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Pat Buchanan's Book Reveals Eminent Threats To American Posterity

By Kevin Lamb

"And when you lose control, you'll reap the harvest you have sown" -Pink Floyd ("Dogs," Animals, 1977)

When New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) recently addressed a well-publicized gathering at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, the first questioner during the Q & A session asked how the Governor would handle our nation's "immigration crisis" and the "education expense associated with this problem." Christie said he favored the status quo of legal immigration but would secure our borders. He also opposes the Dream Act - federal legislation that would give the children of illegal aliens in-state tuition costs at public universities.

The fact that the first question posed to Governor Christie addressed our nation's immigration crisis - and not the economy, or health care, or the federal budget impasse, or our ballooning national debt - shows that more and more citizens view our unsecured southern border as a national emergency, and voters wonder what our elected officials are prepared to do about it.

Over the years, immigration policy and border security have remained priority concerns of an electorate impatient with our political elites who refuse to stem the flow of illegal immigration. Grassroots activists forced Congress to abandon comprehensive immigration reform in 2007 - another amnesty comparable to the one President Reagan approved in 1986 - which had the endorsement of the Bush Administration and Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and John McCain (R-AZ).

Pat Buchanan's new book, which hits bookstore shelves on Tuesday, is about a nation losing control - of its heritage, its history, its cultural and religious traditions, and ultimately its future.

Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? is a fearless description of our nation's plight, arguably Buchanan's sharpest-edged assessment in print. It defies a number of cultural, social, and political trends and serves as a dissident conservative's manifesto. Buchanan's full-throttle defiance of Political Correctness is unlikely to "Win Friends and Influence People" in the elite media circles where the conservative author earns a lucrative salary, but it will resonate in Middle America where the nation's transformation is on a destructive trajectory.

Unlike beltway neoconservatives, Buchanan views America as more than just a "proposition" nation (a country devoid of a nation). It is the ancestral home of millions of European descendants who settled a new nation; forged our political institutions; expanded our Christian faith; and developed a common set of folkways, customs, and traditions.

These various European strands, assimilated over generations, formed the core of America's national character and served as the basis of the legendary melting pot. The notion that America has always been a "diverse" nation remains at odds with reality. Our national development is an outgrowth of European folkways, which David Hackett Fischer so eloquently described in his 1989 book, Albion's Seed.

The eminent threat to our national posterity is what Buchanan identifies as the "Death of Christian America," the "Cult of Diversity," the "End of White America," the "Triumph of Tribalism," and "Demographic Winter," among others. America's demographic transformation reflects the shift in population trends since the mid-1960s when our immigration laws were radically overhauled. Consequently, America's declining quality-of-life indicators track this demographic revolution - a dysgenic phase threatens our national wellbeing.

This policy change shifted priorities. The interests of immigrants and ethnic lobbies now supersede the national interest. When it comes to this sweeping change in public policy, Buchanan correctly asks, "Cui Bono?" (Who benefits?) Organized ethnic lobbies and foreign interests, often backed by wealthy liberal philanthropists such as George Soros, influence cultural trends and ultimately public policies.

As American society diversifies, it also becomes fractured and dissolute. The distinguished sociologist Henry Pratt Fairchild once noted, "The traits of foreign nationality which the immigrant brings with him are not to be mixed or interwoven. They are to be abandoned . If immigration is to continue, and if our nation is to be preserved, we must all, natives and foreigners alike, resign ourselves to the inevitable truth that unity can be maintained only through the complete sacrifice of extraneous national traits on the part of foreign elements. There is no "give-and-take" in assimilation."

If Buchanan had his way, he would rein in a government that is too large and too expansive abroad. Government agencies, such as the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration in the State Department, are detrimental to preserving our national heritage and should be eliminated. The futility of equalizing educational outcomes, a priority of the Department of Education, has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars in funding Head Start and other failed "intervention" programs. (Even Time magazine's Joe Klein has called for an end to Head Start)

One refreshing aspect of Buchanan's analysis is that stalwart intellects of the "Old Right" - Murray Rothbard, Sam Francis, Paul Gottfried, Robert Nisbet, Willmoore Kendall, Garet Garrett, and James Burnham - as well as original scholars such as John Derbyshire, Charles Murray, Jason Richwine, Frank Salter, and Robert Weissberg receive recognition in his book.

In his recent speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Barak Obama closed on this note: "It's a vision where we live up to the idea that no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, no matter what your surname - whether your ancestors landed at Ellis Island, or came over on a slave ship, or crossed the Rio Grande - we are all connected, and we all rise and fall together. That's the America I believe in. That's the America that you believe in."

For many Americans, who do not trace their ancestral lineage to Ellis Island, or slave ships, or the Rio Grande, but to Plymouth Rock and other American settlements up to the late 1800s, the nation of our forefathers is finally repeating the harvest it has sown - a transformative death wish!

The Lamb Amongst Wolves column is copyright (c) 2011 by Kevin Lamb and the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation, http://www.fgfbooks.com. All rights reserved.

Kevin Lamb, a columnist and writer, was managing editor of HUMAN EVENTS newspaper from 2002 to 2005.