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Pat Buchanan on Principles & Values

2000 Reform Candidate for President

 


Multiculturalism & globalization is tearing America apart

Ethnonationalism, the force that tore the Soviet Union apart, the relentless drive of people to separate that translates into tribalism within a country, is not only pulling our world apart, it is tearing at the seams of American union.

Can we truly say that America is still a nation? The European and Christian core of our country is shrinking. The birthrate of our native born has been below replacement level for decades.

And for the United States, as for any nation, the death of its cradle faith brings social disintegration, an end to moral community, and culture war. Meanwhile, globalization dissolved the bonds of economic dependency that held us together as a people, as the cacophony of multiculturalism drowns out the old culture.

Is America coming apart? This book's answer is yes.

Source: Suicide of a Superpower, by Pat Buchanan, p. 2 , Oct 18, 2011

Every culture has to be inspired by a body of morals

Even those who loathe Christianity often admit that mankind cannot do without religion. Every nation, every culture has to be inspired by a body of morals. Behind that body of morals must be a doctrine we call religion. Throughout history the death of a religion meant the death of the culture & the civilization to which it gave birth. Once Christianity had triumphed in the Roman Empire, the pagan gods were dethroned, the empire passed into history, and Christendom began its ascendancy.

If God is dead, is not everything permitted? So it seems today.

The drive to de-Christianize America, to purge Christianity from the public square from public schools, and from public life, will prove culturally and socially suicidal for the nation.

For two millennia, Christianity provided the immune system of Western man. And when an immune system breaks down in a society, just as it does in a man, opportunistic infections enter and kill the organism. And no cocktail of drugs can fend off the inevitable.

Source: Suicide of a Superpower, by Pat Buchanan, p. 61-69 , Oct 18, 2011

Catholicism is on its way to becoming a Third World religion

For the Church, demography is destiny. Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia, which accounted for 29 percent of the world's population in 1950, will constitute only 10 to 12 percent in 2050. Latin America and Africa, which accounted for 13 percent of world population in 1950 will, by 2050, contain 29 percent of the Earth's people. The West and South will change places in a single century. Unless the West reconverts to its ancient faith, a reconversion nowhere in sight, Catholicism will become a Church with its Holy Father in Rome and the vast majority of its bishops, priests, and faithful living in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Catholicism is well on the way to becoming a Third World religion.
Source: Suicide of a Superpower, by Pat Buchanan, p.122 , Oct 18, 2011

1950s had untroubled consciences; since 1960s we're ashamed

Growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, we did not feel any need to apologize for America's past, but took pride in all she had accomplished. African-Americans shared that pride. That there were sins in our past, no one denied. But Americans did not obsess over wrongs done by previous generations, for, compared with all other nations, American merited the gratitude of mankind.

But there has arisen among our intellectual and cultural elites a contempt for the West. Many see our ancestors as irredeemably racist, imperialist and genocidal. By the late 1960s, baby boomers have been marinated in guilt, indoctrinated to believe American is fatally flawed--racist, sexist, nativist, homophobic. Many were not taught to see her history as glorious but only as the shameful past of a brutal country that had enslaved one people and exterminated another.

Source: State of Emergency, by Pat Buchanan, p. 85-7 , Oct 2, 2007

Won border counties in 1992 primary based on border fence

With its resources, the US government could secure the Mexican border within weeks. In June 1992, this writer, after losing primaries for 4 months, won almost 30% of the vote in the big counties of Southern California in a primary against George H.W. Bush by calling for a fence on the border.

With the Constitution, the law, and the policies on the side of doing his duty and securing our broken borders, why does Bush not act? Answer: Political correctness and a sense of guilt for America's sins,

Source: State of Emergency, by Pat Buchanan, p. 68 , Oct 2, 2007

Hitler was genocidal but also a great orator

Of Adolf Hitler, Buchanan wrote in 1977, "Though Hitler was indeed racist and anti-Semitic to the core, a man who without compunction could commit murder and genocide, he was also an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War, a political organizer of the first rank, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him."

