "It's easy to make the case that the Saudi government is just as despicable as the former Libyan one."

Rules might change if Saudis rose up like Libyans did.; 10/20/11, 4:22 PM
Anonymous said...: "It's easy to make the case that the Saudi government is just as despicable as the former Libyan one."

I think Gaddafi unwittingly inspired his people to rise up against him, that is by being like him.

Saudi rule has been premised, validated, and justified on tradition, continuity, and reverence.
Gaddafi came to power as a rebel, fire-eater-and-breather, revolutionary, badass bad boy rock star, hipster punk, etc. He showed off such credentials to his people over and over. Though he brutally repressed his people, his people grew up thinking Gaddafi is the hero-cuz-he-came-to-power-by-rebellion-and-violence.
Similarly, Mao's cult of rebel violence encouraged millions of mini-Maos to rip and burn through China as would-be Maos during the Cultural Revolution.
Though they did it in the name of Maoism, even Mao was shocked by what he unleashed. He'd said 'to rebel is justified', and indeed all those mini-Maos were killing communist bureaucrats all over as 'capitalist roaders'.

I think Egypt also blew up because the myth of Nasser-as-rebel-hero. Though Mubarack was a student and follower of Nasser, the cult of the rebel hero became big in Egypt. Until recently, most Egyptians obeyed the 'rebel hero' in power, but in the Arab Spring, each Egyptian decided to be his own Nasser.

So, the funny thing is Gaddafi was overthrown by a million mini-Gaddafis who were created by his cult of the rebel-hero.

Saudis, in contrast, indoctrinated generations of people on the virtue of reverence, respect, and continuity than on the cult of the rebel revolutionary hero.

Those who idolize rebellion to justify their own power also invite rebellion from those below. It's like Elvis was dethroned by the Beatles. And the half-Jewish gangster was dethroned by Tony Montana in SCARFACE.; 10/20/11, 4:34 PM
Anonymous said...: Yes. If US were all Anglo-American, it could culturally be like Canada.
Idaho is culturally more homogenous, but what came out of there culturally, intellectually, or etc?
Hmmn like homogenus elizabethian england (shakespeare, marlow, spencer, etc) or homogenus athens or florence... yeah. cultural wastelands compared to our rap and america's top model culture.; 10/20/11, 4:46 PM
Fred said...: "Bring up the name "Ron Paul" or "Pat Buchanan" with any neo-con and you'll usually encounter a visceral, irrational and fathomless hatred even from normally the otherwise well spoken or educated."

I'm going to call a spade a spade here and use "Jew" instead of "neo-con" in my response. Jewish fear/loathing of Ron Paul is irrational. He is at worst neutral to Israel (as neutral as he is to any other country), and despite once having some tenuous connection to a Jew-hater who was involved in his newsletter, doesn't seem to have any Jewish animus.

You can't say the same about Pat Buchanan though. It's pretty clear that he doesn't like Jews, because when you connect the dots on his issues, that's the recurring theme. Sometimes he's even right on the issues (the Israeli Supreme Court agreed with him on Demjanjuk, that Ukrainian accused of being a camp guard for the Nazis, and Buchanan's essay in defense of the guy was one of the best I've ever read), but the common thread is to be in the opposite corner from the Jews.

Whether it's defending Hitler, or Klaus Barbie, or Karl Linnas, or Arthur Rudolph, there's a common thread that's hard to miss. Not so much with Paul. He probably scares Jews more because he's so popular.; 10/20/11, 5:06 PM
Anonymous said...: Power corrupts.

In the 80s, I would have thought neocons more reasonable than the rash Buchanan. Now, he's more reasonable than the brash neocons.; 10/20/11, 5:10 PM
Thrasymachus said...: Overpaid public employees really are a problem, and I don't care if they're white.

Furthermore racial solidarity with these people is a one-way street, as they will make whatever deal they need to with blacks and Hispanics in power to keep the money coming. For decades these people, however white they may be, for a the high degree of political correctness necessary to work for government.

The term "neo-con" is meaningless. As you said, it has a certain Troskyite basis in that it refers to a tiny handful of Jewish communists who became Republicans. In a more general sense all it means is those who favor overseas intervention, which was a liberal Democratic position until the late 60's.; 10/20/11, 5:28 PM
Perspective said...: "If US were all Anglo-American, it could culturally be like Canada."

