April 6, 2019
MY CORNER by Boyd
Cathey
PAT BUCHANAN, ROBERT
LEWIS DABNEY, and Our American Greek Tragedy
Friends,
As
readers of these installments will already know, the journalist and sometime
political figure Patrick J. Buchanan has been both a dear friend and mentor to
me for over thirty years. I have written more than once that I believed had it
not been for Pat’s writings and eloquent voice, the “counter-revolution of the
‘deplorables’ “ we witnessed in 2016, and the election of Donald J. Trump as
president, may well not have happened, at least in the form that it did.
Pat,
through his books on different aspects of American politics, foreign policy,
economics, immigration, and culture—and through his regular columns—was, or so
it seemed at times, a lonely voice in the wilderness (the “vox clamantis in
deserto” as Scripture reads) who, to quote one of my unfavorite political
personalities Jesse Jackson, appealed to our better natures to “keep hope
alive!”
The
“Buchanan Brigades” and “pitchfork battalions” of the 1990s never really went
away. After them came the “Tea Party.” And
after that—and with the continued abject submission to the Deep State managerial
elites by the Republican Party of Bob Dole, Bush Jr., the unlamented John
McCain, and the political chameleon Mitt Romney—much of the conservative base
began to realize that as a vehicle for real opposition to the steadily
advancing administrative state, the GOP was practically a nullity, indeed, it
actively collaborated in the triumph of the managerial elites.
Almost
all the Republican leadership was bought and paid for by crony capitalists and
international commercial interests, led by the nose by a zealous
Neoconservative intelligentsia which had forcibly taken control of the older
“conservative movement,” casting out and barring the door to traditionalists,
old rightists, paleo-libertarians, and, in particular, Southern conservatives,
at least those who would not deny their Confederate heritage.
In fact,
the Republican Party had never been truly a friend of the South, despite its
attempts to enact some sort of transgendered façade—the “Southern strategy”—during
the Nixon and Reagan administrations. Certainly there were those like the late
Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina who understood the imperative of
connecting the older heritage and traditions of the Southland with a new
political framework, a new political nomenclature, if you will. But he also understood like few others the
real danger that Southern Republicanism would become just another appendage of a
national GOP establishment which had swallowed hook-line-and-sinker the egalitarian
and globalist nostrums, the ideology that dominated that party for much of its
history since the defeat of South in 1865.
And,
indeed, the Southern branch of the Republican Party now headlines such fervent
globalists and mad egalitarians as Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, both
of South Carolina. Graham never saw a foreign war that he did not want to involve
this nation in, nor an “undemocratic” country he did not want to impose
“American democracy” on. Scott, a
fanatic for what he calls “civil rights,” has become a zealous doorkeeper who
believes he is the chosen one to prevent even good and decent conservatives
from assuming higher appointive office if, for instance, they actually had
dealings with Senator Helms thirty years ago. The recent situation where he
personally vetoed the nomination of the eminently qualified North Carolina
attorney Thomas Farr for a federal judgeship is a brutal case in point. Farr’s crime? He supported Helms’s campaign
and gave it his legal counsel.
Buchanan
fought mightily against this sorry state of
affairs, and his columns continue to serve as a clarion call for those who
supported Donald Trump in 2016 and have placed their hopes in him for a real counter-revolution against
the elites, both Democratic and
Republican. They—we—must not be
disillusioned, for the conflict is too severe, too final. The struggle goes on,
and oftentimes within the Trump
administration, itself.
One-hundred and twenty-five years
ago the great and prescient Southern writer, Robert Lewis Dabney, a notable theologian and former chief-of-staff to “Stonewall” Jackson, foreseeing
the future disasters of unleashed egalitarianism,
crony capitalism, women’s
suffrage, and the craze for “progress,” exclaimed,
in a paraphrase of the Greek dramatist Aeschylus (in the Agamemnon): “I am the Cassandra of Yankeedom predestined
to prophesy truth and never to be believed until too late.”
