I became interested in politics during the 1996 Republican presidential candidacy bid by Pat Buchanan, later reading all of his books. I subscribed to his periodical The American Conservative for a few years and often visit his American Cause website. During the 2000 election I was disgruntled with Republican politics, so much so that I voted for Buchanan on the Reform Party ticket in 2000 although it was evident he could not win and was ten years beyond his prime and the opportunity for the nation. I became active in local Republican politics early in 2001, prior to 9/11. With the new War on Terror and my evolving support for Israel over the years, I left the Buchanan camp in foreign policy, moderated on immigration (more out of frustration than anything), but was still 100% behind him on the trade issue. I have always considered him an honest and highly intelligent man. In 2004 our local Republican Party (www.koochichingrepublicans.org) hosted Vice President Dick Cheney to a Victory Rally visit in Int’l Falls, MN - of all the places. It was October 30, 2004 and days before the election to re-elect President George W Bush. I admire Cheney for his matter-of-fact speaking style, knowledge, and ability to command. I admire the President for his appointments of Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court, his other appointments, his strong pro-life stand, and his evangelical Christian faith. However, like Clinton, Bush-Cheney does not leave their party a legacy to be built upon. The Republican Party is in dire straights, if only partly due to the administration. The up and coming force of conservatism beginning with Reagan, moving the country to the right throughout the 90’s, has been set back.

Patrick J Buchanan’s newly released book, Day of Reckoning with the subtitle How hubris, ideology, and greed are tearing America apart, has brought me home, squarely in the Buchanan camp (if I ever really left). The book is dedicated to Russell Kirk, a friend of Buchanan and author of the famous The Conservative Mind, who passed away in 1994. I will outline the major points of the book and my own opinions to it. Some of my opinions, separate from Buchanan’s, are in italics below this paragraph.

The book focuses on the three issues where Buchanan is strongest and where he has been distinct from the beltway Republican Party, but not from Middle America. The issues are foreign policy, immigration, and trade. A great student of history, Buchanan outlines history to make a case for his argument in a truly conservative way. The book is a discussion on the current administration, beltway Republicans, and the neo-conservative policies that are setting a course of disaster for America, the party, and conservatism. Like always he has recommendations to correct the course if we chose. Hubris is the arrogance of power and the term is used to describe the foreign policy that began to be implemented during George H.W. Bush’s administration, though not fully. Buchanan discusses ideology, what it really is, how conservatism is different, and the kind of ideology that is behind neo-conservatism in all three of the major points of foreign policy, immigration, and trade.







Ideology

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain a child,” Cicero.

“Pity the nation that is full of beliefs but empty of religion,” Khalil Gibran.

“The conservative mind and the ideological mind stand at opposite poles,” Russell Kirk.

Buchanan begins his chapter titled The Gospel of George Bush with these three quotes. The chapter is about ideology and the ideology of the current establishment and administration. When people cease to believe in God, they do not then believe in nothing, they believe in anything, said GK Chesterton. Ideology is modernity’s golden calf. Ideology is our substitute for religious faith. When President Bush ran for president in 2000 he ran on a humble foreign policy. Humbler than that of Clinton, he said the nation would have no part in nation building and military crusades not in our nation's interest. However after 911 the President was converted to the foreign policy that first manifested itself in policy with the 46-page Wolfowitz memo during his father’s administration. It was clear in 2000 that the President was already a true believer in this ideology in regards to open-border immigration and free trade. It does not appear he was on board in terms of foreign policy.