Canada with Quebec excludes it from being Anglo culturally. Anyway, Canada's multicultural policy (ingrained in the Canadian Constitution) has being trying to do a way with its "Britishness" for years now. To say Canadian culture, outside Quebec,is based on a British North American identity is "racist". Where I live, native born Canadians (of British and other European stock) are becoming less and less common. My area is quickly turning into Hijab land.; 10/20/11, 5:43 PM
Anonymous said...: much of the ideas and technology that made Japan rich originated in the diverse world of America.

Which, when you dig down, tend overwhealmingly to be the products of white folks.; 10/20/11, 5:45 PM
Anonymous said...: "Back around 1992 I disagreed with a lot of what Buchanan had to say.

I've spent the last twenty years saying "I guess Buchanan was right about that after all" on all sorts of different topics".

Exactly. Buchanan would be much less likable if he wasn't so damn right all the time.

Dan in DC; 10/20/11, 5:52 PM
Dave in central California said...: Calling the admittedly great Lewis (Isidore Newman School class of '78) the "voice of Republican-leaning middle managers" was the first dissonant note in this review as it waxed unpersuasive. I have followed Buchanan since the G.H.W. Bush implosion, probably prehistoric times for most Lew Rockwell adherents. Pat is indeed a fine writer and IMO the only reminder of the hard-nosed DC Republican faction before the Ivy League youth groups washed in (when Novak wasn't dead, when George Will wasn't as pompous, when Krauthammer was still readable). Yet Sailer's portrait of him as some hale-fellow Steelers Country superfan rings false--he's gotten markedly cynical and bitter compared to a decade ago (see the Churchill book from 2008, a worthy read despite the outcry from academia) and was never a back-slapping Haley Barbour type to begin with. Even though he's a principled isolationist in long standing anyone can tell he welcomes the coming imperial draw-down as an unintended benefit of our welfare train wreck. More laughable was the characterization of the center-left salon journalists as grudging social admirers of Buchanan, because they all thoughtlessly snarlingly to a man equate him with neo-Nazism; "Pitchfork Pat" was not invented by the Wall Street Journal. Also: if the Sailer Strategy now includes propping up the prison guards I'm ready to forget ever hearing about it.; 10/20/11, 6:10 PM
RS said...: Dave, good call. Very true.; 10/20/11, 6:25 PM
RS said...: > Hmmn like homogenus elizabethian england (shakespeare, marlow, spencer, etc)

Also Tallis and pretty much my favorite painting, the Armada Portrait. And the population of England was either 4 or 6 M, I forget.; 10/20/11, 6:28 PM
RS said...: > Rules might change if Saudis rose up like Libyans did.

There's no way that could happen as long as the US is oil-dependent. Libya's oil is not very much.; 10/20/11, 6:30 PM
Kylie said...: "Buchanan complains of multi-culture but the divisions really began with counter-culture. Before it split culturally, it split generationally."

No, I think it split generationally due to the rise and influence of the youth or teen culture that started post-WWI and really took off post-WWII. Prio to then, there wasn't a youth culture such as we've had for the past 60 or so years.; 10/20/11, 6:40 PM
ricpic said...: As someone who grew up in the 1950's I can attest to the fact that Buchanan is right that social cohesion was much greater, which is to say there was a general sense of we're all in it together, which needless to say no longer exists. The biggest factor was clearly that the country was 90% white. But the underside of the comfortable orderly place that America was was boredom. This was especially true of those in their teens and early twenties. The Beats, and specifically one book by Jack Kerouac, On The Road, hit like a bombshell for the very reason that life was too orderly, too planned, too boring. I doubt the upheaval of the '60s would have happened or at least would have been as violent an upheaval and rejection of '50s orderliness without the example of the Beats. Our present catastrophe is but a playing out of the centrifugal forces let loose in the '60s. And it all goes back to the tiny band of Beats.; 10/20/11, 7:17 PM
alonzo portfolio said...: Blacks are not better off than they were in the 50s. Would you really choose 2011 (or 2007) over the 50s if you were being reincarnated as Black?

