Pat Buchanan's weird, weird, ideas

I made the mistake of finding Pat Buchanan's blog. On the one hand, this is good because it's one less reason for me to check out WorldNetDaily. On the other, now I have access to all of Pat's brain farts for the past several years.

Pat had one article a while ago which caught my interest, because it happened to combine two of my least favorite things: stupid neologisms, and creepy alter kocker race-baiting.

The larger issue here is the enduring power of ethnonationalism — the drive of ethnic minorities, embryonic nations, to break free and create their own countries, where their faith, culture and language are predominant.

Now, at first blush, this might seem a tad obvious. Yes, ethnic ties and nationalism have historically played a significant role in independence movements and struggles.

But wait! Pat has more.

Ethnonationalism caused the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913, triggered World War I in Sarajevo, and tore apart the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. Ethnonationalism birthed Ireland, Turkey and Israel.
Ethnonationalism in the 1990s tore apart the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and broke up Czechoslovakia, creating two-dozen nations out of three. Last August, ethnonationalism, with an assist from the Russian Army, relieved Georgia of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Russia has its own ethnic worries in Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, whose Moscow-installed president was nearly blown to pieces two weeks ago and where a Chechen convoy was ambushed last week with 10 soldiers killed.
The ethnonationalism that pulled Ireland out of the United Kingdom in 1921 is pulling Scotland out. It split the Asian subcontinent up into Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Iran, Iraq and Pakistan are all threatened.
Persians are a bare majority against the combined numbers of Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and Baluch. Each of those minorities shares a border with kinfolk — in Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Iraq and Pakistan.
Turkey has fought for decades against Kurd ethnonationalism.
If one were to wager on new nations, Kurdistan and Baluchistan would be among the favorites. And Pashtun in Pakistan outnumber Pashtun in Afghanistan, though in the latter they are the majority.

So now ethnonationalism is starting to become a dangerous specter, destabilizing the world? I can't tell if Pat is pro ENism or not.

The contrast between insouciant America and serious China today is instructive. China is protectionist; America free trade. China is nationalist; America globalist. China’s economy is export-driven; America’s base is consumption. China saves; America spends. China uses its foreign exchange to lock up overseas resources; America uses foreign aid for humanitarian assistance to failed states. Behaving like ruthlessly purposeful 19th-century Americans, China grows as America shrinks.

So... China is a bunch of amoral jerks, and that's a good thing we should emulate?

Where Beijing floods its borderlands with Han to reduce indigenous populations to minorities, and stifles religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity, America, declaring, “Diversity is our strength!” invites the whole world to come to America and swamp her own native-born.

Ah. Here we go. ENism is a useful bludgeoning tool. With ENism, Pat can argue for race-based determinism, showing that multiculturalism is naive at best, and national/race suicide at worst. Incidentally, Pat, America doesn't really have native-born people, that's kind of the point.

Observing the lightning breakup of the Soviet Union, the Chinese take ethnonationalism with deadly seriousness. American’s elite regard it an irrelevancy, an obsession only of the politically retarded.

Uh yeah, pretty much. After all, our country's civic culture is kind of predicated on the concept that American nationalism is not based on ethnic background.

After all, they tell us, we were never blood-and-soil people, always a propositional nation, a nation of ideas. Our belief in democracy, diversity, and equality define us and make us different from all other nations.

First of all, why does America have to be different "from all other nations?" I thought we had moved beyond bizarro Puritan "New Israel" theological views on government a while ago. Why don't we shoot for "functional democracy that respects and protects invidividual rights while also balancing them with the interests and rights of the group," and then if we wind up not being unique in that regard, so much the better? Second, yes, America IS supposed to be a nation of ideas and principles. The way in which this is potentially different from other countries is that there is no officially privileged culture, religion or ethnic group in America, as opposed to other countries that were founded specifically for a religion or people. Even from its earliest colonial days, America was being divied up by different groups-- including the French, Spanish and English (all of whom would be very suprised to be lumped in together by the likes of Buchanan).

Indeed, we now happily predict the year, 2042, when Americans of European ancestry become a minority in a country whose Founding Fathers declared it set aside for “ourselves and our posterity.”