Ideology is a dogmatic political theory that is an endeavor to substitute secular goals and doctrines for religious goals and doctrines. Ideologies are created by men of words to explain the world to come. Ideology really means political fanaticism – and more precisely, the belief that this world of ours can be converted into a Terrestrial Paradise through the operation of positive law and positive planning. I have mistakenly spoken of conservatism as an ideology. However, true conservatism is the antithesis of ideology. It is the negation of ideology. For conservatism is grounded in the past. Its principles are derived from the Constitution, experience, history, tradition, custom, and the wisdom of those who have gone before us – “the best that has been thought and said”. It does not purport to know the future. It is about preserving the true, the good, the beautiful. Conservatism views all ideologies with skepticism, and the more zealous and fanatic with hostility. Ideology is the ‘opium of the intellectuals’. Kirk said, “To expect that all the world should, and must, adopt the peculiar political institutions of the United States – which often do not work very well even at home – is to indulge the most unrealistic of visions; yet just that seems to be the hope and expectation of many Neoconservatives… Such foreign policies are such stuff as dreams are made on; yet they lead to heaps of corpses of men who died in vain.”

The idea that citizens of a country will always make the best choice is ludicrous. Hitler and Mussolini both came to power with the full support of their people. Upon democratic elections in the Middle East the result has been disastrous for Israel and the United States. In the free elections that Bush demanded of Egypt, Lebanon, PLO, and Iraq, the winners were Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Moqtada al-Sadar. America out and Israel into the sea was the message. This will continue to be the case.

The ideology of military intervention to spread democracy, open borders, and free trade is Lockean, Hobbesian, Masonic, internationalist, utopian, and liberal in the truest sense – that men are naturally good and will do good, as Rousseau believed. The century of death (20th century) taught us better. David Frum, a neocon from the American Enterprise Institute who authored the term Axis of Evil in the President’s famous speech should go back to Toronto from which he came.


Foreign Policy & Defense

“When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war,” President Dwight D Eisenhower.

Certainly self-determination should be an ideal strived for in foreign policy but it should not come before America’s self interest, which it sometimes has and will continue to under the current course.

Containment and deterrence were the keys to winning the Cold War. They worked then and they can work for America’s future foreign policy goals. If it worked for the Communist world, a much more formidable foe than the Islamic world, it can certainly work for Iran. A form of containment and deterrence should also be used with the Middle Kingdom (China). Statecraft and balance of powers, which have been practiced by nations for centuries is now ignored.

The current foreign policy is Wilsonian and they talk of Woodrow Wilson proudly. The history shows otherwise as Wilson’s war gave birth to Bolshevism and it was not the League, which the US Senate rightly refused to join, that lead to Hitler’s Reich - but Wilson’s peace. Just as Lyndon Johnson wanted to build a “Great Society on the Mekong” and failed, so will a foreign policy based on spreading democracy through might. The President, in making his case to democratize the world has been caught cherry-picking history. In his June 2007 address in Prague the President said, “Nine decades ago, Thomas Masaryk proclaimed Czechoslovakia’s independence based on the ‘ideals of democracy’”. He may have said that but that is not what he did. 3 million dissident Germans who wished to remain with Austria in 1918, and half a million Hungarians who wished to remain in Hungary ended up in the new nation. In 1938 and 1939, Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians, and Ruthenes broke free of the multinational democracy of Thomas Masaryk. Yet, rather than let them secede from Prague, Churchill thought Britain should go to war. Was Churchill right or were the Sudeten Germans right? In 1945, liberated Czechoslovakia solved its dissident German problem by the ethnic cleansing of 3 million German men, women, and children, a crime against humanity President Bush politely passed over in his tribute to Czech democracy. Many of the statements made since the President began defending the new foreign policy ideology have been false statements when compared to history. Here are some of the President’s quotes from the book, many of which I remember hearing. “What every terrorist fears most is human freedom – societies where men and women make their own choices.” Wrong – terrorists detest our societies they do not fear them. Terrorism was not a problem in Stalin’s Russia or Saddam’s Iraq; it is in free societies where terrorism flourishes. “Free people are not drawn to violent and malignant ideologies.” Wrong – they often are shows history. “Governments accountable to the people do not attack each other.” Wrong – the Europeans during WWI and the 600,000 Americans who died on both sides of the Civil War would disagree. “Young people who can disagree openly with their leaders are less likely to adopt violent ideologies.” Wrong – In 1932 40% of all Germans voted Nazi or Communist, mostly young Germans. What about the Puerto Rican terrorists who tried to kill Truman, the anarchists who killed McKinnely, or the Weathermen of the 1960’s. “Every time people are given a choice they choose freedom.” Wrong again Mr. President. A look at what is going on in Latin America gives us a real life example.