You're probably referring to the intramural murder stats, which are much higher now than then. But, unfortunately, this misses the point. What makes blacks happiest is attention and making whites uncomfortable. On this basis, under-40 blacks are enjoying the hell out of themselves. Post 1990, blacks entered a golden age in which (a) nonjudgmentalism meant no cost for acting fool, (b) media decided to focus attention on them, and (c) government decided to exempt them from all sorts of costs and inconveniences. So today's black can drive anyway he/she wants, e.g. weaving in and out of crowded freeways without penalty, has unrestricted access to disabled stickers so that parking fees needn't be paid, and of course the big one, a license to knock out anyone who dares to say a word. No sir, you have it wrong. The young black guy of 1960 was far less likely to have his life ended prematurely, but today's buck has far more fun.; 10/20/11, 7:40 PM
Ray Sawhill said...: "An important element in Buchanan's good nature: he is one of the few pundits who will admit freely that his biases are tribal as well as ideological. Sportsmanship is one of Buchanan's defining traits. He's like a wise old Notre Dame fan who has no illusions that the Fighting Irish are more cosmically deserving of victory than the other football teams. But they're his team. Thus, he can discuss with perfect objectivity the prospects of other teams because he isn't the puerile kind of fan who furiously argues that his team should win. He just wants them to win."

That's a great passage.; 10/20/11, 7:46 PM
Anonymous said...: "Which, when you dig down, tend overwhealmingly to be the products of white folks."

Diverse bunch of white folks. Remember that wasps at one time didn't regard certain white folks as white folks.
Japan learned more from diverse US than from Sweden.
And it was Jewish nukes which blew that place up.; 10/20/11, 8:03 PM
Anonymous said...: "much of the ideas and technology that made Japan rich originated in the diverse world of America."

"Which, when you dig down, tend overwhealmingly to be the products of white folks."

Though much of 'black music' has white sources, blacks did play a significant role in creating a new kind of American music that came to be influence Japan and rest of the world a lot as well.; 10/20/11, 8:05 PM
Remnant said...: Number 5 of Buchanan's proposals on immigration is:

"•Congress should pass a law denying citizenship to anchor babies, and add an attachment that "the law is not subject to review by any federal court, including the U.S. Supreme Court.""

The "attachment" might seen like a good idea but it is very problematic:

1. From a practical perspective it would be difficult to pass because so controversial: judicial review is a widely accepted fact of life.

2. It is true that all three branches of government have a right and a duty to interpret the Constitution but the fact is that judical review has become a fait accompli. And to advocate such an "attachment" is to propose overturning Monroe v. Madison, which, again, would not fly.

3. It wouldn't be enforceable. The Supreme Court would take one look at the "attachment" and say it is unconstitutional. And who would stop them?

So, we need a new interpretation of the 14th amendment which will involve: having enough conservatives on the court OR passing a constitutional amendment OR having such a concensus on the issue domestically that the law isn't challenged in the first place (Ha!); 10/20/11, 8:07 PM
Remnant said...: On another note: it really is fascinating how disparately (if you will excuse the phrase) the media treat various conservatives who hold very similar positions.

Three cases in point are Pat Buchanan, John Derbyshire and Jared Taylor. (And of couse we could throw in Steve Sailer.)

Buchanan has managed to maintain his good standing among the MSM, and even regularly appears on liberal-bent stations.

Derb somehow manages to keep his job at NR (and, I know, he doesn't have a "job" there; he is just a freelance writer but the fact is he is primarily associated with that publication.)

Taylor is not just persona non grata among mainstream conservatives but actually a whipping boy as an example of the "bad" and "extreme" right.

Yet these three men have political philosophies and views that are 90% compatable and indistinguishable. Derb has even interviewed Taylor and written articles about him.

Go figure.; 10/20/11, 8:17 PM
Anonymous said...: Buchanan has a way fo attracting the wrong kind of people. There used to be lively debate on his blog, but some idiot started a Holocaust denial thread, the media picked it up, and Buchanan ditched comments section altogether.; 10/20/11, 8:24 PM
Anonymous said...: Pat is brilliant. Can't wait to read the book. We need to repeal the 1965 Immigration Act and go back to National Origins Immigration practices. The 1965 Hart-Celler Act pushed through by Ted Kennedy and signed by LBJ is destroying our values.

But, it's not the poor illegal (and legal) immigrants who are destrying U.S. cultural values but rather wealthy and educated Asian/East Indian immigrants who are doing the most harm. For instance, there is rampant cheating by Asian/East Indian students going for STEM degrees (The Best and the Brightest!). Then, these STEM graduates go into Corporate America and have to be supervised, cajoled, and brain-washed by HR not to do patently unethical things (sending business to relatives, falsifying documents, etc.) Whites do this but not anywhere near the level of Asians/East Indians. It's in their DNA to be unempathetic and corrupt. They and their 118 IQ's will do far more harm in the long run to the U.S. than the hard-working 100 IQ Mexican's ever will.

