Pat Buchanan isn't conservative, just crazy

[Taxman]

After Iraq, attack Pat Buchanan
by Ben Shapiro


A few months back, I received a magazine in the mail. I hadn't ordered it, but there it was. "The American Conservative," the title blared in white-on-blue lettering.


There were two problems: It was anti-American, and it definitely wasn't conservative.

The articles railed against American "imperialism," the Weekly Standard and National Review, and Israel. Kevin Phillips ripped modern conservatism as "Wall Street, Big Energy, multinational corporations, the Military-Industrial Complex, the Religious Right, the Market Extremist think-tanks, and the Rush Limbaugh Axis." He urged readers to "support Democratic retention of at least the Senate."

Two weeks later, another issue of The American Conservative arrived. This issue urged the Bush administration against considering pre-emptive war. An editorial by Taki Theodoracopulos accused neoconservative Bill Kristol of being a spy for Israel's center-right Likud Party. Theodoracopulos discussed "American arrogance" and fulminated against Israel.

This was isolationist, anti-business, anti-Semitic, dumb economics garbage. And then I looked at the name of the editor: Patrick Buchanan.

For many Americans, the Pat Buchanan wing of the conservative movement drives their deep-seated fear of conservatives. When you look at Buchanan's work in recent years, it's not hard to see why.

His isolationist economic policy is myopic. In his column of Oct. 28, 2002, titled "The Poison Fruit of Free Trade," Buchanan goes on a ludicrous free-trade-bashing binge. Buchanan argues that because U.S. taxes are too high, we should raise tariffs in order to protect American industry.

This argument is stunningly ignorant for a person of Buchanan's "renown." Raising tariffs would push up prices of inputs, thereby raising prices across the board. Consumption of goods would fall. Thousands of jobs in American industries would be lost. Real wages would also fall. The best example of the effects of high tariffs is the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which most economists feel prolonged the Great Depression and exacerbated its effects.

Buchanan holds immigrants in contempt. Not just illegal immigrants -- even some who immigrate legally are not fit to be Americans in Buchanan's eyes. In his book, "The Death of the West," Buchanan writes that Mexican immigrants are problematic because they are "not only from another culture, but of another race," and that "different races are far more difficult to assimilate than different cultures." This is plain un-American. The color of your skin or the racial background of your parents should never disqualify you from becoming a true American. This is the most diverse nation on Earth, even if Buchanan would prefer that it not be.

- snip -

But Buchanan's favorite targets are what he calls neoconservatives (read: mainstream conservatives), who are "bent on reckless wars, global free trade and open borders." In the latest issue of his magazine, Buchanan also weaves in his favorite anti-Semitic canard, that neocons are driven by concern for the Jews and want "to conscript American blood to make the world safe for Israel." "We believe the great conservative movement has been hijacked and put into services that would appall the Founding Fathers," Buchanan told the Washington Times in an interview about the magazine. "Neocons are the useful idiots of the liberal establishment," Buchanan reiterated in his Dec. 30, 2002, column.

Buchanan, not the neocons, is the useful idiot of the liberal establishment. He and others like him (notables include Theodoracopulos) are used as straw men by the left. They make it much easier to characterize conservatives as racist and isolationist old white men. If conservatives wish to reach out to new constituencies, they must jettison the Buchananites.

Buchanan's brand of "conservatism" is closer now to the far left than it is to the mainstream right, as shown by socialist and black nationalist Lenora Fulani's ardent support for his Reform Party campaign in 2000. Buchanan's wisdom and patriotism must be questioned when the former co-chair of his 2000 campaign is such an enemy of America.

- continued

Full article here.

[TXNavy]

"What? Denigrate Pat Buchanan, how could you, Taxman!" [img]graemlins/Laughing.gif[/img]

Where is that kid when I want him around, I wonder?

[Taxman]

Don't worry. He'll rush in here in any time now to uphold the conservatism of the honorable Mr. Buchanan...

ETA: Looks like he's logged off. Maybe I shouldn't of blasted him in three threads?

[TXNavy]

Oh, that won't stop him. Not only that, but he'll post two or three times to each thread, just to make sure you're reading it.

[chris]

Pat would never be my first choice as a candidate but he is not A RACIST.This Shapiro is obviously very insecure about this own standing in life. Is Robert Novak not a Conservative?Was Robert Taft a tool of the left?Is Michelle Malkin a racist?What about Vernon Robinson and Tom Tancredo?We have out grown isolationism as conservatives but it is a huge part of our history.


I believe we owe Pat respect if nothing else for the way he treated the Gipper.Most staff members didn't respect the Gipper the way they should or they thought they were so very important to the President he couldn't function without them.They all wanted his credit except Clark,Nofziger and Pat.We must all admit he served our President well. Is Pat Honorable?The way he served the President YES he is.I have not read all his books so if anyone has proof of his "racism" I am willing to listen.Pat cant be all that bad since he is willing to abolish he IRS.I have read DEATH OF THE WEST and there is nothing remotely racist in that book.