What explains this “divinization of democracy”, this unshakeable faith that the masses will do the right thing? John Adams warned us, “The people have waged everlasting war against the rights of men… The multitude must be kept in check.” This is the conservative adage “liberty under law” of which Adams was known for. It is one thing to believe that democracy is a superior form of government. It is another to worship it or ascribe to it attributes and powers that God alone possesses. That is idolatry. That is ideology. The people can be as bloodthirsty and corrupt as tyrants and kings and the pause of Americans before finally entering into the War of Independence with Great Britain was due to this fact they recognized; the wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings. Though the Nationalist Socialists did not win a majority of votes at any free election, they won more votes than any other German party had ever done. The great conservative TS Eliot warned that democracy does not contain within itself the requisites for a good or moral society. “If you will not have God (and He is a jealous God), you should pay your respects to Hitler and Stalin.” John Adams said, “Our Constitution is written for a religious and virtuous people; it will serve no other”. Edmond Burke believed it is not the system that determines the character of the country, but the character of the people that determines the kind of country it will be.

As did Mao and Ho Chi Minh, our current Islamic enemies have captured the flag of nationalism. That is, we fight to get your soldiers off our land! Bin Laden sees the Sykes-Picot Agreement after WWI (the British-French carving up of the Ottoman Empire) as the beginning of Arab humiliation. “We still suffer from the injuries inflicted by… the Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France which divided the Muslim world into fragments,” said bin Laden. Religion and nationalism have always been and will continue to be a much stronger motivator to wage war than an ideology – to spread democracy to the world. According to the administration that is what we are currently trying to do. If it was about a clear and present danger to the United States, well then that debate can be had.

There has been much said about the “deprivation” of the terrorist groups. However the facts are contrary, they are not deprived or dispossessed but empowered. Of the seventy-nine known terrorists who have attacked America, our embassies, our bases, and London, 54% had attended college (compared to 52% of Americans). One-fourth had studied at elite colleges in the U.S. or Europe. 70% of jihadis were from middle or upper class backgrounds. In the July 2007 terrorist attack in the UK, 40% of the group behind the attack were teachers, lawyers, and doctors and that percentage is thought to hold true throughout Islamic terrorism in general.

The foreign policy we need today is an even handed mixtures of Reagan’s peace through strength, containment and deterrence, covert operations that won the Cold War, and an America first approach that led every American administration from Washington to Reagan (with the exceptions of McKinley, Wilson, LBJ, and Carter). American sovereignty must never be given to the United Nations for any reason or issue. However a go-it-alone approach spells hardship for the United States. The United Nations, once highly regarded by Americans, is now a laughing stalk of Middle America. Once considered ‘John-Birch-crazy’, today it is common to hear about withholding funds from the UN until it cleans up its act and withholding support from many internationalist programs. The UN should be informed that their lease has run out in New York and they need to find a new building, possibly in Africa where their efforts should be concentrated. Reagan and George H. W. Bush knew how to put together multinational coalitions. A return to this approach will be welcome. America should not get involved in foreign wars or entanglements for the advancement of democracy or any other ideology. America’s immediate and necessary defense should be the reason for war. The exceptions I see as limited; mainly genocide exceeding 25,000 would call for swift American military action with a UN, EU, multinational, or another nation agreeing beforehand to handle occupation, peacekeeping, and nation building – not America. Stalin killed 42.6 million civilians, Mao 37.8 million, Hitler 20.9 million, Lenin 4 million, Tojo 3.9 million, and Pol Pot 2.4 million. Genocide in Sudan and by Sadam Hussein justified intervention – that didn’t happen in time or at all.

