Buckley’s indescribable decadence

William F. Buckley has written that the deportation of illegal aliens would be “as wrenching as the uprooting of the blacks from Africa 300 years ago.” Michelle Malkin is sickened and outraged by the comment, which she describes as “idiocy.” Good for her. How many establishment conservatives would say the same?

I remind readers that 11 years ago Buckley took the affirmative side in a Firing Line debate on the topic, “Resolved: Immigration to the United States should be drastically reduced.” Two years later he fired NR’s immigration-restrictionist editor John O’Sullivan and removed Peter Brimelow from the magazine’s editorial board.

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Andy K. writes:

I’ve always been interested in what happened to the Republican Party’s leadership’s views on immigration that could have caused such a change in just two years (1995-97) by the likes of Buckley and others, a change that still holds up today, and the purges that followed. I recall Scott McConnell’s firing from the NY Post’s editorial page happened about that time, as well as Sam Francis’s from the Washington Times. William F. Buckley has written that the deportation of illegal aliens would be “as wrenching as the uprooting of the blacks from Africa 300 years ago.” Michelle Malkin is sickened and outraged by the comment, which she describes as “idiocy.” Good for her. How many establishment conservatives would say the same?

I remind readers that 11 years ago Buckley took the affirmative side in a Firing Line debate on the topic, “Resolved: Immigration to the United States should be drastically reduced.” Two years later he fired NR’s immigration-restrictionist editor John O’Sullivan and removed Peter Brimelow from the magazine’s editorial board.

* * *

Andy K. writes:

I’ve always been interested in what happened to the Republican Party’s leadership’s views on immigration that could have caused such a change in just two years (1995-97) by the likes of Buckley and others, a change that still holds up today, and the purges that followed. I recall Scott McConnell’s firing from the NY Post’s editorial page happened about that time, as well as Sam Francis’s from the Washington Times.

I think what happened is that the neoconservatives got the knives out after Pat Buchanan won the 1996 New Hampshire Primary. They absolutely went into a panic that night at the thought of losing control of the Party to the traditional conservatives. I still can recall two neocon talking heads “high-fiving” each other on one TV show when Buchanan fell behind briefly that night. By the time the national convention came around that summer, the script regarding immigration had been written for Dole:

From Bob Dole’s acceptance speech at the Republican Convention in 1996:

Let me speak about immigration. Yes. Let me speak about immigration. The right and obligation of a sovereign nation to control its borders is beyond debate. We should not have here a single illegal immigrant.

But the question of immigration is broader than that, and let me specific. A family from Mexico arrives this morning legally has as much right to the American Dream as the direct descents of the Founding Fathers.

The Republican Party is broad and inclusive. It represents many streams of opinion and many points of view.

But if there’s anyone who has mistakenly attached themselves to our party in the belief that we are not open to citizens of every race and religion, then let me remind you, tonight this hall belongs to the Party of Lincoln. And the exits which are clearly marked are for you to walk out of as I stand this ground without compromise.

Yes indeed, the exits were clearly marked, and if you didn’t walk out, you would be pushed out!

And what would happen on 9/11 five years later didn’t really change their minds very much.

(On a lighter note, that 1996 Election did give us one of the funniest lines ever by George Will, when he referred to Jack Kemp as a 60 year old puppy!)

LA replies:

I have quoted the Dole line about “people who arrived yesterday are as much Americans as descendents of the Founding Fathers,” and I have also frequently mentioned his “the exits are clearly marked” line, especially as it played a role in my leaving the Republican party on Election Day 1996 and becoming an Independent. When Dole said, “the exits are clearly marked,” I felt he was talking to me. But, I’m embarrassed to say, I had the quote wrong. I had thought he said something like, “And for any haters out there, the exits are clearly marked.” In fact he wasn’t talking about unspecified “haters” but about people who rejected America’s non-discriminatory immigration policy. He was saying, not that “haters” (which is obviously something bad) didn’t belong in the Republican party, but that immigration restrictionists did not belong in the Republican party. [See Note below.]

