The Washington Times is characterizing Pat Buchanan somewhat differently than I have read him recently. One of us (the Washington Times or I) is, must be, wrong.[1] Neither of us is necessarily correct, however. In this case, I think this last is true. Perhaps this is hubris on my part, if so, so be it. I have asserted that Mr. Buchanan is proposing and endorsing run-away isolationism. Considering political realities, which I think Mr. Buchanan must be doing, I think I may have taken his argument to an extreme that he might not object to, but would not, in point of fact, attempt to implement. He is quoted here saying that he would allow in immigrants who are here to work, and here to live. It is the flood of migrant workers, migrant in the sense that they are here to work, but intend to leave to live their lives in their native country, that he would stop. He thinks this is necessary to preserve our cohesion as a country.
He is absolutely correct. It is necessary that people feel at home in the United States, that they feel that it is their home, that they join our culture, reshape it certainly, but learn from it also, if we are to remain one country. It is necessary that the melting of separate cultures continue if we are to end the problems of racism. It is the black communities' insistence on holding on to a separate identity that proves the theory of the civil rights era: you cannot have "separate but equal."
Further, he is absolutely correct when he says that the conservative movement has fragmented. It has fragmented worse than his examples show. You have people who call themselves conservatives who favor government intervention if it means more security. You have people who call themselves conservatives who would reduce the right to bear arms if it means less chance of terrorism. You have people who advocate federal intervention to end computer viruses and spam, yet call themselves conservatives. You have people who want economic reform without social reform, yet they too are calling themselves conservatives. You have deficit spenders, who are conservative because they are for a strong defense department, and "moral conservatives" who once alone would have been called "conservative." All these groups, all called "conservative," all under the republican umbrella, demonstrate why the Republicans fragment under pressure, even pressure from a minority democratic party. Because each has a different agenda, and so each is willing to jettison a different piece of the puzzle to further their special cause. Contrast this to the Democrats who are just as fragmented at primary time, but yet know that the solution they all want is a more powerful government and more powerful democratic party, and so they unify again as each election ends. Thus you see feminists advancing homosexual causes, thus you see both helping the green activists. This also holds true when you look at those who do not re-unify, you see them not in the democratic party, but in the green party, and the other third parties.
But he is wrong in thinking that this union is worth saving, or can be saved. We can, and should try, to save it for a time. We can perhaps preserve it for generations to come, but if we are to survive for long without being Balkanized to meaninglessness, the union that will exist will be a union that we will not recognize, though it may be one that our founding fathers would. What will survive will be the government that a moral people need to curb those who transgress the common morality, one aimed at curbing exceptions, not at suspecting all. It will be a self-policed state, just as we once where, where the pressure of society holds you in check far more than the fear of the law. One where certain acts are unthinkable, and so, when they happen, the justice is swift and sure. It may be a less gentle society, but it will be more civilized for that. Perhaps it will be a republic, perhaps a representative democracy such as we have now. Perhaps it will be a more centralized government, a monarchy or oligarchy. Perhaps it will cover the same territory, or perhaps we will have fragmented beyond repair. Time will tell. Perhaps it will come soon, perhaps there is yet another two or three hundred years before it comes. Perhaps we have reached the lowest depths of depravity, but I think not. The reaction will not come until we do, the reaction will not come until good people are forced to admit they must act to preserve themselves and their children in a world gone mad around them.
[1] http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050517-122418-5719r.htm