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« Back to Is The West In Decline? (Part Two) main page    Transcript for: Is The West In Decline? (Part Two)(Part II) Edited TranscriptTHINK TANK WITH BEN WATTENBERG PAT BUCHANAN JANUARY 31, 2002 Ben: Hello, I’m Ben Wattenberg. Predicting doom for our western civilization has become a cottage industry over the last century or so. Comes now Pat Buchanan’s new book, The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization. Pat Buchanan, a conservative commentator and former third party presidential candidate is a controversial fellow. He and I have engaged in many spirited debates over the years. // I am pleased to welcome Pat Buchanan to Think Tank. The topic before the house: Part Two Is the West in decline? TITLE ANIMATION Ben Wattenberg: Welcome again, Pat Buchanan, to Think Tank. Pat: Thank you very much, Ben. Ben: We proceed now with Part Two of the discussion about your book, The Death of the West. In the first episode we talked mostly about the demographics and population and began to touch on this notion of the culture war. As my old boss, Lyndon Johnson, said, in another very different circumstance, he said: let us continue. Part Two: The Culture War. Pat: Okay. Ben: Your book talks about it in a very tough manner. And one of the things that you talk about, and I think you mentioned it earlier, is how American schools have been infiltrated by the New Left, by the Soft Left, by the Socialists, whatever phrase you put on it. And that Americans aren’t nearly as patriotic as they used to be. Now your book came out before Nine-Eleven. If Nine-Eleven demonstrated anything in this country, it demonstrated that this remains a supremely patriotic country. Pat: Oh, listen, I think the heart of America is strong and we are very patriotic people and Nine-Eleven demonstrated that. But what I have talked about in two chapters there is, first, the de-Christianization of America, and secondly, the war against the past. And that is the assault by a significant slice of America’s intellectual community, on our history, the demonization and smearing of our heroes, the dethroning of our household gods, like Washington and Jefferson and Christopher Columbus and all the others we were taught to emulate. The deconstruction of all of our myths and a critical, hostile, negative, anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-Western elite abides in the heart and soul of this nation. And I believe it is basically destroying the souls of many of America’s young. Enormous numbers of America’s young, and it seems to me undeniable. The evidence is in the papers everyday. Ben: Well, the evidence you see in the papers is anecdotal. You have an argument about the Confederate Flag. You have an argument about George Washington, but when something happens, like Nine-Eleven, it seems to me that it’s quite apparent that all that sturm und drang that’s been going on about the war in the classroom is much less true than you cultural conservatives believe, because it hasn’t penetrated. Pat: Oh, no, no, the cancer has penetrated. It just hasn’t killed the patient. Ben: Well, it’s a pretty healthy patient, post Nine-Eleven, Pat. I mean… Pat: In terms of backing the President, in terms of patriotism, Americans love this country and even the young resisted. But, Ben, if you know any college kid, they will come home and tell you about their professors and teachers and the intolerance in the classroom and the hostility to American views and values and also the vast ignorance of America’s young. When five hundred and fifty-five seniors in the elite fifty-five colleges of the country, one fourth of them know who the general was at Yorktown and ninety-nine percent identify Beavis and Butthead, and ninety-eight percent know some figure named Snoop Doggie-Dog, something is wrong with the teaching of American history. And as Ronald Reagan said, it is only through the myth and story and learning of these things that you and I learned in grammar school and through the heroic things we heard about in World War II, that patriotism is nurtured and grown. That, you gotta teach that. People will learn the love of their brothers and sisters and mom at home, which has gotta be taught. Ben: I agree with that and I have some problems with what we’re teaching in American schools exactly along those lines. I do not think it has penetrated nearly as deeply as you do. I think that again, you cultural conservatives pick up, you know, a linotype here or a linotype here and say, “aha, gotcha.” But let me ask you a question. Is it wrong to teach American history and say, look, we had a pretty sad record on slavery. We had a pretty sad record of the way we dealt with the American Indians. We have had a lot of problems in this country, but we have overcome them. We have made enormous strides. We are, as Ronald Reagan used to quote John Winthrop, we are the city on the hill, we are the exemplar of these values of liberty that I think you and I both cherish. So I agree it is at least following some of the rhetoric that maybe we’ve gone overboard. I know national history standards, but I, do you think we should not teach that slavery was an evil? Pat: Well, look, look, slavery existed. I think you’re too defensive. Ben: Was it an evil? Pat: You, of course it was an evil. But you’re too defensive, Ben. Ben: Was the treatment of American Indians an evil? Pat: What I would say is this. Look, when you teach children all the way from the first grade through high school, they should be taught that they are the heirs and legatees of the greatest civilization and country in the history of the world, whose past is great and glorious and magnificent. And while an occasional, while bad things happened, it was western civilization and