Pat
Buchanan continues to serve as a prophet, a clarion voice in deserto, reminding us of the firmament of the old republic, its
principles and foundations. Those principles and those foundations have been clouded
and perverted not only by their confirmed enemies on the Left, but also by
those who falsely claim to be their friends and defenders. It is they who
luxuriate behind their walled mansions in Silicon Valley or within their
million dollar gated communities along the Potomac who hold us in contempt, they
who plot our destiny from the board rooms on Wall Street or in the well-guarded
offices of the European Union in Bruxelles.
May Pat’s
voice and his searing philippics continue long and clear…and be believed!
Here are
several of Pat’s more recent columns, each concise and very much to the point,
and always a reminder that the battle—the war—continues, and it is a war not
just for our civilization, but for our very souls.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Must the West Beg the World for
Forgiveness?
By Patrick J. Buchanan Friday -
March 29, 2019
As the
Democratic Party quarrels over reparations for slavery, a new and related issue
has arisen, raised by the president of Mexico. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has
written Pope Francis I and King Felipe VI to demand their apologies for the
Spanish conquest of Mexico that began 500 years ago with the
"invasion" of Hernando Cortez.
Arriving on the Gulf Coast in 1519, Cortes marched in two years to what is today's Mexico City to impose Spanish rule, the Spanish language and culture, and the Catholic faith upon the indigenous peoples. "One culture, one civilization was imposed upon another," wrote President Lopez Obrador: "There were massacres and oppression. The so-called conquest was waged with the sword and the cross. They built their churches on top of the temples."
He demanded that the king and the pope ask for "forgiveness for the abuses inflicted on the indigenous peoples of Mexico."
Now no one denies that great sins and crimes were committed in that conquest. But are not the Mexican people, 130 million of them, far better off because the Spanish came and overthrew the Aztec Empire? Did not 300 years of Spanish rule and replacement of Mexico's pagan cults with the Catholic faith lead to enormous advances for its civilization and human rights?
Or is there never a justification for one nation to invade another, conquer its people, impose its rule, and uproot and replace its culture and civilization? Is "cultural genocide" always a crime against humanity, even if the uprooted culture countenanced human sacrifice? Did the Aztecs have a right to be left alone by the European world?
If so, whence came that right?
Which leads to another question: Are all civilizations and cultures equal, or are some more equal than others? Are some superior?
Arriving on the Gulf Coast in 1519, Cortes marched in two years to what is today's Mexico City to impose Spanish rule, the Spanish language and culture, and the Catholic faith upon the indigenous peoples. "One culture, one civilization was imposed upon another," wrote President Lopez Obrador: "There were massacres and oppression. The so-called conquest was waged with the sword and the cross. They built their churches on top of the temples."
He demanded that the king and the pope ask for "forgiveness for the abuses inflicted on the indigenous peoples of Mexico."
Now no one denies that great sins and crimes were committed in that conquest. But are not the Mexican people, 130 million of them, far better off because the Spanish came and overthrew the Aztec Empire? Did not 300 years of Spanish rule and replacement of Mexico's pagan cults with the Catholic faith lead to enormous advances for its civilization and human rights?
Or is there never a justification for one nation to invade another, conquer its people, impose its rule, and uproot and replace its culture and civilization? Is "cultural genocide" always a crime against humanity, even if the uprooted culture countenanced human sacrifice? Did the Aztecs have a right to be left alone by the European world?
If so, whence came that right?
Which leads to another question: Are all civilizations and cultures equal, or are some more equal than others? Are some superior?
Before
recent decades, most Americans were taught to believe the West stood above all
other civilizations, and America was its supreme manifestation. And much of the
world seemed to agree. As for the
assertion that all civilizations and cultures are equal, that is an ideological
statement. But where is the historic, scientific or empirical evidence to
support that proposition? How many people really believe that?
Spain's Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said it was "weird to receive now this request for an apology for events that occurred 500 years ago." He wondered if Spain should seek an apology from France for the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula and crimes committed by the armies of Napoleon, or if France could demand an apology from Italy for the invasion of Gaul by Julius Caesar?