Your theory on what happened in the mid-1990s may be correct. I’ve thought about this for years. There was an utter collapse around 1995-96. 1994 saw this exciting buildup of conservatism: The Bell Curve published, the huge Republican victory, Prop. 187 passing against overwhelming odds, the first American Renaissance conference which I participated in and was thrilled by, and many other promising conservative developments, but then in 1995 everything turned bad … not only in the public scene of conservatism, but in my own relations with various parts of the conservative movement.

Also, I felt that in 1995 or thereabouts debate in this country died. Up to that point, liberals liked to debate conservatives. After that point, any conservative view would just be dismissed.

Ben writes:

What amazes me about the Republican Party and the establishment surrounding them is the years 2005 and 2006. The outright openness of their contempt for ordinary Americans and ordinary right wing conservatives has really come out in them in 2006. Harriet Miers and Dubai ports really brought this out in them leading up to its high point with the immigration issue. All the conservatives who use to worship at the table of these elites are beginning to see them as they really are.

Up until now they have done a good job keeping the focus on Democrat vs. Republican keeping the public’s eye off the real issues. We saw this during the debate where John Kerry and George Bush never mentioned immigration one time. However, due to the efforts of men like Tom Tancredo and the Minutemen, they have been forced to reveal who they really are to the American people. I remember the immigration issue for example where it really kicked off when George Bush called the Minutemen vigilantes and then reached its high point with the protests where we saw people waving the Mexican flags.

The War on Terror is a card they have lost as their ace in the hole. They still try to keep reverting back to it all the time like Ann Coulter does. But it’s not working for them and they sense it because even the war on terror card has been played so many times that it’s like a broken record. Not to mention the fact that George Bush’s war is going horribly.

In 2006 the establishment conservatives such as Hannity, Coulter, Limbaugh, etc. have done everything in their power to keep shifting the focus back to the Democrat vs. Republican game with no success. This is because without this game, they are nothing. They cannot stand on any issue besides that Democrats are evil and the Republican are God’s chosen party. Oh yeah and let’s not forget the other chosen tactic in the Republican party mainstream…I almost forgot this. To constantly attack the mainstream media to keep the focus off George Bush’s and the Republican party incompetence.

Even though I do not agree with Malkin all the time because to me she is not there yet when it comes to being a traditionalist, she still is a lot better then all the rest of the mainstream talking heads. I realize not everybody is going to be as right wing as I am but for Pete’s sakes, any person who even remotely cares about America could never stand listening to the likes of Buckley without getting sick. Or for that matter George Bush…I can’t even stand looking at him anymore knowing what a fraud he is.

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LA Note 2/29/08:

Reading this entry now, I see a possible meaning in Dole’s text that I didn’t notice before. He said:

“But if there’s anyone who has mistakenly attached themselves to our party in the belief that we are not open to citizens of every race and religion, then let me remind you, tonight this hall belongs to the Party of Lincoln. And the exits which are clearly marked are for you to walk out of as I stand this ground without compromise.”

I said in the original post that Dole was excluding from the GOP anyone who “rejected America’s non-discriminatory immigration policy.” But that’s not absolutely clear. Instead, his words seem to suggest that he was excluding from the GOP anyone who rejected the Republican party’s non-discriminatory rules of membership: “… anyone who has mistakenly attached themselves to our party in the belief that we are not open…” [Italics added.] The plain meaning seems to be: anyone who believes that “we,” the party, are not open to all “citizens,” with the word “citizens” further suggesting that this is not about immigration but about the openness of the GOP to all American citizens. On reflection, I think that this meaning did not occur to me when I wrote the post, because it’s absurd. No one was arguing in the 1990s that the GOP should have a membership policy that discriminated by religion and race. So why would Dole even think of warning people against advocating such discrimination? Also, the context of the entire passage is immigration and openness to immigrants, not the rules of GOP membership.

Therefore, while the passage is very poorly written and ambiguous, I think Dole’s intended drift is as I originally said: that anyone who opposes America’s being equally open to immigrants of all races and religions does not belong in the Republican party. Differences of opinion are acceptable on all issues, except one: everyone is required to believe in non-discrimination as the ruling principle of society.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 08, 2006 08:00 AM | Send