So what, Pat? The Founding Fathers said and did a whole lot of things that aren't that relevant to today. Dueling and powdered wigs come to mind.

Without the assent of her people, America is being converted from a Christian country, nine in 10 of whose people traced their roots to Europe as late as the time of JFK, into a multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural Tower of Babel not seen since the late Roman Empire.

That's right, it turns out that America isn't white, or Christian, enough for Pat Buchanan. Which is funny, because a lot of the illegal immigrants he bitches about are Latinos, most of whom are ethnically white and Catholic. But never mind that, Pat's mad that we aren't all WASPS, (or at least people that can pass for-- or be declared-- WASPs), anymore. Oh for the days of the 50s, where non-whites, non-Christians, and non-heterosexuals at least had the good sense to stay hidden from public view! Incidentally, Pat, maybe the reason there isn't that much immigration from Western Europe to America is that Western European countries have finally started getting their acts together (which is funny, given how much you complain about those govts' horrible pseudo-Socialist policies).

The city farthest along the path is Los Angeles, famous worldwide for the number, variety, and size of its ethnic and racial street gangs.

Yes, of course, Pat. Because we all know that diversity leads to street crime. That must be why there was never any crime in, say, lily-white England, before the 1800s, when they started getting all those immigrants in. Or why when people in England today see large groups of strapping young white lads cavorting in the street, they are filled with nothing but feelings of peacefulness and serenity.

I dig a little digging, and wouldn't you know it, Pat's been down this road to Crazytown before. Here's an article from 2008:

Muller argues, ethnonationalism may be a precondition of liberal democracy. Only after all the tribes of Europe had their own ethnically homogenous nation-states did peace and comity come. And what happened in Europe in the 20th century may be a precursor of what is to come in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Really now? So how do you explain functional democracies with large numbers of different ethnic groups, like say, Brazil? And why are you ignoring that ethnonationalism seems to be the flip side of colonialism and expansionism? Maybe part of the reason the British Empire collapsed was that there was no good reason people in India would ever accept the legitimacy of a country ruling them from thousands of miles away. Maybe part of the reason Russia keeps havng to deal with breakaway republics is that the USSR's conquest of Asia and Eastern Europe was done at the expense-- culturally, economically, religiously, etc-- of the native people living there? If there are multiple causes of discontent, it stands to reason that boiling it all down to ethnic groupings is simplstic and misleading.

Americans, writes Muller, “find ethnonationalism discomfiting both intellectually and morally. Social scientists go to great lengths to demonstrate that this is a product not of nature but of culture. …
“But none of this will make ethnonationalism go away.”
Indeed, we see it bubbling up from the Basque country of Spain, to Belgium, Bolivia, Baghdad and Beirut. Perhaps the wisest counsel for the United States may be to get out of the way of this elemental force. Rather than seek to halt the inexorable, we should seek to accommodate it and ameliorate its sometimes awful consequences.

Like how, Pat? I thought you were against interventionism. Wait, don't tell me... does it involve reservations? No? How about ghettos? Miscegenation laws?

And we should look to our own land. According to Pew Research, there will be 127 million Hispanics here by mid-century, tripling today’s 45 million – and almost 100 million new immigrants. No nation faces a graver threat from this resurgence of ethnonationalism than does our own.
Look homeward, America.

Um, Pat... first off, what evidence do you have that all those millions of Hispanics are united towards any common goal other than jobs and living conditions? Second, I like that Hispanics "and new immigrants" are both seen and treated as vague omnipresent threats against America without you ever bothering to explain why. If all those different immigrants come from different places, there is no reason to assume that they will be motivated by ethnic nationalism one way or the other. This is just a rehash of the Nativist song and dance spewed 100-plus years ago about some "horde" or another attacking America's shores. Amazingly, those racist bozos were wrong. Given reasons and opportunities, immigrants will become Americans, and Americanized. Notice that this does not mean that all Americans can, or should, become the same.