Unlikely to get an apology from the king, Lopez Obrador may do better with Pope Francis who is into begging for forgiveness for crimes committed in the Spanish-Portuguese conquest and rule of South America.
In Bolivia in 2015, the pope declared: "I say this to you with regret. Many grave sins were committed against the native people of America in the name of God. ... I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offense of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native people during the so-called conquest of America."
As The New York Times related in its story on the "chilly response" in Madrid to Mexico's demand, other Western leaders — not only Barack Obama — are very much into this apology fad. Justin Trudeau has apologized for Canada's mistreatment of its indigenous peoples. France's Emmanuel Macron has apologized for the torture of rebels in Algeria's war for independence.
The Spanish right, however, is not with the program. Alberto Rivera, leader of the Ciudadanos, called Lopez Obrador's demand "an intolerable offense to the Spanish people." Rafael Hernando of the Popular Party dismissed it with contempt: "We Spaniards went there (to Mexico) and ended the power of tribes that assassinated their neighbors with cruelty and fury."
Behind this demand for an apology from Spain and the Church is a view of history familiar to Americans, and rooted in clashing concepts about who we are, and were.
Have the Western peoples who conquered and changed much of the world been, on balance, a blessing to mankind or a curse? Is the history of the West, though replete with the failings of all civilizations, not unique in the greatness of what it produced? Or are the West's crimes of imperialism, colonialism, genocide, racism, slavery and maltreatment of minorities of color so sweeping, hateful and shameful they cancel out the good done?
Is the white race, as Susan Sontag wrote, "the cancer of human history"?
As we see the monuments and memorials to the great men of our past desecrated and dragged down, the verdict among a slice of our intellectual and cultural elites is already in. Thumbs down. They agree with the moral shakedown artist of Mexico City.
Query: Can peoples who are ashamed of their nation's past do great things in its future? Or is a deep-seated national guilt, such as that which afflicts many Germans today, a permanent incapacitating feature of a nation's existence?
Spain's Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said it was "weird to receive now this request for an apology for events that occurred 500 years ago." He wondered if Spain should seek an apology from France for the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula and crimes committed by the armies of Napoleon, or if France could demand an apology from Italy for the invasion of Gaul by Julius Caesar?
Unlikely to get an apology from the king, Lopez Obrador may do better with Pope Francis who is into begging for forgiveness for crimes committed in the Spanish-Portuguese conquest and rule of South America.
In Bolivia in 2015, the pope declared: "I say this to you with regret. Many grave sins were committed against the native people of America in the name of God. ... I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offense of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native people during the so-called conquest of America."
As The New York Times related in its story on the "chilly response" in Madrid to Mexico's demand, other Western leaders — not only Barack Obama — are very much into this apology fad. Justin Trudeau has apologized for Canada's mistreatment of its indigenous peoples. France's Emmanuel Macron has apologized for the torture of rebels in Algeria's war for independence.
The Spanish right, however, is not with the program. Alberto Rivera, leader of the Ciudadanos, called Lopez Obrador's demand "an intolerable offense to the Spanish people." Rafael Hernando of the Popular Party dismissed it with contempt: "We Spaniards went there (to Mexico) and ended the power of tribes that assassinated their neighbors with cruelty and fury."
Behind this demand for an apology from Spain and the Church is a view of history familiar to Americans, and rooted in clashing concepts about who we are, and were.
Have the Western peoples who conquered and changed much of the world been, on balance, a blessing to mankind or a curse? Is the history of the West, though replete with the failings of all civilizations, not unique in the greatness of what it produced? Or are the West's crimes of imperialism, colonialism, genocide, racism, slavery and maltreatment of minorities of color so sweeping, hateful and shameful they cancel out the good done?
Is the white race, as Susan Sontag wrote, "the cancer of human history"?
As we see the monuments and memorials to the great men of our past desecrated and dragged down, the verdict among a slice of our intellectual and cultural elites is already in. Thumbs down. They agree with the moral shakedown artist of Mexico City.