the Christian west that ended the evil of slavery. If it hadn’t been for the west, we would still have it. We still do. And when you have a President of the United States going to Africa and to apologize to the heir of the tribal chieftains who sold the slaves, I think this guilt-ridden uh, attitude inside so many westerners. I mean when it’s in the President of the United States, we got a problem. Ben: You’re talking about President Clinton’s remarks. Pat: I’m talking about Clinton and his guilt-ridden, everywhere he goes he’s apologizes. To who and for what? Ben: No, I agree with that. I do not think we should be engaged in a national guilt-trip. I think we have a lot of things to examine about our society that we’re not. Pat: What was wrong with the way you and I were raised? We were taught about the greatness and goodness of America. Ben: Well, the argument, and it’s an unfamiliar one for me ‘cause I’m not on that side of the fence as you know. But the argument is that we downplayed things like slavery. We downplayed things like the treatment of the American Indians. This is part of our history. It should not dominate our history, but it should be told. Now, again, going through your book, you run through the whole litany of the indices of this culture war. You talk about violent crime. You talk about illegitimate birth. You talk about abortion, you talk about homosexuality. And I wrote a book called, Values Matter Most, which dealt with a lot of these things. So I don’t just throw ‘em out the window. But once again, as I think you did with the demographic thing, you didn’t read the next pages, which says that in the 1990s particularly, the rate of teenage pregnancy is down substantially, particularly among black teenagers. You know, we had Sam Huntington on this show, and he has some, as you said, he shares some of your concerns about just these things. But he said, but what we have seen is that this response of democracy of ours when we, when the country gets too violent, for example, or welfare becomes a way of life, we change. And we have a lot of arguments about it. And America on those social issues in my judgment, not that we still don’t have a problem, but we have changed and you do not recognize that in the book. Pat: Oh, I recognize it. One of the reasons crime is down is we, instead of five hundred thousand people in prison, we now have two million in prisons and jails. But secondly, Ben, twenty-five percent of white kids are born out of wedlock and sixty-nine percent of African-American kids are born out of wedlock. I think the Hispanic figure is around forty percent. You go back to the post-war and it was something like two or three percent among white folks and eight percent among African-Americans. And sure, there’s been a slight pullback, but anybody that thinks we haven’t undergone horrendous social decomposition in the country as a result of the decline in belief and decline in values hasn’t been observing the broad social indicators of the last forty years. Ben: Well, I think the indicators, you traced them and the line looks like this on a chart and mine would be more of a fishhook. It’s like that and coming up and even… Pat: Coming up? Ben: Yes sir, I mean on things like crime, on things like welfare. We’ve changed the welfare system. And you know that out of wedlock birth figure is a very interesting thing because, not that it isn’t high and, I think, harming us, but, you know, you have a lot of, I mean because of this, what in our generation was called “living in sin” and is now called “living together,” you have a lot of those kids… Pat: Death of sin, there’s a sign of progress. Ben: Well, I understand. Well, but you have stable unions of men and women living as a family, with one or more children and they haven’t gone through the marital vows, but those are not, and eventually many of them do, by the way. So it’s not quite as dramatic as you say. I mean the children are not being robbed of both parents. Pat: Well something’s got to explain why a people is dying, and I believe it’s the loss of faith, the decline of values, and every single Western nation, Ben, is dying. Something, if these were snail darters we would take a look at what is in the water that’s causing the disappearance of this particular people. And it seems to me the Panglosian attitude of “This is the best of all possible worlds.”… Ben: Oh, I’m not saying that. Pat: …is so dead wrong and in the title of a friend of mine’s book, you seem to be smiling through the cultural catastrophe. Ben: You correctly and artfully related this culture war back to low fertility. What do you see the relationship between this culture war that you say we’re losing, and I say it’s certainly post Nine-Eleven, we’re not losing, and this very sharp decline in fertility. What is the relationship of that? Pat: Where religion dies, the people die. It is, the correlation is absolute. In New Market, New York, there’s a Jewish community which is devoutly orthodox and they average ten children per family. In Texas, white folks have more children than white folks in California. Why? Because that’s part of the Bible Belt. The one white community I could find where the population seemed to be exploding was a strange place called Utah, the Mormon faith. And so wherever, whatever the faith is in Europe, whether it’s orthodox, predominantly Catholic or Protestant, the faith is dying everywhere and the people are dying. Ben: Well, let me make a point again. I wish in this demographic thing you had turned to more pages, because when you get to the uh, highly-religious countries, like in the Muslim world, fertility there has also fallen very, very rapidly. You know, the whole less-developed world starts out thirty, forty years ago at about six children per woman, it’s