One last one. Yes, it gets worse. Back in January, plugging the same professor, Pat claimed that Obama's view of a post-racial America might actually lead to the dissilution of the union and possible race war:

Barack won the African-American vote 97 percent to 3 percent over John McCain, and 90 percent to 10 percent over Hillary Clinton in the later primaries. McCain ran stronger than George W. Bush only in Appalachia, the laager of the Scots-Irish.

So... we can therefore conclude that only the Scots-Irish still see themselves as white? Or could it be that those sneaky German-Americans were really energetic in pulling for "their" candidate, seeing as he descends from Stuttgart emigres? Doesn't Obama's election (made only possible by many, many white voters casting their ballots for him) suggest that, at least in at this point in America, ethnic background may not be the primary concern when it comes to elections for higher office?

In Jerry Z. Muller’s “Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism,” in Foreign Affairs, his thesis is summarized:
“...Once ethnic nationalism has captured the imagination of groups in a multiethnic society, ethnic disaggregation or partition is often the least bad answer.”
Disaggregation or partition, the man said.
Are we really in a post-racial America, or is our multicultural multiethnic America, too, destined for Balkanization and break-up?

No, because he said that this only happens when ethnic nationalism CAPTURES THE IMAGINATION of members of that society. So unless we start seeing large groups of Americans declaring individual states "Blackville", "Casa del Second Generation Hondurans" or "Scots-Irish Free State", I don't think we have much to worry about, as much as you enjoy being an alarmist crank.

Sorry to break it to you, Pat, but yes, the days of "Americans" being synonymous with "WASPs" are over (actually, they never really existed). And it happened a long time ago. If the Founders had wanted to stay "pure" and European, they should have all stayed on the East Coast and build a little wall around themselves, stopped having sex with Indians, stopped bringing over slaves, and oh yeah, stopped admitting immigrants in. Then we could be pure like Greenland. But shucks, that's not the way things turned out. You can whine about it, but the fight is long over. And, psst! For the record, we're better for it.

Memorial Day Tribute: My Family

To the fallen:

Ze'ev ben Noach N., WWII- d. 1943, South Pacific, age 19.

To the righteous:

Mordechai ben Gavriel G., WWI (Jewish Legion)

Leib ben Hershel haKohen G., WWII.

Shlomo ben Mordechai haKohen G., WWII.

Hershel ben Leib HaKohen G., WWII.

Reuven ben Binyamin B., WWII.

Reuven ben Hershel B., WWII.

Hirsh ben David F., WWII.

Binyamin ben Mordechai K., WWII.

Fishel ben Mordechai K., WWII.

Leib ben Mordechai K., WWII.

Chaim ben Mordechai K., WWII.

Natan ben Mordechai K., WWII.

Shlomo ben Mordechai S., WWII- flew 22 bombing raids over Europe and North Africa, shot down in Lithuania, spent 2 1/2 months in a POW camp, then 21 months convalescing stateside.

Shlomo ben Shimon haKohen C., Korean War.

To the forgotten:

Nussen ben Gavriel G., Cuban Occupation (post-WWI).

I will always remember you , and try to honor your lives and service.

Rest In Peace.

More from Dennis

I know, it's a lot, but don't worry, we're in the home stretch! Dennis' latest turd bomb has arrived, and it makes very little sense. In the not-at-all provocatively titled, "Do leftists really love America?" Dennis asks, as only he can, in the smuggest of "innocent" questions, "Aren't you all really just a bunch of Commie scum? What, I'm just asking." Let's take a look.

If you met a man who said he would like to "transform" or "remake" his wife, would you conclude that he: a) thought very highly of his wife and loved her, or b) held his wife in rather low esteem and therefore found living with her rather difficult?

The answer is obvious: Those who wish to remake anything (or anyone) do not think highly of the person or thing they wish to remake.

Except, of course, that using this (idiotic) argument you would never paint your house, wash your car, or politely suggest to your wife or kids that they might need haircuts, new clothes, or, say, a bath. Basic upkeep does not mean you hate yourself, your property, or your family.

Little is as revealing of Barack Obama's and the left's view of America than their use of the words "transform" and "remake" when applied to what they most want to do to America.