Query: Can peoples who are ashamed of their nation's past do great things in its future? Or is a deep-seated national guilt, such as that which afflicts many Germans today, a permanent incapacitating feature of a nation's existence?
_______________________________
Is Diversity a Root Cause of
Dual Loyalty?
By Patrick J. Buchanan Friday -
March 15, 2019
"We can't be divided by race, religion, by tribe. We're defined by those enduring principles in the Constitution, even though we don't necessarily all know them."
So Joe Biden told the firefighters union this week.
But does Joe really believe that? Or does that not sound more like a plea, a wistful hope, rather than a deep conviction? For Biden surely had in mind the debate that exploded last week in the House Democratic caucus on how to punish Somali-American and Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar for raising the specter of dual loyalty.
Rebutting accusations of anti-Semitism lodged against her, Omar had fired back: "I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK to push for allegiance to a foreign country."
Omar was talking about Israel.
Republicans raged that Nancy Pelosi's caucus must denounce Omar for anti-Semitism. Journalists described the raising of the "dual loyalty" charge as a unique and awful moment, and perhaps a harbinger of things to come.
Yet, allegations of dual loyalty against ethnic groups, even from statesmen, have a long history in American politics.
In 1915, ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, at a convention of the Catholic Knights of Columbus, bellowed: "There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism ... German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans, or Italian-Americans….There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is a man who is an American and nothing else."
The New York Times headline the next morning:
"Roosevelt Bars the Hyphenated." It continued: "No Room in This Country for Dual Nationality, He Tells Knights of Columbus. Treason to Vote as Such."
What would Roosevelt think of the dual citizenship
of many Americans today? If someone is a citizen of more than one country, how
do we know where his primary allegiance lies?
Does not dual citizenship, de facto, imply dual loyalty?
Nor was the Rough Rider alone in his alarm. As America edged toward intervention in the European war, President Woodrow Wilson, too, tore into "the hyphenates":
"The passions and intrigues of certain active groups and combinations of men amongst us who were born under foreign flags injected the poison of disloyalty into our most critical affairs....I am the candidate of a party, but I am above all things else, an American citizen. I neither seek the favor nor fear the displeasure of that small alien element amongst us which puts loyalty to any foreign power before loyalty to the United States."
In another address, Wilson declared:
"There is disloyalty active in the United States, and it must be absolutely crushed. It proceeds from ... a very small minority, but a very active and subtle minority. It works underground but it shows its ugly head where we can see it, and there are those at this moment who are trying to levy a species of political blackmail, saying: 'Do what we wish in the interest of foreign sentiment or we will wreak our vengeance at the polls.'"
What did Ilhan Omar say to compare with that?
Roosevelt and Wilson had in mind some German and Irish citizens whose affection for the lands and peoples whence they came made them adversaries of Wilson's war, into which we would soon be dragged by a WASP elite with deep ties to Great Britain.
Our Founding Fathers, too, were ever alert to the dangers of dual loyalty. In his Farewell Address, President Washington warned against a "passionate attachment" to any foreign nation that might create the illusion of some "common interest ... where no common interest exists."
Did FDR fear dual loyalty? His internment of 110,000 Japanese, mostly U.S. citizens, for the duration of World War II, suggests that he did.
Did not the prosecution of American Communists under the Smith Act, begun by Truman and continued by Eisenhower, suggest that these first postwar presidents saw peril in a secret party that gave allegiance to a hostile foreign power? Where Wilson, TR and FDR distrusted ethnic and racial minorities, Truman went after the ideological enemies within — the Communists.
What defines us, said Joe Biden, are the "enduring principles in the Constitution, even though we don't necessarily all know them."
But if these principles, of which many Americans are not even aware, says Joe, are what define us and hold us together, then what is it that is tearing us apart? Is it not our differences? Is it not our diversity? Is it not the powerful and conflicting claims of a multiplicity of races, religions, tribes, ethnicities, and nationalities, as well as clashing ideologies, irreconcilable moral codes, a culture war, and conflicting visions of America's past — the one side seeing it as horrible and hateful, the other as great and good?