Holocaust survivors, on the other hand, had been shown in medical papers to have imagined their experiences, Buchanan claimed in 1990. "This so-called 'Holocaust Survivor Syndrome' involves 'group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics,'" he said.

Source: The Choice, by Bob Woodward, p.148 , Nov 1, 2005

1992: We lost nomination, but won the GOP's heart and soul

Buchanan, 56, was the roaring wind in the Republican Party. He had challenged President Bush in the 1992 Republican primaries, reminding everyone that Bush had broken his "Read My Lips" pledge and raised taxes. Buchanan had won 37% of the NH primary vote, though Bush beat him with 53% in NH and eventually captured the Republican nomination. Buchanan's intense rhetoric and pointed critique had weakened Bush and undoubtedly contributed to Bush's defeat in the 1992 general election.

"We may have lost the nomination, my friends, "Buchanan said referring to 1992, "but you and I won the battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party."

Source: The Choice, by Bob Woodward, p.146 , Nov 1, 2005

Pragmatism is the order of the day of the GOP

The GOP may be Reaganite in its tax policy, but it is Wilsonian in its foreign policy, FDR in its trade policy, and LBJ in its spending policies. Pragmatism is the order of the day. The Republican philosophy might be summarized thus: “To hell with principle; what matters is power; that we have it, and that they do not.” But principles do matter. For history teaches that if we surrender to the temptation to distract the populace with bread and circuses, we will destroy the last best hope of earth.
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p. 9 , Sep 1, 2004

Neoconservatives are opportunists, not conservatives

The neoconservatives are not true conservatives “ Kristol’s warning that neoconservatives could go to Kerry was an admission of what many have long recognized. The neoconservatives are not really conservatives at all. They are impostors and opportunists. They were Leftists in the 1930s, New Deal and Great Society Democrats through the 1960s, and slid to the right and the Republicans after Nixon and Reagan began rolling up forty-nine state landslides. They defected from liberalism only when they saw conservatism in the ascendancy, and they rode the Reagan revolution into power. Their heroes-Wilson. FDR, Dr. King-are men of the Left. Their agenda-endless struggle and war if necessary to impose secular democracy and social revolution on the Islamic world-is neo-Jacobin, out of the French , not the American Revolution. “
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p.250 , Sep 1, 2004

Yes, a “Christian nation,” not “Judeo-Christian” principles

Buchanan said he talks about a “Christian nation” because the Supreme Court has “de-Christianized America.” He said more than a million students have enrolled in Christian schools over the past decade; “They are refugees from what they see as godless public schools.” Asked why he refused to refer to “Judeo-Christian” principles rather than a “Christian nation,” he said: “Harry Truman used the phrase. Woodrow Wilson used the phrase. Do you want to use accurate words or politically correct language?
Source: Curtis Wilkie, Boston Globe on 2000 race , Oct 19, 2000

Bob Jones University unfairly portrayed in media

Pat Buchanan hopes his friends at Bob Jones University will help revive his low-budget presidential campaign. Buchanan, a Catholic, said he wants to “stand with my friends” and talk about the social and moral and cultural issues that have been absent from the presidential race. “These folks were very good to me and friendly to me in two campaigns and I think they’ve been beat up and piled on unfairly and unjustly by the national media.”
Source: Jim Davenport (AP), CNN , Sep 18, 2000

Original “America First” in 1940s to keep US out of WWII

The America First Committee was born in 1940, after France fell. The committee’s principles [were]:
  1. The US must build an impregnable defense
  2. No foreign power can successfully attack a prepared America
  3. American democracy can be preserved only by keeping out of the European war
  4. “Aid short of war” weakens national defense at home and threatens to involve America in war abroad
The leaders of America First were neither utopians nor pacifists; they believed in peace through strength.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.271-2 , Oct 9, 1999

A patriot who calls himself a nationalist

Pat Buchanan refers to himself as a “nationalist.” He wants to preserve the US as a soveriegn nation and to restore a sense of its special achievements as a free country and a decent and humane society. He believes that the American government exists to serve the American people, not to engage in global adventures or promote world government. Buchanan is a patriot, not a nationalist.
Source: The Enterprise (Brockton, MA) Thomas Sowell editorial, p.A7 , Sep 23, 1999