I among others pointed this out during the presidential campaign when Obama frequently promised he would "transform America." That is why those of us attuned to the importance of words and who hold America in high esteem were so worried about an Obama election.

That's right, I almost forgot about Dennis' honorary doctorate in linguistics from BS-U. (Or was that Bullcrap State?) BTW, Dennis, if you love words so much, why do you spend so much time savaging the English language through absurd strawmen arguments and inane blanket statements?

Americans on the left frequently attack critics for labeling them "unpatriotic" and/or accusing them of not loving America. The first charge is false to the best of my knowledge. I have searched in vain for an instance of a normative conservative or Republican spokesman calling Democrats or liberals "unpatriotic."

Right, accusing someone of treason or suggesting that they "love" terrorists or America-hating dictators isn't the same thing as calling them unpatriotic. Not at all.

It is not an attack on the left to say that their own rhetoric suggests that they love a vision of America considerably more than they love the reality of America; that they love what America could be rather than what it is. Otherwise, how would one explain this liberal vocabulary of "remaking" and "transforming" America? You don't yearn to transform or remake that which you love.

Wrong, dipshit. If you really care about something or someone, you want to help make it, or them, as good as they can be. Ever seen this show? These people are there because they see their loved ones making terrible mistakes and want to help them become better. What happened to self-improvement? I would think a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of guy like you would be encouraging us all to be all that we can be, and bugging our families and friends to follow suit. The mark of a good teacher is someone that cares about their students but also encourages and helps them grow into their potential. Only a whiny child would claim that a teacher that pushes you to do better hates you.

Many years ago, the prominent Jewish writer, my friend since childhood, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, helped to clarify – in a nonpartisan way – a major difference between liberals and conservatives. "Conservatives," he said, "romanticize the past; liberals romanticize the future."

A decent assessment. I wonder what Dennis will do with this.

The romanticizing of the future has been a distinguishing characteristic of the left since Karl Marx. Leftist ideologies have secular eschatologies.

Funny, wasn't it Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld who said the Iraqis would be greeting us as liberators and that by toppling Saddam we would be ushering in a new age of global democracy? Doesn't get much more secular pipe-dream than that, Dennis.

The further left one goes the greater the belief in revolution, the need to overthrow the contemporary order.

Really, so the Founding Fathers were what, Commie Anarchists?

The problem is that compared with such a future utopia, no actual society could possibly compete. Certainly not racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, unequal America.

There's utopianism on both sides of the aisle, Dennis. See abolishing the IRS, building a wall to keep all immigrants out, and Reganomics.

In light of those frequently made criticisms of America, I have often asked representatives of the left why they criticize America so much if they love it so much. "Precisely because we love America, we criticize it. You criticize that which you love," is the nearly universal response.

But, of course, it isn't true. If you constantly criticize your spouse, for example, it is difficult to imagine that you really do love him or her. And perhaps more important, it is very unlikely that your spouse feels loved. That is why after being routinely described as racist, sexist, imperialist, etc., it is difficult to be able to tell that America is loved by the left.

So the claim is that because the left sees so many things wrong with America, we are hurting the country's feelings? Really? That's the best you can come up with? You're suggesting that if you really love someone you should let them be as mediocre, flawed or unhealthy as they want to be. If my girlfriend likes drinking and then going joyriding through school zones, I shouldn't tell her maybe that's a bad idea? If I see my grandmother throwing away her heart medication because she thinks its quack medecine, I should give her a high five rather than some good advice? Should I let my obese friend eat himself to death? I should go buy cigarettes for a cancer patient, just to prove how much I love them?

Get real, Dennis. The "your country is like a wife and you wouldn't ask your wife to change at all if you really loved her" is a horrible argument, especially coming from someone twice divorced. Ask any Israeli if they think their country is perfect, and then just try suggesting that if they really liked it they'd sit back complacently and ignore the problems they see. The reality is that you have to care about your country to want to change it. It's far easier to not care, make excuses, and watch as things go to hell.

You don't have to agree with the left's assessment of America or its goals, but most people living here today, from all parties, think that we have a lot of problems and need to start working on fixing them. Pointing out flaws in your country is no sin, and if it is, the left is far from alone in making it. The real question you should be asking is what's wrong with the people that think everything's going FINE the way it is.

