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| JOHNSON |
Buchanan's State
of Emergency
by Mac Johnson [writer,
physician] 9/5/06 |
Offers One
Last Chance on Immigration
If
I could convince you to read only one book this year, it
would be Patrick Buchanan’s State of Emergency.
To call a work “important” is
deservedly its kiss of death in many minds. After all, we are told by our media
lecturers that movies about cannibalistic pagan lesbians struggling against
menopause are important. But I can find no better word for State of Emergency than “important.”
Contributor
Mac
Johnson
Mac
Johnson is a freelance writer and biologist in Cambridge,
Mass. Mr. Johnson holds a Doctorate in Molecular and
Cellular Biology from Baylor College of Medicine. He
is a frequent opinion contributor to Human
Events Online. His website can be found at macjohnson.com [go
to Johnson index]
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Coming in
the midst of the greatest debate over illegal immigration in
our nation’s history and authored
by Buchanan, a key voice in the debate who took note of the
issue more than a decade
ago and properly forecast its growth into a political crisis,
State of Emergency is quite simply the best book yet written
on the subject.
Providing Debater's Armory
As one might expect from Buchanan, a former Nixon speechwriter
and communications director for Ronald Reagan, the book is well-written
and filled with the passion that he has long brought to his conservative
beliefs. The work is also notable for several other merits as
well.
One is the
encyclopedic collection of facts, quotes and statistics that
Buchanan has assembled into his
debater’s armory over
years of closely studying the building immigration crisis. A
small sample:
* One out
of every 10 births in the United States is an “anchor
baby” born to illegal aliens.
* Immigrant children account for 100% of the increase in public
school enrollment over the last 20 years.
* “American” students’ poor
scores on international math and reading tests disappear entirely
if the scores of millions
of uneducated immigrants are removed.
* California
has become so burdened by immigration criminals and their children
that Standard and Poor’s has cut the
nearly bankrupt state’s bond rating to near junk status,
while 100,000 native-born white Americans are leaving California
every year in search of a better life for their children.
Another strong
merit is the political analysis Buchanan provides using facts
coupled with his years of experience
inside the top
echelons of national politics. This analysis is abundant throughout
the book but reaches its zenith in the chapter “Suicide
of the GOP,” which should be required reading for every
Republican elected official in the country.
Among many
highlights, Buchanan presents an analysis of current electoral
demographics on the illegal immigration
issue, in which
he points out that Republicans can gain more national votes by
increasing their percentage of the white vote by two percentage
points than by increasing their share of the Hispanic votes from
35% to 60%. He asks, both pragmatically and sardonically, “Now,
which is easier for the GOP to accomplish?”
This contemporary
situation is contrasted with what electoral politics will soon
be if unrestricted illegal
migration is allowed
to continue: California recapitulated on a national scale. Once
a bulwark of Republican strength and the state that propelled
Reagan into the national spotlight by electing him governor, “Mexifornia” is
now overwhelmingly Democrat after just two decades of unrestricted
illegal immigration. This leads Buchanan to conclude, “If
the GOP does not do something about immigration, immigration
will do something about the GOP.”
And last,
but most important among its merits, is the sweeping historical
overview that permeates the book.
This is not a “me-too” knockoff
on a faddish topic at the height of its popularity. Nor is it
a technocratic analysis of short-term options and details. It
is the work of someone who has thought very deeply about the
topic for years and is much more concerned with what America
will be like for our children than with the chatter and drivel
of those who can see no further than the next election or news
cycle.
Looking backward
to explain the origin and peculiar dangers of the immigration
crisis, Buchanan covers the histories
of the
Southwest United States, the politics of immigration and settlement
in America, and the state of Mexican relations with the United
States (and how Mexico sees the migration of its people into
the “stolen lands” of the Southwest U.S.). He then
examines in detail the recent history that led most directly
to the current crisis, especially the lunatic Immigration Act
of 1965 and the failure of enforcement that began in the 1960s
and reached a tipping point with the Reagan Amnesty of 1986—an
act Buchanan supported while on Reagan’s staff and now
sees as a tragic error.
Demographic Tidal Wave
The book even examines a fundamental and underlying question
that seems at the root of the conflict over immigration: What
is a nation, and what holds it together? Buchanan then looks
forward to the impending history that looms if we do nothing,
offering a number of feasible solutions that could be enacted
now to stop the demographic tidal wave that threatens to drown
our culture, language and political birthright.
State of Emergency is
not a feel-good political self-help book loaded with Pollyannaish
positivism
and confidence. It must be
admitted that there is a sadness to the book—the triumph
of experience over optimism. The political and cultural hole
our leaders have dug for our nation grows deeper by the day,
and there are now many powerful vested interests that desire
nothing more than that hole be made a grave for America’s
traditional culture and institutions.
Perhaps that
is why the author titled the final chapter “Last
Chance.” Buchanan’s State of Emergency is intended
primarily as a guide to seizing this last chance before it is
gone. It is an important book, and I encourage everyone to read
it immediately. CRO
First appeared at Human Events Online
copyright
2006 Mac Johnson
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