Witness that toddler who was hit twice by cars last week in China and no one stopped. Recently Charlie Rose asked a guest "When is China going to adopt the U.S. model of giving?" What a question! It's not a model it's our Western Culture Values/DNA.; 10/20/11, 9:18 PM
Anonymous said...: Do you suppose Southern Strategy was, in the long run, the big mistake of the GOP? In the short run, it won the Southern States. But even without Southern strategy, wouldn't Southern whites have gravitated to the GOP on their own without the GOP pandering to them?
Without the Southern Strategy, white southerners would have remained loyal to Democrats for longer, and there would have been more tension within the party among Jews, blacks, and white southerners. But once GOP reached out to Southern whites, Democrats conveniently got rid of 'racists'. In the short run, Democrats lost the South, but in the long run, they won other states.

Prior to the GOP becoming closely connected with the Deep South, it attracted a good deal of sophisticated urban rich, suburban people, and educated people. Remember both Nixon and Reagan won many states outside the South.
But as time passed and the GOP got more closely associated with the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Bob Jones university, Evangelicals, Creationists, and etc, it began to lose a whole bunch of middle class educated white peole who didn't wanna be associated with dummies, rednecks, morons, and simpletons. Bush II embodied this retardation of American conservative culture. He appealed to Nascar fans as a beer buddy.
In the 80s, I recall many white middle class suburban people were conservative and Republican. By late 90s, most of them regarded the GOP as a the Deep South Red State party. (The media tagging of red state/blue state didn't help either. Btw, it's a well-known fact in advertising that people associate blue as a cool and pleasant color and associate red as a hostile and alarmist color.) Given the rise of high-tech and information culture, GOP should have appealed to the rising technocratic, intellectual, and creative class. But it appealed to Creationist simpletons. This is why more intelligent rightists don't wanna be part of the GOP. They see it as the den of either Wall Street crony crooks, Big Oil tycoons, and Deep South dummies.

Reagan had wide appeal among a lot of people. Not just Southerners but suburban whites in the midwest and many people in California and etc. Even in the 80s, GOP had a choice of appealing more to the rising yuppie class. But it got ever closer to the South, and it was a matter of time before the culture war divided America into Deep South Creationists vs educated people who believe in evolution. In a way, bluebloods like Rockefellar had a better vision of the future. Power comes from attracting people with talent. Quality matters as much as quantity. GOP ruined its brand with Southern dummies and in 2008 with moronic Sarah Palin. And though Quayle wasn't a Southerner, he too was one big dummy. And then there was Bush II. It became the dummy party.

If there had been no Southern Strategy, there would have been more infighting between Jews, blacks, and southern whites in the Democratic Party. Southern whites, angry with Democrats, would have gradually gravitated to the GOP but on the conditions set by educated intelligent Republicans. But the Southern Strategy made the Southern states the main base of GOP support, which meant GOP groveled to Southern Evangelicals and rednecks on the terms set by Evangelical dummies. So, we had Bush blocking stem cell research.

To compensate for this, the GOP sought to win over Northern/educated support by being slavish to neocons and Wall Street. But neocons just played the party to serve Zionism, and Wall Street just bought votes to get their sweet crony deals.
As for educated and intelligent white middle class, it went with Democrats cuz they didn't want to be associated with Bush II and Bob Jones university.; 10/20/11, 9:33 PM
Anonymous said...: "Whites do this but not anywhere near the level of Asians/East Indians. It's in their DNA to be unempathetic and corrupt. They and their 118 IQ's will do far more harm in the long run to the U.S. than the hard-working 100 IQ Mexican's ever will."

Rotfl. Bravo! SWPL sardonic wit in action.; 10/20/11, 9:35 PM
David Davenport said...: Which came first, the taller Medieval ancestor who could swing his sword or ax downhill at a shorter opponent, or the taller Medieval man's children who got more food to eat?

Remember, the Brit. and Euro.* upper class in days of old was also the warrior class -- not like the modern era.