"Diversity is our greatest strength!" we are ever admonished.
But where is the evidence for what appears to be not only an inherently implausible claim but a transparently foolish and false one?
Does not dual citizenship, de facto, imply dual loyalty?
Nor was the Rough Rider alone in his alarm. As America edged toward intervention in the European war, President Woodrow Wilson, too, tore into "the hyphenates":
"The passions and intrigues of certain active groups and combinations of men amongst us who were born under foreign flags injected the poison of disloyalty into our most critical affairs....I am the candidate of a party, but I am above all things else, an American citizen. I neither seek the favor nor fear the displeasure of that small alien element amongst us which puts loyalty to any foreign power before loyalty to the United States."
In another address, Wilson declared:
"There is disloyalty active in the United States, and it must be absolutely crushed. It proceeds from ... a very small minority, but a very active and subtle minority. It works underground but it shows its ugly head where we can see it, and there are those at this moment who are trying to levy a species of political blackmail, saying: 'Do what we wish in the interest of foreign sentiment or we will wreak our vengeance at the polls.'"
What did Ilhan Omar say to compare with that?
Roosevelt and Wilson had in mind some German and Irish citizens whose affection for the lands and peoples whence they came made them adversaries of Wilson's war, into which we would soon be dragged by a WASP elite with deep ties to Great Britain.
Our Founding Fathers, too, were ever alert to the dangers of dual loyalty. In his Farewell Address, President Washington warned against a "passionate attachment" to any foreign nation that might create the illusion of some "common interest ... where no common interest exists."
Did FDR fear dual loyalty? His internment of 110,000 Japanese, mostly U.S. citizens, for the duration of World War II, suggests that he did.
Did not the prosecution of American Communists under the Smith Act, begun by Truman and continued by Eisenhower, suggest that these first postwar presidents saw peril in a secret party that gave allegiance to a hostile foreign power? Where Wilson, TR and FDR distrusted ethnic and racial minorities, Truman went after the ideological enemies within — the Communists.
What defines us, said Joe Biden, are the "enduring principles in the Constitution, even though we don't necessarily all know them."
But if these principles, of which many Americans are not even aware, says Joe, are what define us and hold us together, then what is it that is tearing us apart? Is it not our differences? Is it not our diversity? Is it not the powerful and conflicting claims of a multiplicity of races, religions, tribes, ethnicities, and nationalities, as well as clashing ideologies, irreconcilable moral codes, a culture war, and conflicting visions of America's past — the one side seeing it as horrible and hateful, the other as great and good?
"Diversity is our greatest strength!" we are ever admonished.
But where is the evidence for what appears to be not only an inherently implausible claim but a transparently foolish and false one?
_______________________________
How Middle America Is to Be
Dispossessed
By Patrick J. Buchanan Tuesday
- March 12, 2019
In all but one of the last seven presidential
elections, Republicans lost the popular vote. George W. Bush and Donald Trump
won only by capturing narrow majorities in the Electoral College. Hence the
grand strategy of the left: to enlarge and alter the U.S. electorate so as to
put victory as far out of reach for national Republicans as it is today for
California Republicans, and to convert the GOP into America's permanent
minority party.
In the Golden State, Democrats control the governors' chair, every elective state office, both U.S. Senate seats, 46 of 53 U.S. House seats and three-fourths of each house of the state legislature in Sacramento.
How does the left expect to permanently dispossess Middle America?
Let us count the ways.
In 2018, over 60 percent of Floridians voted to expand the electorate by restoring voting rights to 1.5 million ex-cons, all of Florida's felons except those convicted of sex crimes and murder. Florida gave Bush his razor-thin victory over Al Gore. Should Trump lose Florida in 2020, he is a one-term president. If the GOP loses Florida indefinitely, the presidency is probably out of reach indefinitely. Florida's Amendment 4 is thus a great leap forward in the direction in which the republic is being taken. Gov. Terry McAuliffe of the swing state of Virginia restored voting rights to 156,000 felons by executive order in 2016, calling it his "proudest achievement."