Traditional morality fights culture war against secularists

America is locked in a cultural war for the soul of our country. On one side: secularists armed with the proposition that God is dead. Their governing axioms reduce faith to superstition and traditional morality to quaint nonsense. If we are to reclaim American morality, we must restore traditional values-patriotism, loyalty, courage, and decency. We must revitalize our popular culture with media detoxified of raw sex & violence. We must ensure that the schools teach the values we hold dear.
Source: www.GoPatGo.org/ “Issues: Culture War” , Jun 5, 1999

Global Economy destroys US industry & US independence

America becomes ever more addicted to the narcotic of cheap imports. That addiction dismantles the mightiest industrial empire the world has ever seen. The yellow brick road that once took tens of millions of poor and working Americans into the middle class lies in ruin. It is not an accident. It is a deliberate effort to submerge our country in a Global Economy, whence we shall never be truly free again. This highway ends in a dangerous trail, and the toll is the death of American independence.
Source: Presidential Annoucement Speech, Courtyard NH , Mar 2, 1999

Return to Constitutionalism from Socialism

It is a natural tendency of government to seek power, and never to relinquish it. In our lifetime, we have seen government grow to where it consumes 40% of family income. Not long ago, that was called Socialism. The first days of a new administration should see a return to Constitutionalism, a rollback of federal power, fewer federal regulations and lower taxes. Like welfare, poverty, housing, primary and secondary education should be returned to the states.
Source: Presidential Annoucement Speech, Courtyard NH , Mar 2, 1999

Budget deficit replaced by moral deficit

American’s greatest deficit is no longer found in the federal budget. It is a moral deficit, and it may be found in a polluted and poisoned culture that has become the great enemy within. The White House, this temple of our civilization, has been desecrated. The personal destruction of political rivals has been perfected to a high art. It is time to call the curtain on the soap opera in the White House, time to restore a measure of dignity to our national stage.
Source: Presidential Annoucement Speech, Courtyard NH , Mar 2, 1999

OpEd: Reagan says with humor what Buchanan says with anger

Reagan says with humor that [Pat] Buchanan says with anger. I think Buchanan is almost by definition a polarizer. Reagan accepts sadly the polarization you force on him, but he does not accept it. And "evil empire" he knew would be a polarizing phrase. And Reagan was quite clever in the Napoleonic sense of a strategic offense and a tactical defense. He would lunge out here somewhere and then be unbelievably pleasant while people screamed at him. Buchanan's technique is to wade into the middle of a barroom brawl.
--Unpublished interview with Newt Gingrich in U.S. News & World Report at Republican Convention in Houston. August 19, 1992
Source: Quotations from Speaker Newt, by A.&P. Bernstein, p. 87 , Jan 1, 1995

Clinton’s social agenda is neither American nor Godly

The agenda Clinton & Clinton would impose on America - abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat - that’s change all right. But it is not the kind of change America wants. It is not the kind of change America needs. And it is not the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God’s country.
Source: Speech at 1992 GOP Convention , Aug 17, 1992

Pat Buchanan on Reform Party

Buchanan more spoiler than Nader, in state-based analysis

The conventional view is that Nader cost Gore a victory, while Buchanan was not a factor, because Nader won 2.8 million votes to Buchanan’s 450,000. But the key question is which states were so close that third-party voters could have made a difference, had they instead voted for Bush or Gore.

There were 8 states in which no candidate received a majority of votes. In ME and NE, Gore won [by more than Buchanan’s vote], so those are moot. In FL and NH, Bush won, but by fewer votes than Nader received [i.e., Nader was the “spoiler” there].

In the remaining four states, IA, NM, OR, and WI, Buchanan’s vote total exceeded the difference between Gore and Bush. Combined, these four states account for 30 electoral votes, or one more than FL and NH combined. In other words, if Buchanan has dropped out and his supporters had switched to Bush, Bush would not have needed Florida to become president. Click here for state-by-state vote tallies.