* Or should one say "European, including British ..."?; 10/20/11, 9:52 PM
Simon in London said...: David Davenport:
"Remember, the Brit. and Euro.* upper class in days of old was also the warrior class -- not like the modern era"

The modern British military's officer class is still very heavily upper-class, descended from the Norman knights who came over with William the Conqueror.; 10/20/11, 11:40 PM
Anonymous said...: Italian-Americans used to bowl with Italian-Americans, but feeling less ITALIAN-American, they don't even bowl with other Italian-Americans.

Yes, this is what I deplore. This is what makes me long for the old racist era. It was unpleasant in many ways, but in others it enabled cohesion at the ethnic level. You knew who you were. You who you could rely and who you couldn't. Nowadays you're supposed be able to rely on anyone and everyone but in our hearts we know it's not true so we're sort of caught in limbo. We really haven't found the language to address this problem yet. A lot of what passes for 'racialism' is just too raw and unappealing.

Sigh. I used to long for the day when in-your-face racism would be a thing of the past. Now that it's receded to the point where I sometimes feel I couldn't get into a racial bar fight with a wasp if I tried (not literally true of course) I find that I miss the 'good old days' (which weren't necessarily all that good, but aspects of them were a lot better than now).

Silver; 10/21/11, 3:15 AM
Anonymous said...: You can't say the same about Pat Buchanan though. It's pretty clear that he doesn't like Jews, because when you connect the dots on his issues, that's the recurring theme. Sometimes he's even right on the issues (the Israeli Supreme Court agreed with him on Demjanjuk, that Ukrainian accused of being a camp guard for the Nazis, and Buchanan's essay in defense of the guy was one of the best I've ever read), but the common thread is to be in the opposite corner from the Jews.

I think you're right, fred. How can anyone possibly have high regard for a man who comes without the jewish stamp of approval? It's sick, evil, twisted and insane. I agree completely.

Silver; 10/21/11, 3:21 AM
Fred said...: "I think you're right, fred. How can anyone possibly have high regard for a man who comes without the jewish stamp of approval?"

You make a lame troll. I didn't say anything about whether or not one could have high regard for Buchanan. I just pointed out why Jews aren't irrational in thinking he doesn't like them. You can love him to death without Jews' approval. No one is stopping you.; 10/21/11, 3:45 AM
Anonymous said...: "Ulstermen are just about the only White Protestants in the world who are willing to take their own side in a fight."

Andrew Jackson's parents were from Ulster.; 10/21/11, 3:52 AM
Mr. Anon said...: "Fred said...

You can't say the same about Pat Buchanan though. It's pretty clear that he doesn't like Jews,..."

My God. Is that even legal? The effrontery of the man!

"Not so much with Paul. He probably scares Jews more because he's so popular."

So if a gentile "clearly doesn't like jews", like Buchanan, then jews won't like him. But on the other hand, if he is merely "popular", then, well,.....jews won't like him.

Do you even remotely realize that a lot of us gentiles don't think that our country should revolve around the concerns of you and your tribe?; 10/21/11, 6:41 AM
Captain Jack Aubrey said...: "but the common thread is to be in the opposite corner from the Jews."

But the common thread of many, including the Democratic Party and many Jews, is to be in the opposite corner of the WASPs.; 10/21/11, 8:25 AM
RGH said...: It doesn't seem that referring to a kid who has been kidnapped and forced to kill his own parents as a "juvenile delinquent" is quite cricket. Whatever one thinks of the wisdom of sending in US troops to go after him, you do yourself no credit by trivializing the monstrous evil of Joseph Kony.; 10/21/11, 9:32 AM
jaded said...: "Sigh. I used to long for the day when in-your-face racism would be a thing of the past. "

You'd think that would've been enough then someone went and invented:

latent racism
institutional racism
hidden racism
covert racism

Basically, if you're white your racist no matter that you've never uttered certain taboo words or indulged in offensive ethnic jokes or laughed when others did.

If you're brave enough or desperate enough to try it, you may find that paradoxically the racist things you could actually think to say aren't nearly so bad as what the other side imagined you were thinking. Coincidentally or not, there's also a significant resurgence in the number of people who believe in ESP nowadays which can only lead to paranoia, overreaction and wild speculation.