[chris]

Pat Toomey

[Taxman]

Originally posted by chris:
Pat would never be my first choice as a candidate but he is not A RACIST.This Shapiro is obviously very insecure about this own standing in life. Is Robert Novak not a Conservative?Was Robert Taft a tool of the left?Is Michelle Malkin a racist?What about Vernon Robinson and Tom Tancredo?We have out grown isolationism as conservatives but it is a huge part of our history.


I believe we owe Pat respect if nothing else for the way he treated the Gipper.Most staff members didn't respect the Gipper the way they should or they thought they were so very important to the President he couldn't function without them.They all wanted his credit except Clark,Nofziger and Pat.We must all admit he served our President well. Is Pat Honorable?The way he served the President YES he is.I have not read all his books so if anyone has proof of his "racism" I am willing to listen.Pat cant be all that bad since he is willing to abolish he IRS.I have read DEATH OF THE WEST and there is nothing remotely racist in that book.

"If we had to take a million immigrants in, say Zulus, next year, or Englishmen, and put them up in Virginia, what group would be easier to assimilate and would cause less problems for the people of Virginia?" ("This Week With David Brinkley," 1/8/91)

Memo to Nixon cited an article claiming that heredity determines intelligence (similar to the more recent Bell Curve book) and wrote:

"If correct, then all our efforts and expenditures not only for 'compensatory education' but to provide an 'equal chance at the starting line' are guaranteeing that we wind up with the intelligent ones coming in first. And every study shows blacks 15 I.Q. points below whites on average. . . . If there is no refutation, then it seems to me that a lot of what we are doing in terms of integration of blacks and whites -- but even more so, poor and well-to-do -- is less likely to result in accommodation than it is in perpetual friction -- as the incapable are played consciously by government side by side with the capable."


He's also an admirer of Hitler: "Those of us in childhood during the war years were introduced to Hitler only as caricature. ... Though Hitler was indeed racist and anti-Semitic to the core, a man who without compunction could commit murder and genocide, he was also an individual of great courage"

He's also a Holocaust denier: "Since the war, 1,600 medical papers have been written on 'The Psychological and Medical Effects of the Concentration Camps on Holocaust Survivors.' This so-called 'Holocaust Survivor syndrome involves 'group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics.' "


You are the company that you keep. Buchanan keeps company with people like this:

-- Larry Pratt, co-chairman of Buchanan's failed campaign, is a major figure in the militia movement, and has appeared at workshops and on TV shows sponsored by white supremacist "Christian Identity" groups.
-- Rev. Donald Wildmon, another of the 4 Buchanan co-chairmen, crusades against sexually explicit TV shows and has repeatedly asserted that Jews dominate the entertainment industry and are responsible. He condemned the movie "Last Temptation of Christ" as being funded by "Jewish money."
-- Michael Farris, the third of the 4 co-chairmen, attended the "White Rose Banquet" honoring those who had gone to jail for acts of violence in the anti-abortion crusade -- including Paul Hill, who shot a doctor and his bodyguard in Pensacola, Florida. The banquet was held in Arlington, VA on January 21, 1996
-- William Carter, a member of Buchanan's South Carolina steering Committee, ran David Duke's 1992 campaign there.
-- Susan Lamb, Duval County, Florida chairwoman for Buchanan was involved in the "National Association for the Advancement of White People", founded by Duke.
-- Samuel Francis, a friend and supporter who spoke at a 1993 meeting of Buchanan's group "American Cause", has called for a "white reconquest of the United States" and reportedly was asked to leave the Washington Times' editorial staff because of his racism.
-- Vincent Bruno, has ties to ex-KKK wizard David Duke's 1991 campaign for Louisiana governor. Bruno was Duke's liaison to the religious right.


This man is the reason that those on the left call us fascists, racists, and hypocrites and the reason that the less informed members of the public believe them. We have just as much responsibility to denounce him as Muslims do to denounce Osama bin Laden.

I'll leave you with just a random sampling of Buchanan quotes...

"Women are simply not endowed with the same measure of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism."

"You just wait until 1996, then you'll see a real right-wing tyrant."

"We are in the process of destroying the one working economy [in lower Africa -- South Africa] -- because it doesn't adopt an idiotic 'One man, one vote' regimen."

[hemikid]

Originally posted by Taxman:

This man is the reason that those on the left call us fascists, racists, and hypocrites and the reason that the less informed members of the public believe them. [/QB]

Actually, I think alot of them call us facists because it sounds unpleasant. 99% of them don't even know what it means.

[chris]

You have made a good case that he is a Bigot.However I think you havent made the case that he is a racist as I havent seen anything that implies hate.


The Duke affilations are the most damning.However being a bigot is wrong and I will not ever defend him or bring him up again.(I NEVER REALLY BROUGHT HIM UP IN THE FIRST PLACE)
I think we have bigger fish to fry than an irrelevant Pat Buchanan.

[TXNavy]

Oh, so now Pat Buchanan is irrelevant? I thought that if he called someone a liberal, that was it because he was on Ronald Reagan's staff?

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