Culture in Peril, Buchanan Says

Richmond Times-Dispatch ^ | Apr 04, 2002 | KATHRYN ORTH

[Ligeia]

HAMPDEN-SYDNEY - The American melting pot is broken, Patrick J. Buchanan said last night at Hampden-Sydney College, speaking to a crowd of several hundred people.

The elites of American society don't believe in the idea of a melting pot any more but preach multiculturalism, Buchanan said. "The fundamental theme of multiculturalism now is anti-American culture, anti-Western culture."

[Ligeia]

The elites of American society don't believe in the idea of a melting pot any more but preach multiculturalism, Buchanan said. "The fundamental theme of multiculturalism now is anti-American culture, anti-Western culture."

A book I read promoting multiculturalism claims the melting pot idea has always been a myth and the more accurate metaphor would be a tossed salad because each aspect of the whole retains its own identity. One of my hopes for the silver-lining consequences of September 11 will be the end of the anti-Americanism and anti-Western attitudes so heavily promoted by the left for the past few decades. Buchanan is right when he says conservatives "are the remnant that preserves American culture until the rest of America wakes up." It's a heavy burden but if not us, who?

[KC_Conspirator]

Pat seems to always come up with some good data and sound premises, such as "Multiculturalism is anti-American and anti-Western", but then always jumps to ridiculous predictions.

[My2Cents]

The multiculturalists would rather that the US look like the Balkans -- with each little group tearing at every other little group's throat.

The multiculturalists preach "diversity" because they don't believe in anything that should be the basis of unity in our society. Traditionally, the founding principles of the nation were what unified us: a commitment to certain inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But that doesn't work for them, because they want everyone to think like they do, and the concept of individual liberties flies in the face of this conformity to their agenda and way of thinking. So, if they can't get the nation's cultural values to change, then destroy the culture.

[Ligeia]

then always jumps to ridiculous predictions.

Which predictions are ridiculous? The attacks on our founding fathers are rampant and I saw on Fox News where a city in California (I think) is forgoing Columbus Day for Caesar Chavez Day. It appears to me his predictions are coming to pass.

[Tauzero]

bump for good Irish boys

[jadimov]

I agree with KC. Pat starts well and then implodes

...By the end of the 21st century, they are expected to be only 2 percent to 3 percent...

This assumes the poor nations will be able to continue at today's growth without any Malthusian disasters. If we weren't supporting them with below market price food and medicine, they wouldn't be in as good a shape as they are in now.

...They are coming for jobs. My ancestors came to become American...

And America had jobs. People immigrate to find a better way of life. Mexicans are different because they live next door. Canadians do the same thing but they look like more like us. I'm sure the European immigrants would have loved to have been able to return back to visit the homeland often. It was just too far to travel.

...it takes time to assimilate millions of people...

That it does. I would like to see a couple changes to current immigration policy. (1) An Amendment that requires one of your parents to be a citizen for you to be born a citizen even if you are born on American soil. The parent could be born a citizen or naturalized. Otherwise you have to go through the naturalization process. (2) The immigration window should open and close in cycles of ten or twenty years. That would give the country time to absorb new immigrants.

[Ligeia]

So well said. The evidence that September 11 has rekindled the American spirit and pride is all around. I'm in awe of what I witness on a daily basis. So many people who for years have been attracted to the anti-American notion of multiculturalism are now sporting American flag pins. At this moment in time, no one could convince them that America isn't the greatest country on earth.

[JimSEA]

There is a difference between the immigrants to America today, many of them from Mexico, and his own immigrant ancestors, Buchanan said. "Why are the Mexican immigrants today different? They are coming for jobs. My ancestors came to become Americans."

Pat's ancestors were lucky. My Irish ancestors came here because they were starving. Potato famine you know.:)

[My2Cents]

Good comment. I suspect that it's a bit over-romantic of Buchanan to claim his ancestors came here to become Americans.....I suspect they also came here for jobs, and to improve their lives.

Multiculturalism cuts against improvement of life, because it isolates people into ghettos, and perpetuates limits on opportunity.