Veteran's Day Thoughts

"There is, I fear, a tendency to give to patriotism merely an interest in making our country unconquerable-- a feeling that our chief aim is to see that our army and our navy are sufficient for our protection. That is but a part of our patriotic duty.

Our country is, in a sense, continually at war. Against the ramparts of liberty, equality and justice, on which our Republic is founded, surge constantly the evil forces of greed, of materialism, of selfishness, headed by those who cynically deny that there is any prosperity or goodness that cannot be expressed in dollars and cents, or happiness except in bank balances.

Continually, they seek to sap, to undermine, to destroy finally those high ideals without which our nation can no more survive than could those great nations of the past-- those nations whose bodies died because their souls were dead.

It is your duty as good soldiers of the faith not merely to keep alive the memory of those who gave their lives for their country's safety, but to fight militantly, tirelessly, against the moral enemies of our Republic wherever and whenever they appear. Your flags have rallied around your country's banner. Make that no empty symbol."

- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Nov 11, 1929.

Can't be American without a Flag

What holiday season would be complete without people like Dennis Prager to complain about how bad liberals are?

Dennis says he likes rituals. Without them, how would people know who they were? He goes so far as to claim, rather grandiosely, that,

No national or cultural identity can survive without ritual

This might sound kind of strange coming from a Reform Jew who presumably buys into the whole autonomous, optional mitzvot thing that's long been a hallmark of Reform practice, but Dennis never lets pesky thing like facts or personal hypocrisy stand in his way. Besides, in a big-picture kind of way, I suppose he's right. Rituals are important to self-identity and cohesion, though, as Reform and Conservative Judaism (and many other examples) illustrate, exactly which rituals and elements of identity one chooses to maintain can often be rather open to interpretation.

Americans knew this until the era of anti-wisdom was ushered in by the baby boomer generation in the 1960s and '70s. We always had national holidays that celebrated something meaningful.

Or at least we SAID they did, which was what really mattered.

When I was in elementary school, every year we would put on a play about Abraham Lincoln to commemorate Lincoln's Birthday and a play about George Washington to commemorate Washington's Birthday. Unfortunately, Congress made a particularly foolish decision to abolish the two greatest presidents' birthdays as national holidays and substituted the meaningless Presidents Day. Beyond having a three-day weekend and department store sales, the day means nothing.

And that's whose fault, exactly? There's nothing to stop people from making Presidents' Day meaningful. If anything, it's an opportunity to expand people's attention beyond merely the two most well-known (and whitewashed) guys. How about using the larger focus of the day to have mini-plays about the Lesser Known Presidents? And since when do good conservatives need the government to mandate a holiday so people will appreciate American leaders? Next you'll blame the Democratic Congress for not having a MacArthur Day.

Columbus Day is rarely celebrated since the European founding of European civilization on American soil is not politically correct.

Really? Because no one seems to have told any of these guys. Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore, Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and of course that great liberal bastion, New York City. Try picking up a newspaper sometime. Incidentally, Heaven forbid we put some extra effort into trying to balance an appreciation for the founding of America with dealing with the dirty facts of history like Spanish Imperialism, Indian slavery and genocide, and Columbus being a general jackass with a poor sense of direction.
Again, Dennis seems content to take the easy way out and blame someone else. How utterly French of him.

Christmas has become less nationally meaningful as exemplified by the substitution of "Happy Holidays" for "Merry Christmas."

Inane red herring, thoroughly debunked here and elsewhere during the great "War on Christmas" fiascoes of the fast few years. If anything, trying to establish common ground between ALL the winter holidays is designed to make Christmas more accessible as a semi-secular and "national" (not religious) holiday to people that may not celebrate it in a Christian context. The continual insistence on keeping Christmas as exclusively Christian and on giving it some sort of superiority over other holidays is part of what turns so many people off of it. What a surprise, some people react poorly to Christmas becoming yet another implement of culture war bludgeoning.