The US should pull our 37,000 troops out of Korea and negotiate a prudent peace and unification of the peninsula with Mother Russia and the Middle Kingdom (China). Certainly having American forces leaving Korea is incentive for the Russians and Chinese to see the advantage of the united Korea. All American troops (75,000 still in Germany) should leave all of Europe. The dovish arrogance of Europe is exceeded only in arrogance by America’s current interventionist foreign policy. It is time for Europe to take care of her own back yard (Balkans) and defend herself from any perceived threat. The EU has 30% of the world’s GDP and it is time for her to take care of itself. Today the US has treaty commitments to defend more than 60 nations. Today foreign entanglements should be avoided and agreements to defend very limited. I see Japan, Australia, and Israel as the only nations to have formal protection treaty agreements with. We do not have a formal agreement to defend Israel.

American bases and personnel have left the Saudi Arabian peninsula and should not return, as it was the most antagonist action Muslims site against America. The current Iraq issue, I believe is to be solved by dividing the nation into thirds, Shia, Sunni, and Kurd (as that liberal Joe Biden proposes, probably the only thing I’ll ever agree with him on) and making it an international effort such as what Germany was after WWII. With American troops not being involved in peacekeeping, along our huge embassy being built, the US should be allowed a military base, our spoils for liberating Iraq from Saddam, in a strategic area of the world. A multi-national solution in Afghanistan should also be coordinated again until bin Laden captured and his support permanently weakened. Islam has 1.2 billion people professing the faith, Indonesia the most populous with 200 million. 55 nations, one-fourth of all nations, have Islam as there predominant religion. Out of all the Muslims, only one-fourth is Arab, most are Asians. The 22 Arab nations have a combined GDP smaller than that of Spain. Without natural gas and petroleum they would have no wealth at all. Does militant Islam (the true war on terror) pose a mortal threat to America? No. September 11 showed that Islamic terrorists can kill thousands in a day, but no coalition of Islamic nations or terrorists presents remotely the threat to the US the Soviet Union did. President Bush should be commended for there not being one American death by an Islamic terrorist attack since 9/11. Is militant Islam a mortal threat? Strategically, no. Unless we open our borders and permit it to become one.

I find it disheartening how people like John McCain blame the administration and Rumsfeld for ‘not executing the war properly’. More disturbing was the neo-con think-tank intellectuals (Krauthammer, Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, Richard Pearl, et al.) who designed the whole ‘spread democracy to the world through force’ policy blaming the President, the administration, and the military for not executing the war properly. Hindsight is 20/20. Here is some history for you: people die in war, it is a sad reality. 600,000 in the Civil War, 116,000 American soldiers in WWI, 417,000 American soldiers in WWII, 100,000 between Korea and Vietnam. These numbers put the 4,000 military casualties in Iraq in perspective. Since the Iraq war began more than 100,000 Americans have been victims of homicide. This is not to make light of the sacrifice – far from it. But the left is against all war, it has little to do with Iraq policy. Cheney and Rumsfeld are talented statesmen, but they were captured by ideology. President Bush is an honest and good man, he was convinced to accept the Wolfowitz policy and run with it. Like any determined, tough, statesmen of principle – defend it he does. The new technology drastically limits the numbers of civilian casualties – but again, in war people die. Our military certainly is not to blame as it is possibly the best-trained force ever to serve.

Today deep hostility to the US in the Islamic world that breeds terrorism has four roots 1) the Iraq war is seen as an imperial war on a Muslim nation, 2) the presence of troops in Arab lands ruled by regimes seen as American puppets, 3) American aid and support of Israel (I agree this can not be compromised, nor do I believe the land should be divided for a Palestinian state) 4) the decadence of American culture associated with its hedonism, sensuality, promiscuity, alcohol, and drugs. What angers Muslims is not the Constitution but the scandalous sexual mores they see on American movies and television. What disgusts them are not free elections but the sights of hundreds of homosexuals kissing each other and taking marriage vows. The person that horrifies them the most is not John Locke or Thomas Jefferson but Hillary Clinton.