now down below three. And there will be, I mean, the good news on the demographic front is that this outnumbering that you talk about is finite. I mean there will be a convergence. These less-developed countries have sharply diminishing fertility and you take a country like Iran which is after all a theocratic state and certainly by your standards, very religious, and yet the fertility rate has gone down from five and a half, six children down to just about replacement of two children now. So I… Pat: But we’re going, the truth is, Ben, the western countries are going first. And even if they’re… Ben: Going first, but not all of them. Pat: Well, they’re gonna go first and they’re gonna die. And the momentum in the other countries, for example China even though it’s got this horrendous, horrific policy of one couple, one child, they’re gonna add two hundred and fifty million people from their past momentum and that’s simply gonna overwhelm Russia. And the Islamic countries, maybe it’s gone down, but the truth is that the Islamic countries in the third world by rejecting the population birth control propaganda of the west and the west imbibed it, the poor are gonna inherit the earth. They’re gonna inherit our country and they’re gonna inherit Europe. And they’re gonna inherit Russia because they rejected this propaganda. It is biblical. Ben: Well, I mean, as I say the Muslim world, the other countries of the world are also going through a birth dearth, which is, was the title of my earlier book. Pat: They’re gonna add sixty, the countries around Israel are gonna add sixty million people in the next twenty-five years. Ben: Which country is that? Pat: The ones surrounding Israel, sixty-two million people. Ben: No, I understand, I understand. I mean there are different fertility rates, but they’re all heading down. This brings me to Part Three, which is America’s role in the world. Now, you say and you’ve just said it here, we’re dying, we’re in trouble, we’re in a big ditch demographically and morally. Now, and I accept some of that, my answer is to say, make America stronger, be more involved in our alliances with our western allies, western civilization. Get Latin America on board and make sure that they are promoting western views and values insofar as we can. Make a line, I mean here you have India, a country of a billion people, gonna be larger than China, subcontinental like the United States, English is the common language, parliamentary democracy. I think following your logic that we ought to be assertive. We ought to be promoting and defending the views and values of western civilization. And you, in both of your books, in the first one which was the, or most recent before this which was called A Republic, Not An Empire, is that right? Pat: Yes. Ben: And this one which is called The Death of the West, but you’re, you say, “uh-uh, we ought to hunker down.” I mean I don’t, it’s called perhaps simplistically isolationism is a, and I think you’re more of an internationalist than you know. But explain, I mean the logic of your book seems to me so powerfully directed toward my view of foreign policy, not your view of foreign policy. Pat: Well, no, my view is basically that the Cold War was our war. I devoted my career to fighting the Cold War in journalism and in politics it was the first cause, the reason I went into these things. It’s the reason I was in the White House. I’ve other conservative views. When the Cold War was over I think Jean Kirkpatrick’s phrase, “we ought to become a normal country in a normal time,” was right. I simply argue when that is over the United States of America should return to a traditional foreign policy of Washington, Jefferson, Adams and our, all of our early Presidents up to Wilson and what, and all the way up to World War Two, when we were attacked. And what we ought to do is adopt a policy of not intervening in foreign quarrels and foreign wars that are none of our business because my reading of history is that every single empire that gets overextended and gets into all these wars where it has no vital interest involved, dies very quickly. And I believe America’s a republic, not an empire. And I want it to live forever. As long as it can. Ben: But you say it’s dying and America… Pat: Well, I say it’s dying because of the population thing, yeah. Ben: And America is founded not just on how many people of European descent we have. It is, there is such a thing as Americanism. There is an ideology, democracy is a key aspect of that. Freedom of expression is a key aspect of that. Why, given your logic, shouldn’t we be uh, internationalists assertive, not coercive thing, “We need a hundred little Americas,” but I know you have sort of ridiculed that view over the years, including me. You have said, you know, “Oh, Wattenberg, he’s a democratist.” Pat: Look, the United States of America should set an example to the world. I agree with that. The United States of America should be the great arsenal of democracy. But other countries have got to stand on their own feet. I’m a believer in the Nixon Doctrine. I’ve just written an introduction to the second edition of A Republic, Not An Empire, where I say we ought to be the great arsenal of democracy. Get rid of all these alliances, not a front-line fighting state, but tell peoples and nations this, and frankly in this case while I’ve got my disagreements with Israel, Israel offers an example. It is, what the Israelis say is, “give us the tools and we will do the job.” And that’s what I believe other countries far more populous than Israel, especially the Europeans. They’re big, fat, sassy, free, more numerous than we are, as rich as we are. Now why in heaven’s name can’t these countries together, which used to field million-man armies, put together