Memorial Day should be a solemn day on which Americans take time to honor those Americans who fought and died for America and for liberty. But, again, fewer and fewer Americans visit military cemeteries just as fewer communities have Memorial Day festivities.

A- How on earth are you backing this up?
B- Exactly what do you do on Memorial Day?

We come, finally, to tomorrow, the mother of American holidays, July Fourth, the day America was born. This day has a long history of vibrant and meaningful celebrations. But it, too, is rapidly losing its meaning. For example, look around tomorrow – especially if you live in a large urban area – and see how few homes display the American flag. For most Americans it appears that the Fourth has become merely a day to take off from work and enjoy hot dogs with friends

It's interesting Dennis mentions flags. A flag, ironically enough, like most of what Dennis has mentioned as examples, is a rather superficial, and simplistic, display of what are, for many people, very complex emotions and ideas. For the record, I put up a flag after 9/11. But friends and relatives asked me to take it down shortly thereafter, because people like Dennis made them feel intimidated by and alienated from symbols of American patriotism. They couldn't figure out how to show pride and appreciation for their country without feeling like they were associating themselves with people on the right, who, rightly or wrongly, they saw as trying to obtain a monopoly on patriotism, particularly the "my country right or wrong" variety.

People like Dennis scare people away from being overtly patriotic. They don't want to be associated with people like him, and they resent the implication that there's some sort of patriotic or cultural litmus test going on, as if they need to pass a certain threshold of "correct" holiday observances in order to pass the "good American" test. What the hell business is it of Dennis' how people celebrate any holiday? And again, how is he measuring proper holiday festivities? An Independence Day pageant? Historical reenactments? Please do tell, O Mighty and All-Wise Prager, how we should be celebrating our Independence Day- aside from blowing our fingers off, of course.

National memory dies without national ritual. And without a national memory, a nation dies. That is the secret at the heart of the Jewish people's survival that the American people must learn if they are to survive.

When Jews gather at the Passover Seder – and this is the most widely observed Jewish holiday – they recount the exodus from Egypt, an event that occurred 3,200 years ago. We Americans have difficulty keeping alive the memory of events that happened 231 years ago.

How have the Jews accomplished this? By the ritual of the Passover Seder. Jews spend the evening recounting the Exodus from Egypt – and as if it happened to them. In the words of the Passover Haggadah – the Passover Seder book – "every person is obligated to regard himself as if he himself left Egypt." The story is retold in detail, and it is told as if it happened to those present at the Seder, not only to those who lived it 3,200 years ago.

That has to be the motto of the July Fourth Seder. We all have to retell the story in as much detail as possible and to regard ourselves as if we – no matter when we or our ancestors came to America – were present at the nation's founding in 1776.

Dennis, of course, is conveniently forgetting that most people's seders, while certainly a point of cultural connection, are not as rosy or sepia-toned as he might like to pretend. Passover is Jewish Thanksgiving. Some people love it, some people hate it, some people do it traditionally, some people do alternative seders, whatever (and the pluralism of that ritual is itself its own point of controversy). However you observe the holiday, however, I'm rather skeptical that most, or even a sizeable number of practitioners actually come away feeling, "hey, that totally happened to me!" It's a ritual, yes, but even the most widely observed rituals, if we're honest, have a certain amount of self-awareness.

The truth is that we CAN'T experience the Exodus as it happened to our ancestors, and that gap, that distance, is part of the seder experience itself, the acknowledgment and struggle to deal with the existence of that impossibility. By the same token, it is impossible for Americans to ever experience the founding of the country as our forefathers did- nor should, IMO, they try. Instead, they should contemplate the distance itself, and how that shapes their understanding of the past and their own selves as Americans. To do otherwise is to merely engage in whimsical, and largely useless, fantasy.
National memory and consciousness are indeed important. But the way to promote those values is through honest examination of historical fact and the acknowledgment that the America of today, and the Americans of the present-age, are NOT the same as the predecessors. Dennis' proposal, like his diagnosis of the problem, is all show and no substance. Guilting people into coming to an American seder that holds no meaning for them has no purpose. You may get bodies in the seats, yes, but what good is that without their hearts and minds?