Integral Dynamics

Book Overview

Day of Reckoning — Pat Buchanan

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1. The crisis: American sovereignty and independence is at stake America is not an abstract idea or a political science experiment or a philosophical creed, but an actual country with a shared culture and homeland.“America is coming apart, decomposing, and…the likelihood of her survival as one nation…is improbable — and impossible if America continues on her current course. For we are on a path to national suicide.” “America is in an existential crisis from which the nation may not survive.”

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2. Ideology
“Ideology animates ‘the streamlined men who think in slogans and talk in bullets.’” — George OrwellPresident Bush has succumbed to the lure of ideology — a false god that has become a de-Christianized America’s substitute for true faith, a secular religion that seeks vainly, like Marxism, to create a paradise on earth.

Ideology was — and remains — the product of intellectuals who substitute for the wisdom of the ages, the organic unfolding of their institutions, the teachings of their faith and common sense their own fanatical belief that their ideas can (in Russell Kirk’s words) convert our world “into a terrestrial paradise through the operation of positive law and positive planning.”

“Ideology has one foot grounded in reality, but the other is ever on quicksand. For no one can know the future. Yet the True Believer has moral certitude, for his ideology foretells a future certain to come if the sacrifices are sufficient and the anointed leaders are faithfully followed.” — Pat Buchanan, in his book, “Day of Reckoning”

2.1 Types

2.1.1 Imperialists
2.1.2 Free traders
2.1.3 Cultural manipulators

2.2 Issues

2.3 Recommendations
A purge of neoconservative ideology and the “Cakewalk” crowd” from national power. Remove from power the ideologues of both parties who have nearly killed our country.

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3. Foreign - Defense Policy

3.1 Issues

3.1.1 Merge with Mexico and Canada
The greatest threat to U.S. sovereignty and independence is the scheme of a global elite to erase America’s borders and merge the USA, Mexico and Canada into a North American Union.

3.1.2 Merge with Europe and Japan

3.1.3 War for democracy
George W. Bush’s conversion after the 9/11 terror attacks to an ill-conceived and misapplied ideology of ‘democratism’ has led us to the brink of military disaster abroad and savage division at home.

Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a product of hubris and of ideology, a secular religion of “democratism,” to which Bush was converted in the days following 9/11

While the U.S. must stand for freedom and self-determination, the use of American troops to police the planet or to serve as the advance guard of some “world democratic revolution” is, as Iraq shows, imperial folly — and it is a folly that will bring ruin to the republic. While America should speak out for human rights, the notion that we should serve as the world’s moral arbiter, handing out human rights report cards to every nation on earth, is simply moral arrogance.

“Democratism”: The U.S.’ pursuit of the Bush Doctrine will bleed, bankrupt and break the U.S. in endless crusades and interminable wars.

The U.S. Army is breaking and is too small to meet America’s global commitments. The U.S. military is over-committed to areas that should not be of primary concern to the United States.

3.1.4 Struggle for world hegemony
Pax Americana, the era of U.S. global dominance, is over. A struggle for global hegemony has begun among the United States, China, a resurgent Russia and radical jihadist Islam.

3.2 Recommedations

3.2.1 A bottom-up review of all of America’s Cold War commitments

3.2.2 Withdraw from NATO

3.2.3 Get out of Russia’s space / face
To avert a second Cold War, the United States should “get out of Russia’s space and get out of Russia’s face,” and shut down all U.S. bases on the soil of the former Soviet Union.

3.2.4 Abandon our commitments to Taiwan

3.2.5 Abandon our commitments to South Korea

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4. Domestic

4.1 Issues

4.1.1 Free Trade
The ideology of free trade is contradicted by both history and current evidence.

The trade deals of the late 20th century were actually enabling acts for companies to shed national identities and loyalties and to reinvent themselves as global companies — the new masters of the universe

While free enterprise is good, the modern-day worship of “free trade” is destroying the dollar, de-industrializing America, and ending our economic independence. The unanimity of support for these policies is simply madness.