Source: Davis Leonhardt, New York Times, p. 4 on 2000 election , Dec 10, 2000

Votes for me must count for me

Q: We have a chart that shows all Florida counties. The most you did any of them, with the exception of Palm Beach, was 1,000 votes. In Palm Beach County, you had 3,407 votes. In the state, you had 17,300 votes. Twenty percent of your supporters came fro Palm Beach County, a liberal Democratic county. How do you explain that?

A: Some of my votes clearly were intended to for Gore. But votes for me have to be counted for me.

Q: Some people were confused by this butterfly ballot.

A: You can’t go on what we think people intended. You got to go on the votes as they were done and as they were counted. The Gore people are exaggerating. Let me give you an example. They mentioned Delray Beach. I think I got 49 votes, and they say there’s no way I could have gotten that. I’ve got a condominium in Delray Beach. I go to the pancake house every morning, and a lot of people are very friendly. And the fact that I got 50 votes there is not outrageous.

Source: Interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN , Nov 12, 2000

Gore win could result from Democrats counting votes

Q: What about the Florida recount?

A: Bush won the popular vote in Florida, Bush won the recount. The Democrats are demanding a recount by hand in four counties that are heavily Democratic. That not only lends itself to human error, it opens the thing up to more than just mischief. People can look up those ballots, say, “Well, a tie, let’s give it to our friend Al Gore.” The machine is not going to give something to Al Gore that he didn’t get.

Q: Who is in the stronger position, right now, knowing what we know right now, to win Florida?

A: If you recount the votes in Democratic counties, with Democrats recounting, there is a likelihood they are going to find more votes for Gore. Gore could well come out of this thing ahead before you get to the absentee ballots. Democrats play hardball better than Republicans. If they get a lead on this thing, they will say it is Al Gore’s election. The possibility exists this could be taken away from the Republicans.

Source: Interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN , Nov 12, 2000

Conspiracy by two parties to deny letting Americans hear him

I should be included in the presidential debate because I’m the representative of a recognized party, one of three, Republicans, Democrats and Reform. And the other two parties are engaged in a conspiracy, basically, to deny me access to the debate that’s going to decide the election and the presidency of the United States. And the American people are being denied right to see and hear a candidate they’re paying for.
Source: Nader-Buchanan debate on ‘Meet the Press’ , Oct 1, 2000

Real conservatism limits government, not like Bush’s plans

Q: You said: ‘The Republican Party has never nominated a candidate who brings fewer cards to the table in terms of experience, knowledge, & wisdom.’

A: He doesn’t have the tickets that his father did. But that’s not why I oppose Bush. Fundamentally, he supported NAFTA & WTO, which I opposed. He supported an unjust, unconstitutional war in the Balkans, which I opposed. He supports the Clinton/Gore policy toward China, which I consider appeasement. He’s proposed spending about $700 billion in new programs and entitlements. That is not conservatism. We got two parties very close together funded by the same special interests, the same corporate powers. We need a party that will stand up for conservatism, for an America first foreign policy, that will defend our borders, that will defend life, that will speak up for a new Supreme Court that recognizes what its role ought to be. The Republican Party has abandoned ground to imitate Clinton and Gore because it believes that’s the way to win.

Source: Nader-Buchanan debate on ‘Meet the Press’ , Oct 1, 2000

Buchanan chooses national co-chair as running mate

Reform Party presidential candidate Pat Buchanan named Ezola Foster, an educator and national co-chair of his campaign, as his running mate Friday. “I think this lady will be a tremendous benefit to our cause, and to our campaign, and to our movement,” Buchanan said in announcing the choice. Foster has run for office as both a Democrat and a Republican, but has been an independent for the past four years. She is married and has three children.
Source: CNN.com , Aug 11, 2000

Reform Party will grow, and support will increase

“We start building this party into the teens in the polls, then we get in that debate with Albert and with W,” Pat Buchanan told supporters Wednesday. “You’ve seen the energy and enthusiasm we’re building. We’re going to give the American people a real choice in November. We’re the fighting third party which will eventually be the second party, then the first party in America.”
Source: CNN.com , Aug 9, 2000