In California and Oregon, moves are afoot to reduce the voting age to 17 or 16. Understandable, as high schoolers are more enthusiastic about socialism.
Last week, a bold attempt was made by House Democrats to lower the U.S. voting age to 16. It failed — this time.
In the Golden State, Democrats control the governors' chair, every elective state office, both U.S. Senate seats, 46 of 53 U.S. House seats and three-fourths of each house of the state legislature in Sacramento.
How does the left expect to permanently dispossess Middle America?
Let us count the ways.
In 2018, over 60 percent of Floridians voted to expand the electorate by restoring voting rights to 1.5 million ex-cons, all of Florida's felons except those convicted of sex crimes and murder. Florida gave Bush his razor-thin victory over Al Gore. Should Trump lose Florida in 2020, he is a one-term president. If the GOP loses Florida indefinitely, the presidency is probably out of reach indefinitely. Florida's Amendment 4 is thus a great leap forward in the direction in which the republic is being taken. Gov. Terry McAuliffe of the swing state of Virginia restored voting rights to 156,000 felons by executive order in 2016, calling it his "proudest achievement."
In California and Oregon, moves are afoot to reduce the voting age to 17 or 16. Understandable, as high schoolers are more enthusiastic about socialism.
Last week, a bold attempt was made by House Democrats to lower the U.S. voting age to 16. It failed — this time.
Some House Democrats apparently feel that with
"Medicare-for-all" and the Green New Deal of Rep. Alexandra
Ocasio-Cortez on the table, they have enough progressive legislation to satisfy
the socialist base.
Thanks to Gov. Jerry Brown, every adult citizen in California who gets or renews a driver's license, gets a state ID card, or fills out a change of address form with the Department of Motor Vehicles is automatically registered to vote. Purpose: expand voter rolls to include those who have shown no interest in politics, so they can be located on Election Day and bused to the polls.
Ari Berman of Mother Jones writes that Nancy Pelosi's 700-page For the People Act that did pass the House contains "a slew of measures designed to expand voting rights, which ... include nationwide automatic voter registration, Election Day registration, two weeks of early voting in every state ... restoration of voting rights for ex-felons, and declaring Election Day a federal holiday."
House Republicans offered an amendment to the bill with language that said, "allowing illegal immigrants the right to vote devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of United States citizens."
All but six Democrats voted against the GOP proposal. The Democratic Party does not want to close the door to voting on migrants who broke our laws to get here and do not belong here, as these illegals would likely vote for pro-amnesty Democrats.
If the new U.S. electorate of, say, 2024, includes tens of millions of new voters — 16- and 17-year-olds; illegal migrants; ex-cons; new legal immigrants from Asia, Africa and Latin America who vote 70 to 90 percent Democratic, the political future of America has already been determined.
California, here we come.
As a Democratic insurance policy, Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen has introduced a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College.
Some Republicans support statehood for Puerto Rico, which would add six electoral votes that would go Democratic in presidential elections about as often as Washington, D.C.'s three have, which is always.
Ben Franklin told the lady in Philadelphia, "We have a republic, if you can keep it." Our elites today, however, ceaselessly celebrate "our democracy."
Yet John Adams was not optimistic about such a political system: "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy yet, that did not commit suicide."
Thomas Jefferson, a lifelong believer in a "natural aristocracy" among men, was contemptuous: "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49."
Madison wrote in Federalist 10, "democracies ... have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
If one day not far off, as seems probable, tax consumers achieve a permanent hegemony over the nation's taxpayers, and begin to impose an equality of result that freedom rarely delivers, the question of who should choose the nation's rulers will be tabled anew.
We do not select NFL coaches or corporate executives or college professors or generals or admirals by plebiscite. What is the empirical evidence that this is the best way to choose a president or commander in chief?
Peoples are wondering that the world over, as our democracy does not appear to be an especially attractive stock.
