A: I don’t apologize for my views with regards to gay rights. I oppose the gay rights agenda in its entirety. I was saying that tongue-in-cheek. Third, I did say that AIDS is in effect what happens to people as a consequence of unnatural and immoral sex. And, as you know, homosexual conduct is the primary--or was the primary way by which AIDS was spread. It was a truthful statement.
A: [I said that in] a memo in 1969 whether we should recognize the day or go down and see Mrs. King, and I suggested we not see Mrs. King. I said, ‘Martin Luther King was one of the most divisive men. Some see him as the messiah of the nation, others think he’s a dreadful person. He is a divisive figure.’ Look, I knew Martin Luther King. I am the only candidate who was at the march on Washington. I was in the Lincoln Memorial. I was in Mississippi covering the civil rights demonstrations.
Q: And what were your views when you were covering the demonstrations?
A: There were things about the civil rights movement I greatly admired. There were things that went on [that] I thought were appalling. It had moments of greatness. Like every great movement, the civil rights movement had things that were attractive and things that were not. And for my history, friends, we make no apologies.
A: On your point about all Americans are equal, there’s no doubt all of us have the same constitutional rights. I agree. However, I think a real problem America has is we’ve taken this idea of equality and extended it so beyond where it belongs. All lifestyles are not equal. All ideas are not equal. Some are wrong; some are right. And this is what America needs more than anything else; it needs truth. Now when it comes to myself and the leader of the gay rights movement nationally, [we] have identical constitutional rights. But I do not believe their ideas are equal to mine, or that lifestyle is equal to a traditional married lifestyle. And we’ve gotta stand up for truth even when it’s unpopular and even when it’s painful. Otherwise, your society breaks down.
A: I did not say that was a good thing at all. What I said was that if you go back in all these massacres and genocides of peoples, you will find that despite the fact that statesmen say this is awful and it can’t happen again, it does every single time and there has never been a real intervention to stop it.
The British issue was with the Bulgarian massacres by the Turks. Disraeli said we ought to stay with the Turks even though they did it, and Gladstone said we ought to throw the Turks out of Europe even though they’re our allies. What I’m saying was this shows you when national interest come into collision, even with horrific human rights atrocities, every time virtually, national interest wins. I don’t say it’s morally right. I was writing history.
When I saw this redeployment, I said, ‘It is time the US stopped building up this--what could be this Frankenstein monster and took a hard look at what they’re doing.’ They persecute Christians. They persecute dissidents. They threaten our country. What in heaven’s name are we doing giving them a $ 70 billion trade surplus every single year when they’re using it to buy weapons to threaten our men and women?
A: What the establishment in Washington has in mind is basically elections that make no difference. One group comes out of the think tanks and universities and goes into government, and the government group goes back into the think tanks and universities. The policy remains the same even though the faces change. That is what presidential elections are all about now, and the great fear of these folks is that a different voice will rally the American people and draw them away from where the establishment wants them to look.
They say trade is off the table; that’s decided. Foreign policy is off the table; immigration is off the table. You can’t talk about that, although people in their living rooms talk about it. All of these issues they say are off the table, but we say we’re gonna put them back on the table.
A: All I’m saying is that our levels of immigration now in the last 30 years have been enormous. It’s almost over a million legal immigrants a year, and half a million illegals who come here and stay. And you’re rapidly changing the nature of the entire country; we speak 300 languages. Unless we do something and make sure the things that unite us are elevated--like language and history and all the rest of it--we’re gonna lose our country, my friend. But anybody from any country and any continent can be a good American. We know that from our history.
A: Yeah, I do believe this: Of the folks we travel around the country; some of the friendliest ones are African-American folks and other minority folks because they do believe I’m fighting to keep in the US the kinds of jobs that their kids are going to need and going to have if they’re going to make it into the middle class. These manufacturing jobs in America that I’m trying to save aren’t for Pat Buchanan. They’re not for people in graduate schools. They’re the road to the middle class for kids who quit school after high school maybe because they got into a little bit of trouble, or maybe because they want to, or they’re tired of school. Those are the things that used to bring those folks into the middle class.
A: The Commission is supposed to be non-partisan. It is not. It is bipartisan. It has been set up [to keep] third parties out of the presidential debate. We have three parties recognized by the Congress and the FEC. To have two of them conspiring to keep the third party out of the crucial and decisive event of the elections is basically a conspiracy to keep control of the White House.
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The above quotations are from National Public Radio political coverage.
Click here for other excerpts from National Public Radio political coverage. Click here for other excerpts by Pat Buchanan. Click here for a profile of Pat Buchanan.
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