There's also a great fear of what could happen as a result disinhibition in the white population which leaves us at a sort of dreadlock when it comes to the healthier choice of allowing for the full range of human behavior. Sometimes there is the context for uttering those supposedly taboo words. Even when not, just how big a transgression is it anyway. Listen to people talk about other people once in awhile. It's not as if everyone's being careful about what they say or how they say it. They've merely deleted insults of a racial nature. Otherwise, the gossip and the hack psychoanalysis lead us to say sensationalistic, hurtful, usually untrue things that kindness and a sense of propriety would've have prohibited in an earlier era.; 10/21/11, 9:52 AM
Anonymous said...: Why doesn't Pat have any white, heterosexual friends? For that matter, Sailer...; 10/21/11, 10:32 AM
Anonymous said...: "Where is the next Pat Buchanan?"

"You are reading his blog right now."

No, no. Sailer and Buchanan are different in style, tone, attitude, references, emphasis.
They converge on certain key areas, but both are valuable as much for their differences as their commonalities.
I mean enough with the neoclones. We need for diversity of thought on the right.; 10/21/11, 11:48 AM
Anonymous said...: Steve I think you are entirely too forgiving of right wingers who hate schoolteachers and cops/firefighters. Most whites do not fear being called racist as much you think they do. In today's vulgarized Tea Party these people:
A. Don't value teachers because they don't have kids or don't value education.

B. Don't consider protecting society from violence or fire to be a worthy profession because it is only weaklings who are vulnerable to those things. Real Men (tm) can fight off murders and extinguish fires with their bare hands, and anyone who can't deserves by virtue of Darwinism to be killed.

This is the Right's "coalition".; 10/21/11, 4:30 PM
lumbering oaf said...: "Steve I think you are entirely too forgiving of right wingers who hate schoolteachers and cops/firefighters."

The truth seems more that you aren't familiar with any of these institutions yourself. From my observations, only police are serving their function. Fire departments have often consisted of a volunteer force though the real problem is pensions. What are you gonna do when there's nothing left to fund them? Better to be more realistic in the first place.

And teachers, ah, teachers, so many issues with teachers (i.e. quality of, utilization of, overly high pensions of some) that it boggles the mind you'd act as if all teachers are necessarily good ones.; 10/21/11, 5:29 PM
Tom Piatak said...: An excellent review. It's refreshing seeing Buchanan being given the credit he deserves.; 10/21/11, 8:52 PM
Fred said...: "Do you even remotely realize that a lot of us gentiles don't think that our country should revolve around the concerns of you and your tribe?"

You seem to be responding to your own internal dialogue, rather than what I wrote.

"But the common thread of many, including the Democratic Party and many Jews, is to be in the opposite corner of the WASPs."

For some, sure, but then again, this is also true of some elite WASPs themselves (look who the old line Protestant churches have installed as leaders, for example). Which happens to be another thing they have in common with left wing Jews.; 10/21/11, 9:37 PM
Mr. Anon said...: "Fred said...

You seem to be responding to your own internal dialogue, rather than what I wrote."

No, I am responding to what you wrote. You were inviting us to judge Buchanan solely on his perceived animosity towards jews. I reject that.; 10/21/11, 9:59 PM
Fred said...: "No, I am responding to what you wrote. You were inviting us to judge Buchanan solely on his perceived animosity towards jews. I reject that."

Try taking a few cleansing breaths and reading what I wrote again. I didn't invite you to do anything of the sort. I just explained why, contra the earlier commenter, it wasn't irrational for Jews to think he doesn't like them. That's it. No more, no less. You can judge Buchanan positively or negatively on whatever you want.; 10/21/11, 10:51 PM
Anonymous said...: Though Buchanan tries to come across as reasonable and uses rational arguments to make his case, reason is not his trademark or strongsuit.
The core of Buchananism is not reason but a kind of reverence, a sense of the sacred way of things. So, he is really 'the last reverent man in America'.
It is because Buchanan's connection to America and the West is so reverent--sacred and 'irrational'--that those who get it really get it and those who don't get it will never get it. It's really about a feeling. Unless you're on the same wavelength, it's feels alien or even offensive; most white people today would feel alienated from Buchanan's feelings.

To understand where Buchanan is coming from, consider Japan during WWII. Why was Japan so unwilling to accept unconditional surrender. The reasons were not just political or rational but 'irrational' and sacred. Japanese saw their land as pure and holy; it had never been invaded or defiled before. The idea of foreigners occupying Japan was as horrible to them as infidel soldiers in Saudi Arabia were to Osama Bin Laden. People who think in terms of the 'sacred' believe in a certain purity which must never be desecrated. This aspect of Buchanan comes from Catholicism and Northern European race-ism.

