The Renewal of the West

Thursday, June 29th, 2006

Jerry Bowyer disagrees with Pat Buchanan’s The Death of the West in his own The Renewal of the West:

If 200 years from now America will be filled with people who know and love the ideas of Jefferson and Madison — but these people are overwhelmingly dark skinned — will this be good or bad?

That’s the question I asked Pat Buchanan when I debated with him about the content of his book, The Death of the West. He said it would be a disaster and a tragedy. What do you say?

Your answer is a pretty good indicator of whether you’re a we-hold-these-truths-to-be-self-evident conservative or a blood-and-soil conservative.

Bowyer offers up an amusing way to look at misplaced racial pride:

A few years ago, I was studying the life of Charlemagne. His troops had been continually harassed by tribes who would attack, be defeated, surrender, make a treaty and violate the treaty as soon as Charlemagne’s troops were out of sight. They did this over and over again. I was reminded of various Palestinian ‘pledges’ to abandon terrorism. I wondered whether groups like this could ever learn to honor their treaties and live according to the rule of law. Then I realized that the people who were harassing Charlemagne were my ancestors. If you are of Northern European stock, or British or Irish, and you are tempted to racial pride, I highly recommend that you study Romans like Tacitus or Caesar to get some idea how your ancestors looked to the civilized world 2000 years ago.

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