The Pentagon says we have 702 bases in 130 countries, many believe it is closer to 1,000 in 153 countries and over 350,000 troops deployed overseas. The mission of these forces today is to fight and win the war on terror. Paradoxically, the US military presence on foreign soil is the principle cause of terror acts against the US. If we need troops in Iraq and Japan to keep regional peace, we certainly don’t need 75,000 in Germany, 37,000 in Korea, 13,000 in Italy, 12,000 in the UK, and 8,000 in Bosnia and Kosovo. Since 1990 the US Navy and Air Force have been cut almost in half and the army slashed to 507,000 men and women. To continue to keep up a military presence like we have today the military should triple its size. If we pursue a more conservative foreign policy the military spending and size should also increase, if only 15-20%. The point is that military cuts have made America vulnerable, especially with the existing interventionist policy. NATO should be dissolved and diplomatic alliances made with Russia. China and Iran should be dealt with in a long-term strategic containment and deterrence formula. Korea should be united and the Northern regime ended.

Democracy and free markets do not make a nation. What unites a people is a common and unique homeland and people, history and heritage, language and literature, song and story, traditions and customs.

Immigration

Buchanan was a decade ahead of all of us with his prediction of an immigration crisis. We are a nation of immigrants but the Irish and eastern European immigration in the late 19th and early 20th century were small numbers compared to the immigration invasion we face today, mostly from Mexico. A one year cooling off period with no immigration, a fence on the US-Mexico border along with the 37,000 troops now in Korea placed on that border, a registration for existing illegal immigrants who can apply to stay here and work and after a period of years become citizens, ending illegal immigration regardless of cost, sending illegal felons home immediately, a law stating the persons born here of illegals are not citizens, and an orderly immigration of 250,000 people annually thereafter can begin to solve the problem. Today there are 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants in the US.

Trade & economics

“Give us a protective tariff, and we will have the greatest country on earth.” – Abraham Lincoln, 1847

“Free trade results in giving our money, our manufactures, and our markets to other nations.” – William McKinley, 1892

“Pernicious indulgence in the doctrine of free trade seems inevitably to produce fatty degeneration of moral fibre.” – Theodore Roosevelt, 1895

“I’m concerned about protectionism” – George W Bush, 2007

Perhaps my most stubborn stand separating me from beltway Republicans has been and will continue to be free trade. Buchanan does a superb job outlining even better than before the ideology behind global free trade and the damage that it will do to America. He proudly discusses his Hamiltonian economic nationalism, which I too profess. It was the official stand of the Federalist Party, to promote American industry, raise needed revenues for the government and have a solid and strong dollar currency. America has always embraced trade. The difference is that the policy of America from Washington to Eisenhower was one of trade in America’s interests first. The WTO was instituted in 1994 and it outlaws tariffs for its members while allowing the value added tax (VAT) that Japan and Europe put on all imports, along with the VAT rebate for their manufacturing exports. This means their exports are subsidized by not paying into their countries’ tax systems but our imports are taxed at 20 – 30%. 94% of our exports are to VAT countries. This makes no sense – it is a hidden tariff or tax, call it what you will. America is always on the losing end of the stick but the fervent free trade ideology makes any talk of trying to equalize trade some sort of apostasy. Presidents of our past who saw huge economic growth with a protectionist trade policy included Madison, Jackson, Lincoln (a ‘high tariff man’), McKinley, and Cal Coolidge (rolling twenties President). Henry Clay was one of the greatest statesmen in Congress and he was a high tariff man. Buchanan endorses a recent bill in Congress that sought to equalize the trade with nations with the VAT/VAT-rebate system. Duncan Hunter, who would have made a great President, also endorsed the bill. It is a start. I prefer a 25% tariff on all imports rather than this tit for tat approach but the bill is a great start. A tariff, or tax on imports is not anti-trade; it is a consumption tax on imported goods. The 25% tariff would equalize the VAT rebate and would help equalize trade with developing nations being that on average any manufactured good can be produced somewhere else in the world 25% cheaper than the US. Today imports are at the level of 16% of our GDP and one-third of our manufactured goods are imports. Manufacturing jobs not only pay better in general (much needed today for our middle class), they also have a far greater spin-off than any other industry. R&D follows manufacturing and this is another important sector that we are losing.