Building populist, conservative, traditionalist Reform Party

We need the $12 million which we’re entitled to as a recognized national party, and without it, you can’t run a decent national campaign. But we get one-fifth of what the other parties do. But we are building a new populist, conservative, traditionalist Reform Party that is open to folks from the Democratic Party, from the Independents and the Republican Party alike. We are building a broad coalition of those unrepresented by the two Clinton parties we have today.
Source: Interview on Face the Nation , Aug 6, 2000

Far right support for Buchanan has transformed Reform Party

Buchanan’s presidential bid has turned the once-centrist Reform Party into a magnet attracting leaders and activists of extreme right organizations. The flood of support from the extreme right, including groups that are intensely anti-black, anti-Jewish and anti-immigrant, reflects the profound transformation of the Reform Party. Buchanan’s candidacy is turning the party from a secular organization predominantly focused on trade and campaign finance reform into a hard-right party opposed to abortion, critical of the influence of Israel and adamantly opposed to affirmative action. Buchanan’s harsh critiques of the “Israel lobby,” of third world immigration and of such civil rights leaders as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. have resonated with groups that see Jews as corrupters of American culture and that see blacks and Hispanics as threats to white majority rule of the United States.
Source: Thomas B. Edsall in Washington Post on 2000 election , Jul 23, 2000

Two Beltway parties for each others’ bidding

The Republican Party has basically caved in and compromised with Clinton, on tax cuts & downsizing government. They’ve become a party of big government. Congress gave Clinton $1/2 billion more than he requested for the Dept. of Education. We have two big government Beltway parties which are globalists & interventionists. It is like professional wrestling. They do battle and they call each other names here in town. But when push comes to shove, [the GOP] whips votes for Clinton to help out China.
Source: National Public Radio interview, “Talk of the Nation” , May 30, 2000

Suing FEC to include Reform Party in presidential debates

Q: The Reform Party is in a suit against the Presidential Debate Commission. What are you requesting of the FEC?

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.

Source: National Public Radio interview, “Talk of the Nation” , May 30, 2000

Reform Party offers different agenda & real change

We will make a lot of changes. I went to the Reform Party because we offer a dramatically different agenda. That’s our one great hope of really breaking out [in the election]. People are willing to walk away from the Democratic and Republican parties - independents are now more numerous than party registrants.
Source: The Howie Carr Show, WRKO Boston 680 AM , Dec 2, 1999

Leaving GOP elite, to take message to voters

Excerpts from Buchanan’s letter announcing he would seek the Reform Party nomination: “I must leave the party that has long been my home-with regret but not rancor-because the Washington elite of the GOP has left me and the principles for which I have toiled and fought for 40 years. Free from the constraints of working within one of the establishment parties. we will, at long last, be able to take our message directly to all the American voters in a general election.”
Source: CNN.com, via Associated Press , Oct 25, 1999

Other candidates on Principles & Values: Pat Buchanan on other issues:
Former Presidents/Veeps:
George W. Bush (R,2001-2009)
V.P.Dick Cheney
Bill Clinton (D,1993-2001)
V.P.Al Gore
George Bush Sr. (R,1989-1993)
Ronald Reagan (R,1981-1989)
Jimmy Carter (D,1977-1981)
Gerald Ford (R,1974-1977)
Richard Nixon (R,1969-1974)
Lyndon Johnson (D,1963-1969)
John F. Kennedy (D,1961-1963)
Dwight Eisenhower (R,1953-1961)
Harry_S_TrumanHarry S Truman(D,1945-1953)

Religious Leaders:
New Testament
Old Testament
Pope Francis

Political Thinkers:
Noam Chomsky
Milton Friedman
Arianna Huffington
Rush Limbaugh
Tea Party
Ayn Rand
Secy.Robert Reich
Joe Scarborough
Gov.Jesse Ventura 		Abortion
Budget/Economy
Civil Rights
Corporations
Crime
Drugs
Education
Energy/Oil
Environment
Families/Children
Foreign Policy
Free Trade
Govt. Reform
Gun Control
Health Care
Homeland Security
Immigration
Infrastructure/Technology
Jobs
Principles/Values
Social Security
Tax Reform
War/Iraq/Mideast
Welfare/Poverty





Page last updated: Oct 28, 2021