And when he became a protectionist I parted ways with him thinking the wheels had come off. They didn't. He was correct. I was wrong.
This book is a short one but nearly every sentence is profound in its implications. He draws his larger points from Kirk and Burke (don't all conservatives?). Those points being a criticism of all ideologies as the nidus of evil in the modern world come home to roost in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Buchanan begins with a harsh criticism of the Iraq war. Not the Bush lied people died drivel from the left (although in this, his weakest part of the book he comes awfully close thereby undercutting his larger point), but rather from a solid conservative anti-ideological perspective. He calls democratism the great utopian ideology that has animated Bush's folly.
And he makes this point persuasively. Many conservatives will be put off by his criticism of Bush's messianic desire to "spread the gospel of democracy," but our founding fathers never intended for America to get entangled in foreign affairs beyond that point where our own national interests were clearly and unmistakably at stake.
Washington laid down the first commandment of US foreign policy: "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. . . . Tis our true policy tosteer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world. So far as we are now at liberty to do it." Buchanan then goes on to explain how our current policies deviate from the founding principles laid down by Washington, Madison and Adams.
Buchanan then picks the low hanging fruit of heedless and reckless immigration policies and expands his criticism to include NAFTA and the ultimate objective: the North American Union as envisioned by the utopian Bush whose callow disregard for our NATIONAL interests offends Mr. Buchanan greatly. Mr. Bush is willing to sacrifice our sovereignty on the altar of his father and his new world order.
One of Buchanan's best chapters is his criticism of the pernicious multicultural diversity cult that has stripped our nation of its national identity. "Realizing we are divided on the things that constitute a true nation - blood and soil, tradition and faith, history and heroes - intellectuals have sought to construct, in lieu of the real nation, the nation of the heart that is passing away, an artificial nation, a nation of the mind, and ideological nation, a creedal nation, united by a belief in the new trinity: diversity, democracy and equality."
He then goes on to play to his own strength, that which has animated Buchanan for over ten years: his apostasy on free trade. What Buchanan calls a pernicious Utopian ideology that has gained a cult like grip on the minds and hearts of the intellectual class as well as the population at large. And in this chapter, for those who approach it with an open mind, he does the most heavy lifting. He fails however to offer an alternative to free trade that does not violate one of the bedrock principles of Conservatism - small limited federal government. He identifies the problems associated with free trade (and they are legion) but does not offer a coherent Conservative based solution.
This is a profound and significant book that, unfortunately, may be too little too late. There is no America any longer of people united by language, history, ethnicity, common ideas of good and evil and even what is worth fighting for. All that has been destroyed by irresponsible immigration policies and a slavish belief in the unholy trinity of diversity, multiculturalism and relativism.
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Top reviews from other countries
- Golok Z BudayReviewed in Canada on October 2, 2012
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