Thanks to Gov. Jerry Brown, every adult citizen in California who gets or renews a driver's license, gets a state ID card, or fills out a change of address form with the Department of Motor Vehicles is automatically registered to vote. Purpose: expand voter rolls to include those who have shown no interest in politics, so they can be located on Election Day and bused to the polls.
Ari Berman of Mother Jones writes that Nancy Pelosi's 700-page For the People Act that did pass the House contains "a slew of measures designed to expand voting rights, which ... include nationwide automatic voter registration, Election Day registration, two weeks of early voting in every state ... restoration of voting rights for ex-felons, and declaring Election Day a federal holiday."
House Republicans offered an amendment to the bill with language that said, "allowing illegal immigrants the right to vote devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of United States citizens."
All but six Democrats voted against the GOP proposal. The Democratic Party does not want to close the door to voting on migrants who broke our laws to get here and do not belong here, as these illegals would likely vote for pro-amnesty Democrats.
If the new U.S. electorate of, say, 2024, includes tens of millions of new voters — 16- and 17-year-olds; illegal migrants; ex-cons; new legal immigrants from Asia, Africa and Latin America who vote 70 to 90 percent Democratic, the political future of America has already been determined.
California, here we come.
As a Democratic insurance policy, Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen has introduced a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College.
Some Republicans support statehood for Puerto Rico, which would add six electoral votes that would go Democratic in presidential elections about as often as Washington, D.C.'s three have, which is always.
Ben Franklin told the lady in Philadelphia, "We have a republic, if you can keep it." Our elites today, however, ceaselessly celebrate "our democracy."
Yet John Adams was not optimistic about such a political system: "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy yet, that did not commit suicide."
Thomas Jefferson, a lifelong believer in a "natural aristocracy" among men, was contemptuous: "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49."
Madison wrote in Federalist 10, "democracies ... have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
If one day not far off, as seems probable, tax consumers achieve a permanent hegemony over the nation's taxpayers, and begin to impose an equality of result that freedom rarely delivers, the question of who should choose the nation's rulers will be tabled anew.
We do not select NFL coaches or corporate executives or college professors or generals or admirals by plebiscite. What is the empirical evidence that this is the best way to choose a president or commander in chief?
Peoples are wondering that the world over, as our democracy does not appear to be an especially attractive stock.
____________________
2020: Socialist America or Trump's
America?
By Patrick J. Buchanan Friday -
April 5, 2019
In the new Democratic Party, where women and
people of color are to lead, and the white men are to stand back, the
presidential field has begun to sort itself out somewhat problematically.
According to a Real Clear Politics average of five polls between mid-March and April 1, four white men — Joe Biden, Bernie
Sanders, "Beto" O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg — have corralled 62 percent
of all Democratic voters.
The three white women running — Senators Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Kirsten Gillibrand — have, together, a piddling 8 percent. The lone Hispanic candidate, Julian Castro, is at 1 percent. African American candidates Kamala Harris and Cory Booker fare better, with Harris at 10 and Booker at 3.
Who has raised the most money from the most contributors? Sanders is first with $18 million; Harris is next with $12 million; Beto is third with $9 million in 18 days; and "Mayor Pete" is fourth with $7 million. Warren, Klobuchar and Gillibrand have yet to file reports.
But the big takeaway from recent weeks is the sudden stunning vulnerability of the front-runner. Seven women have come forward to berate Biden for unwanted and offensive touching and crowding. Joe is on the defensive. Some in the #MeToo movement want him gone.
He is also being slammed for decisions across his 36-year Senate career — opposing busing for integration, deserting Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas hearings, supporting a racially discriminatory crime bill, voting to authorize George W. Bush to take us into war in Iraq.
And unkindest cut of all: Barack Obama's stony silence about Joe's candidacy.
The most compelling case for the 76-year-old ex-vice president is that he can win back Trump's white working-class voters, and return Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to the Democratic fold. Thus a major drop in Biden's polls could be terminal to his candidacy. If Biden can't guarantee a victory over Trump, why go with Joe?