Free trade is shipping jobs, factories and technology to China and plunging America into permanent dependency and unpayable debt. One of every six U.S. manufacturing jobs vanished under Bush

4.1.1.1 Hollowing out American industry
As U.S. wages are stagnant, corporate CEOs are raking in rising pay and benefits 400 to 500 times that of their workers.

4.1.1.2 Destroying the dollar
The dollar has sunk to historic lows and is being abandoned by foreign governments.

4.1.1.3 Plunging the U.S. into permanent dependency and unpayable debt

4.1.2 (Illegal) Immigration
While we have benefited from immigration and the melting pot worked with millions of Europeans, the idea we can import endless millions of aliens, legal and illegal, from every culture, clime, creed, and continent on earth, and still remain a unified nation, is suicidally absurd.

The Third World invasion through Mexico is a graver threat to our survival as one nation than anything happening in Afghanistan or Iraq

European-Americans, 89% of the nation when JFK took the oath, are now 66% and sinking. Before 2050, America is a Third World nation

By 2060, America will add 167 million people and 105 million immigrants will be here, triple the 37 million today.

Hispanics will be over 100 million in 2050 and concentrated in a Southwest most Mexicans believe belongs to them.

The greatest invasion in history, from the Third World, is swamping the ethno-cultural core of the country, leading to Balkanization and the loss of the Southwest to Mexico.

Large numbers of nonassimilated immigrants are placing strains on taxpayer-provided services such as public schools and hospitals.

Overly liberal immigration policies have caused the United States to slip on the world stage.

4.1.2.1 America has begun to Balkanize
America has begun to Balkanize and break down along class, cultural, ethnic, and racial lines. It is now an open question whether we will survive as one nation and people, or disintegrate into what Theodore Roosevelt called a ‘tangle of squabbling nationalities’ and not a nation at all.

Torn asunder by a culture war, America has now begun to break down along class, ethnic and racial lines.

4.1.3 Fiscal Crisis
A fiscal crisis looms as the unfunded mandates of Social Security and Medicare remain unaddressed.

4.1.4 Sovereign Wealth Funds
“Sovereign Wealth Funds” controlled by foreign regimes and stuffed with trillions of dollars from U.S. trade deficits, are buying up strategic corporate assets vital to America’s security.

4.2 Recommendations

4.2.1 Return to Federalism
To reach a cold peace in the culture war, Buchanan urges a return to federalism and the overthrow of our judicial dictatorship by Congressionally mandated restrictions on the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

4.2.2 A “timeout” on all immigration

4.2.3 Create a comprehensive program to secure America’s borders

4.2.4 Build a border fence from San Diego to Brownsville

4.2.5 No amnesty for the 12-20 million illegal aliens

4.2.6 Congressional declaration that children born to illegal aliens are not citizens

4.2.7 Congressional declaration that English is the language of the United States

4.2.8 Rewrite U.S. tax law to prosper America first, not a Davos elite that calls no country home

4.2.9 End the trade deficits
To end the trade deficits and save the dollar, Buchanan urges a Hamiltonian solution: a 20% Border Equity Tax on imports, with the $500 billion raised to be used to end taxation on American producers.

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5. Sources

Pat Buchanan’s “Day of Reckoning”, Paul Perry, 2007-12-31 (Monday) (Dallas Blog)

‘Day of Reckoning’: A Review of Pat Buchanan’s Latest Book, Tony Blankley, 2007-12-12 (Wednesday), (Real Clear Politics)

NEW BUCHANAN BOOK DECLARES ‘END OF AMERICA’
2007-11-25 (Sunday), (Drudge Report)

From Pat Buchanan: why the America we know and love may not survive much longer — and what we must do to avert catastrophe; 2007-12-31 (Monday) (Conservative Book Club)

The Isolationist by CHRIS SUELLENTROP, 2008-01-27 (Sunday) (NY Times)