'The Death of the West': Pat Buchanan Raises a Demographic Alarum (Neocon hit piece in the NY Times)

The New York Times ^ | February 3, 2002 | CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL

[sinkspur]

Buchanan is not obsessed with race

Of course he is.

He mentions it in every book he's written in the last ten years, and the present work focuses on race for over half the book (and, yes, I've read it).

Pat is a brilliant wordsmith, but some of what he writes appeals to the dark side of human nature.

[RLK]

Buchanan's demographic alarum marks the re-emergence of a genre of racial-doom books not seen (for reasons that are obvious enough) since before World War II.

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Sorry, I'm not in to specious, incomplete, and smearing parallelisms. I'm concerned with reality of the present condition.

[billbears]

bump

[LSJohn]

I think you know I agree with most of #9 -- which is an excellent post -- but there's one additional thing to think about regarding this: "For all the talk about living standards, people in the United States must now work longer hours to provide homes for their families. Where one wage earner could earn enough to provide for his family, we now see two wage earners having to work full time, and losing ground all the while."

I think this has more to do with instant gratification and thoughtless, irresponsible decisions than exported jobs and imported workers (although those certainly have their detrimental effects.) Many middle-class families now choose to have two cars, 3 TVs (all on satellite or cable), 3 telephones, 2 VCRs, a computer, fax, dishwasher, microwave, two bathrooms, a burglar alarm, riding mower, $150 shoes and Tommy Hilfiger gear for each of the kids, etc, etc -- none of which our parents had -- instead of having a full-time parent at home.

This is not to overlook the difficulties of those below the economic middle class who have been most hurt by the reorganization of the economy. A family of four may not have any of those items I mentioned if their only income is from two minimum wage jobs.

[Petronski]

Pat is a brilliant wordsmith, but some of what he writes appeals to the dark side of human nature.

And some of what he writes is motivated by the dark side of human nature.

[LSJohn]

Though no one has mentioned it here and I haven't read the book, surely a central point in Buchanan's book must be that for over two decades import quotas from third-world countries have far exceeded those from first-world. People from third-world countries tend to have cultural traditions radically different from our own, but those from the first-world tend to be very similar culturally.

I'll wager the book is far more about culture than about race, but if one wants to raise straw men and red herrings race is always a convenient vehicle.

[Tauzero]

Re: #9 -- excellent

I'd only add that Pat's demographic observations are perfectly consistent with economics: if you tax something more ( middle-class families with children ) you get less of it; if you subsidize something ( old people, out-of-wedlock births of the poor) you get more of it.

[ZeitgeistSurfer]

You are exactly right. Pat's book is a lament on the death of western culture, not the white race. It happens that that the carriers of that culture happen to be white. Anyone who doubts that we are heading for some kind of slow-motion cultural / demographic civil war in this country hasn't visited California or southern Texas lately.

[medusa]

I'll wager the book is far more about culture than about race, but if one wants to raise straw men and red herrings race is always a convenient vehicle.

Exactly. Can we not accept that to speak about culture is also to speak about race? Can you, Sink, separate the two?

[LSJohn]

Bumpitdy-doo-damn-dah!

[mrustow]

Thanks for the ping. While Caldwell does have one point -- that Buchanan too often identifies "civilization" with "whites" and "barbarianism" with "the third world" -- this op-ed is the ultimate in intellectual prostitution. The point above notwithstanding, Caldwell is beating up on Buchanan for saying the same sort of things that the weekly standard has been saying since its inception. Or has the standard decided to convert to libertarianism?

[DoughtyOne]

My we are sellective aren't we. 1/3rd, 1/6th, 1/12th, 1/24th, 1/50th. You left out a smidgen didn't you. Going from 1/3rd to 1/50th in a little over 100 years isn't a cause for concern for you. No, it's not a significan trend. And you want to be taken serious?

Once again for the hard of comprehending, I didn't coin the use of the word caucasian to address whites. If you're too young or sheltered to know that it's not my fault.

As for race, I've clearly shown who the racists are. Any pseudointellectual who trys to depict a move from 1/3rd to 1/50th as insignificant is either not being honest or is the very thing you accused me of being.

Now, back to your xbox.

[DoughtyOne]

Yes statistics can be used to lie. But an honest review of this issue reveals that opposing statistics must be available to counteract the first set. Where is your set of statistics fella?

In 1950 Caucasians made up 90% of the United States populace. Today that figure has dropped to 65%. If projections based on this observation are correct, within 25 to 30 years the Caucasian populace will dip below the 50% level. Do you think that is significant? It's a fact. I think it's worthy of discussion.

[DoughtyOne]

Yes you're right. It's so hard to touch all the bases in a relative short article. There are so many issues associated with this that it's very hard to do the topic adequate justice in the space provided. It almost demands a book to counter the false charges on each of these threads.

[eskimo]

Good comments, Old Hickory. The obvious fact that "Buchananism" is a greater enemy of neo-conservatism than the most radical leftist is quite telling of the whole movement.

It is indeed telling. Since the neocon political perspective is so devoid of any commonsense, you can be fairly certain that wherever they dispense with political discussion and go directly to innuendo and hate labels there is an unpalatable truth they are compelled to ridicule.