Until Woodrow Wilson made the progressive income tax a major portion of federal revenues (used before only to pay off war debts and applied only to the top 5% of income earners) the tariff was the major source of revenue for the Federal government. If it decreases trade, so be it but the US is still the biggest consumer market in the world, it will not decrease trade over the long run – the market will adjust. With the 25% tariff on all imports, this would allow us to wane off agriculture subsidies. We need to move back towards consumption based taxes and not penalize productivity and success of the hard working citizens of our country. When Reagan supported free trade it was a different world, a Cold War world with the information technology just beginning to transform global economics; it served us well in some respects. Today, however, the day of reckoning is quickly approaching.

Regional economic alliances are emerging and are healthy things. Africa, Asia, and Latin America need regional economic alliances similar to the EU. The major economic players in the coming century will be the US, China, Russia, the EU, and hopefully an AEC (Asian Economic Community including India and Japan but excluding China), an African economic community, and a Latin American economic community. Stabilizing and de-politicizing economics in these areas will create huge investment and is a better approach than foreign aid that is not effective. Buchanan critically discusses the Super Highway, an initiative by current leaders to have a six-lane (both ways) highway and railway along with pipelines extending across North America. I think that anything that makes the transportation of goods easier and cheaper is good. However, trade, again must be on our terms. As far as Canada goes, it is the biggest trading partner of the US. Eastern Canada can convert to the Euro and Western Canada (Manitoba and west) should then join the US one province at a time. The trade issue would push this phenomenon and Western Canadians are more American than they are Canadian anyway.

I think it is important to be careful when discussing spending, trade, and other economic issues in terms of dollars which Buchanan sometimes does; it frustrates me. When discussing taxation, spending and deficits (military spending, entitlements, trade and budget deficits), percentage of GDP needs to be used, not dollars. One example is military spending. Most people think we are spending too much on the military and warn of the ‘military industrial complex’ emerging. The fact is, in terms of GDP and manpower, we are nowhere near where we were during periods of the Cold War.

The Culture War

There is enough blame to go around in the culture war. Congress usurping its authority, liberal judicial activists promoting a social policy, the ACLU, and state governments that refuse to address social issues making them instead national issues. The religious left is also a detrimental force that has demonized conservatives for decades. They present us as divisive but it is they that live and breath a ‘social gospel’ and seem to have a hatred for orthodox believers. A marriage protection amendment (which I obviously support) shouldn’t even be needed. A simple law passed by Congress should do the job and the domestic partnership issue be fought out at state levels. I was surprised that Buchanan said that we need the Supreme Court to rule Roe v. Wade unconstitutional before a Life Amendment is pushed. This is one amendment that cannot wait and the support exists, despite our leaders saying ‘the country isn’t there yet’. Where is the leadership? People sometimes ask me if I regret supporting Bush-Cheney in 2004. I most certainly do not. As much as I may disagree with some things that have happened and the neo-con policies addressed in this book and this letter, Justices Roberts and Alito were worth it, the war and all.

Conclusion

This review does not do the book justice. Buchanan’s discussion on history and ideology are excellent and you must read (perhaps twice) to fully appreciate. What we need today is the conservatism of John Adams, Hamilton, Russell Kirk and Buchanan. Where are the statesmen like John Adams, Washington, Patrick Henry, Sam Adams, Burke, Wilberforce, Acton, Jackson, Henry Clay, Lincoln, McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge, Eisenhower, Goldwater, Helms, and Reagan? All I can see is cowardice politicians. They’re everywhere.

I believe that Mike Huckabee is the best hope for America and I can only hope he listens to Americans, reads Buchanan’s latest book, and leads the party back to the promised land – the party of hope and ideas. A McCain or Giuliani Presidency will be neo-con in the purest ideological way.