Yet, if he fades away as a candidate, as he has done twice before, who emerges as front-runner? The 77-year-old Socialist Bernie Sanders. If Joe fades, Bernie and the comrades will have removed the last large roadblock to a socialist takeover of the national Democratic Party.
The three white women running — Senators Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Kirsten Gillibrand — have, together, a piddling 8 percent. The lone Hispanic candidate, Julian Castro, is at 1 percent. African American candidates Kamala Harris and Cory Booker fare better, with Harris at 10 and Booker at 3.
Who has raised the most money from the most contributors? Sanders is first with $18 million; Harris is next with $12 million; Beto is third with $9 million in 18 days; and "Mayor Pete" is fourth with $7 million. Warren, Klobuchar and Gillibrand have yet to file reports.
But the big takeaway from recent weeks is the sudden stunning vulnerability of the front-runner. Seven women have come forward to berate Biden for unwanted and offensive touching and crowding. Joe is on the defensive. Some in the #MeToo movement want him gone.
He is also being slammed for decisions across his 36-year Senate career — opposing busing for integration, deserting Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas hearings, supporting a racially discriminatory crime bill, voting to authorize George W. Bush to take us into war in Iraq.
And unkindest cut of all: Barack Obama's stony silence about Joe's candidacy.
The most compelling case for the 76-year-old ex-vice president is that he can win back Trump's white working-class voters, and return Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to the Democratic fold. Thus a major drop in Biden's polls could be terminal to his candidacy. If Biden can't guarantee a victory over Trump, why go with Joe?
Yet, if he fades away as a candidate, as he has done twice before, who emerges as front-runner? The 77-year-old Socialist Bernie Sanders. If Joe fades, Bernie and the comrades will have removed the last large roadblock to a socialist takeover of the national Democratic Party.
And what would then happen if the Democrats simply held the House, added three Senate seats and defeated Trump in 2020?
An all-out effort to abolish the Electoral College that is integral to the historic compromise that created our federal Union. Puerto Rico and D.C. would become states, giving Democrats four more Senators and making America a bilingual nation.
A drive would be on to give 16-year-olds and convicted felons the right to vote in federal elections, freezing Republicans out of power forever. A packing of the Supreme Court would begin by raising by six the number of justices and elevating liberal activists to the new seats.
On the southern border, where 100,000 illegal migrants were apprehended in March, Trump's wall would come down, all peoples fleeing repression in Central America would be welcomed into the U.S., sanctuary cities would become the norm, and ICE would be abolished. Open borders would be a reality, along with amnesty for the 12 million-20 million people here illegally, with a path to citizenship for all.
It is impossible to see how the U.S. border would ever be secured.
The Green New Deal would be enacted. Medicare for all. Free tuition for college students. Millennial college debts paid off by the government. Free pre-K schooling and day care. Guaranteed jobs for all. A guaranteed living wage. Repeal of the Reagan and Trump tax cuts. A re-raising of the corporate rate and a return of the top rate for individuals to 70 percent. New wealth taxes on the rich.
With climate change seen as an existential planetary peril, fossil fuel-powered energy plants — coal, oil, natural gas — would be phased out and a new national reliance on solar and wind begun.
There would be reparations for slavery. Abortion on demand right up to birth for all women. Marijuana would be legalized. Harris has urged that prostitution, sex work, be legalized.
How would the Green New Deal be paid for? Under "modern monetary theory," currency is a public monopoly for the government, and unemployment is evidence that the monopoly is choking off the needed supply. So print the money necessary to get to rising wages, full employment and a booming economy.
To achieve Bernie Sanders' Socialist America, the filibuster would have to be abolished, easily done, and the Constitution altered, requiring the support of three-fourths of the states, not so easy.
Yet, as of today, the unannounced front-runner Joe Biden, who is taking fire from many quarters, appears to be the last man standing between Sanders Socialism and the Democratic nomination.
Should Joe falter and fall, Trump would be the nation's last line of defense against the coming of a Socialist America. For never-Trump conservatives, the day of reckoning may be just ahead.