Anyway, Japan's eventual surrender was deeply traumatic to Japanese nationalists, and they never recovered. There was Mishima's stunt in 1970s and in the bubble yrs of the 80s, some Japanese felt big again, but the spine had been broken. Japan could never be sacred and holy in the way it had been for over 1000 yrs. It had turned into the Tokyo shoeshine boy of America, a geisha mamasan. Though Japanese still have Japan, psychologically they lost sacred Japan forever. Similarly, American Indians still hold some territories in America, but those are no longer the sacred lands of their ancestors but 'reservations', into which the Indian communities were forced to recede/secede.; 10/22/11, 7:14 AM
Anonymous said...: Buchanan similarly has a reverential attachment to America's past. It's not just about good times, ideas and ideals, politics, etc. It's about sounds and images that have sacred value. The images of proud and powerful white American soldiers, the sanctity of family and tradition rooted in church life, family dinner led by patriarch, respect for American tradition and history, etc. At the core of this sacredness is race. Northern Europeans had a policy of
non-mixing with non-whites--different from Southern/Mediterreanean Europeans. Anglos and Germans were different from French, Spanish, and Portuguese. And even if Anglo men did go with Indians or even black women, Northern European white men maintained the sacred purity of the white woman, which is why it was anathema for black men to even look at a white woman in the wrong way in the South. For Anglo white man, woman wasn't just a woman but ideally a preserver of the pure sanctity of the white race. And many in the North felt the same way, which is why even after the Civil War, most Northerners had no wish to push interracism in the South. Lincoln during the war was typical. He was anti-slavery but also anti-integration.
But trouble brewed in the form of blacks. Blacks had the power to topple the sacred ideal of superior white manhood united with pure white womanhood. Being stronger, they could whup the white man, reduce him into a white boy, and win the admiration of white woman. Thus, the sacred spine of white purity and unity would be destroyed, perhaps forever. When Jack Johnson became champion, white men could have accepted reality and called for separation of races on the basis that blacks are a threat to white pride,unity, and purity. But white male pride couldn't accept that white men couldn't defeat the black man in a fair one-on-one fight. Whites used all means to keep the blacks down, but it was only a matter of time before blacks rose in sports and pop culture, especially music.
So, where are we today? Interracist porn, pop music porn, interracist sports porn(black athletes and white cheerleaders), Obama as son of black man and white woman, and Cain pulling ahead of sappy white boys.
For the generations that grew up under this as the NORM--and even moral necessity(Ken Burns)--, Buchanan's reverential attachment to Old America makes no sense. It's like people who don't know anything about Christianity see nothing sacred about a crucifix. One has to know and feel the references.

For this reason, Buchanan looks back to history and points out where the Anglo race went wrong. At one time, the Anglo race was into sacred purity. Then, it should have been natural for them to unite with Germans, another people into racial purity, and Japanese empire, which was rooted in a sense of the sacred and unique Yamato race. But Anglos chose dry abstract Enlightenment ideals over issues of blood and soil. Anglos fought Germans while Americans needlessly 'provoked' a war with Japan.

But this is where I disagree with Buchanan. Though Stalin was a communist, he'd begun to revive Russian nationalism, the Russian Orthodox Church, and the cult of the motherhand(before WWII). Stalin also began to move against Jewish communists and wanted good relations with Germany.
And in Asia, China under KMT also had a sacred sense of Chineseness and was part of the international anti-communist Right. The fault lay not with Anglos and Americans, but with Germany's outrageous war against Russia and Japan's perverse invasion of China. Russia was beginning to turn rightwing when Germany attacked it. China was a pro-American rightwing nation when Japan invaded it. It was EXTREME purism of Germany and Japan that led to the downfall of the Right and the validity of the Sacred. Radicalism is always destructive.; 10/22/11, 7:15 AM
Mr. Anon said...: @Fred,

In looking over your previous posts, I can concede your point (not that it is rational for jews to dislike Buchanan) that you were not making propaganda, but rather merely explaining yourself. Fair enough.

You know, you would get farther making your case, if you did not instantly reply by implying that the other party is insane or has the vapors.; 10/22/11, 5:29 PM

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October 20, 2011

The Last Reasonable Man in America

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Panhandling

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