a little sixty-thousand person rapid reaction force? I would tell them, “do it because we are going home.” Now we realize that if it comes to Afghanistan, we deal with that. But you people will deal with the Balkans yourselves. And so I think the United States of America, the strategic reserve, the great arsenal of democracy, we have to fight the wars if we are attacked in parts of the world or our vital interests are threatened, but these other people in Asia and Europe start defending yourselves for Pete’s sake. Ben: That was a debatable point in my judgment, and you and I debated it when it was going on. Post Nine-Eleven and I think President Bush indicated it very, very clearly in his State of the Union Address, given the fact that the United States was attacked, there’s that old line, you know, the best defense is an offense. In this war on terror, it’s not the best defenses and offense, it’s the only defense. Now more than ever, we need allies. We have to help people route out this, the people who are gonna attack America. They had just attacked us. I mean I know we all felt chastened and battered by this. Pat: But, yeah, but the point is… Ben: And to say well, let them fight these battles, you know, the Indian parliament was attacked by terrorists, so we lent support to India. That’s the right thing to do. Pat: I regret the Indian parliament was attacked, but ask yourself a question. Why are the terrorists over here? And the answer is because we are over there. We are behaving like the Roman Empire. And the Roman Empire can—let me finish the point. Ben: It’s our fault. Blame America first. Pat: No, this is the reflexive reaction of folks. It is un-American in my judgment not to ask ourselves, what are the motives? If the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor, for example, there’s gotta be a reason why they come halfway, or more than halfway across the Pacific to attack the greatest nation on earth. My view is this, we ought to do two things. One, you’ve gotta get al Qaida and all the people responsible for it and those who harbored them and finish them off as a…… Ben: Including Iraq? Pat: Iraq, if Iraq was involved in this, and they were not, there’s a lot of people who are trying to… Ben: But they… Pat: Hold it, Ben, let me finish my point. And we ought to run down and destroy the people that did this in al Qaida and anyone who harbored them. Secondly, in my view, we ought to get out of that region of the world which has gone through a religious turmoil and a conflict between modernism and fundamentalism and failed states and get out of that part of the world and not involve ourselves in this battle. Because as Iran demonstrates, when America withdraws from this area, the people come to realize that it’s not the Americans who are their problem. It may just be the Mullahs or their kings or their thugs or whoever. And then let them work out their problems themselves. What we want out of that place is very simple. You know, don’t use your territory as a base camp for terror or we’re coming over after you. Ben: Yeah, and we ought to establish allies to help us do that and we ought to promote a view of America that is more accurate than they have. Let me just make one point before we wrap up this particular part of our very interesting discussion. You know, you talk about the foreign policy of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Samuel…and John Adams and so on and so forth. But, you know, they were great men. But America was a country of four million people in it. We’re a country of almost three hundred million now. We are the sole surviving super power in the world. How can you, we have the largest military force in, we’re the largest technological force. I mean, English is in some ways a universal language. How can you say that a foreign policy designed for a little coastal strip of four million should be the same as this sole surviving super power? I don’t get it. Pat: It shouldn’t be the same. But how did all the other super powers cease to be super powers? They did so by following the Wattenberg formula of interfering in everybody’s little quarrel and affair until they got themselves in a brawl that even the super power couldn’t handle and they went under. I don’t want that to happen to my country. I really don’t care very much what happens over in these little countries, as long as they don’t come over here and kill us. And if they do, we go over there. Ben: Do you think it’s in America’s best interest if democratic values, elections, that sort of thing, freedom of expression, tolerance for various religions, the hallmarks of Western civilization. Isn’t that in our best interest for our own self interest that those views and values continue to expand as they have in the last twenty years? Pat: Well I think broadly… Ben: Isn’t that something that we should favor? Pat: We should support that. But I have a problem with people who think we’re gonna replicate Vermont in the Hindu Kush. Ben: Well, I mean, I don’t, don’t count me in that number. I mean… Pat: Include me out. Ben: Yeah, include me out on that one. Pat Buchanan, it has been a great pleasure… Pat: You’re getting the signal. Ben: Getting the hook. It has been a great pleasure to joust with you. Pat: I’ve enjoyed it, Ben. I always do. And it does not seem to reach closure, but I’ve enjoyed it. Ben: Thank you very much for joining us, Pat Buchanan, and thank you. Please remember to send us your comments via e-mail. For Think Tank, I’m Ben Wattenberg. Back to top  Think Tank is made possible by generous support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Donner Canadian Foundation, the Dodge Jones Foundation, and Pfizer, Inc. ©Copyright Think Tank. All rights reserved. 
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