[Ligeia]

I don't interpret Buchanan's comment about his parents coming to here to be Americans to mean they didn't expect to find jobs once they arrived. Of course they did. This is the Land of Opportunity. Buchanan means they expected to leave the culture of the Old World behind and become a part of their new culture. This differs from the immigrants today who want to keep too much of the Old Word as a part of their new lives. It may be a generational phenomenon as those I know who are first and second generation Iranian or Nicaraguan immigrants, for example, are completely Americanized. And I like your two-point plan. Pure common sense.

[uncbob]

They are coming for jobs. My ancestors came to become Americans."

BS They came to escape oppression, or for for the economic opportunity and for the oppertunity to rise above their birth status

[adx]

The multiculturalists would rather that the US look like the Balkans -- with each little group tearing at every other little group's throat.

Yeah, baby, yeah (in his best Austin Powers imitation)! MegaYugoslavia with nuclear weapons! How does the thought of multiple nuclear powers within the continental US sound to you? /sarcasm

[Ligeia]

I'd like to think your claims are true of the Clinton decade and are now unfounded. Keep being a voice in the wilderness. You are obviously one of the remant about whom Buchanan speaks.

[Malcolm]

As a former PJB voter, ('92 & '96 GOP Primaries in Georgia), I have to say that I am disappointed in Patrick. I have a distaste for all the Mexican immigrants, but the time to have done something about it was in the 70s and 80s; they comprise such a large part of the electorate that Pete Wilsons support of Prop 187 capsized his career and the California GOP with it.

We could do something now, and should, but did 9-11 REALLY change anything? "Hispanics," (Latinos for those of us not employed by the Census Bureau), make up such a large part of many states now that Congressmen and Senators from those states would vote against any legislation that would make a difference. We had a chance before to do this, and the Dems in Congress resisted it, knowing that not acting would eventually pay benefits to them, all the while making blowhard speaches about how all of us are really immigrants, despite some of us, like me, whose families have been here since before the Civil War. We had a chance in the 1980 election, and those following, to vote the GOP into office, in substantial numbers; but we sat on our buns and let the Dems have enough power to screw up this issue, probably past the point of no return.

What's Pat's cute little suggestion for this dire emergency? Load 'em up on trucks and bus them to the Rio Grande, where they are dumped out, and force them back across the border? Give every white-bread female a tax incentive to birth 5-plus children, (with white daddies, or course)? No, friends, we are in a stew now, because we chose to not vote, or vote for the Dems, and the street we're on is too narrow to make any U-turns on it. For those of you who still don't get the point, THERE IS NO SOLUTION! As far as this issue is concerned, better get used to speaking Spanish and living under Dem rule; you certainly earned it.....

[Ligeia]

Your post reminds me of the disagreement I have with Dr. James Dobson, a man whom I greatly admire. He admonishes conservatives to abandon the public schools. This only hands them over to the most extreme elements of the Left to brainwash every new generation of immigrant children. Stay engaged and fight for the American belief system or be prepared to turn the USA over to the pure Socialists. It does no good to send the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines overseas to fight for America when we won't fight for her on the homefront.

[Malcolm]

I AM engaged, I DO vote, and I don't waste my vote on 3rd parties and their little "chicken little" escapades; it's the vast American electorate who have "called in sick." Did you even read my post???

[ex-snook]

"I AM engaged, I DO vote, "

So do I and the party that puts Whitman and Greenwood in important positions is not my party any more. One must vote for candidates that most represent his views else there is no other way to move the pile. If both parties present candidates with essentially the same positions, it is lose-lose. Vote pro-life, what issue is more important?

[JimSEA]

As you say, multiculturalism has gone sooooo far beyond simple respect for people's differences. Gettos, like refugee camps in the Middle East are incubators for peoples grievances and anger. Separation and the failure to learn the dominant language are total barriers to a peaceful, united society and the major reasons for a violent underclass. While having two or more languages is almost essential if one wants to travel to any great extent, if you are an American, you have to be most skilled in English.

[KC_Conspirator]

Thank you. First of all I question his numbers that in 1950 1 out of 3 people in the world was a European. That would mean that there was an even higher number 5 years previous to that; which would have been at the end of the bloodiest war in world history. This seems unlikely. At any rate, a ridiculous prediction that European/Caucasian people will only be 2% of the worlds population 50 years from now smacks of the book The Population Bomb in the 70's which predicted worldwide famine (including the US and England) by the year 2000 unless we all turned or lives over to trained socialists/communists. The book was widely accepted by academics and we all know now how pathetic the authors predictions were.