Buchanan: Western civilization on its last legs

Last Thursday MSNBC dropped conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, four months after suspending him following the publication of his latest book, "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?" (Macmillan). The book contains chapters titled "The End of White America" and "The Death of Christian America."

Pat Buchanan out at MSNBC
Book excerpt: "Suicide of a Superpower" (pdf)
U.S. "decline" extremely "overstated": Scholar

Buchanan denied critics' charges that the book was racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic. In a column published last week he called the decision "an undeniable victory for the blacklisters."

Charlie Rose interviewed Buchanan about the book on "CBS This Morning." (You can watch the complete interview by clicking on the video player above; a transcript follows.)

Charlie Rose: Let me begin with the race for the White House. Newt Gingrich has said in the last 24 hours and on this program it's the duty of America to defeat Barack Obama because of national security, that he's riding over the Constitution. How do you assess those remarks?

Pat Buchanan: Well, I do agree that the President of the United States has used 'Obamacare' really to ride rough-shod over the prerogatives of the Roman Catholic Church, when you order the church and its institutions to engage in activities that that church has taught for centuries to be morally wrong. And I think the president has partially backed off of that, and I think he should back off entirely, Charlie.

Rose: So, what about the race so far, in terms of President Obama and his inability to defend the national security of the United States - also part of Speaker Gingrich's remarks?

Buchanan: I think the president's done a good job in the war of terror, and I disagree with some of my Republican colleagues - I think we have to move out of Iraq and move out of Afghanistan. And so I don't fault the president that much in terms of what he's done in foreign policy as I do domestic policy, Charlie.

Rose: All right. Let me begin by talking about this book. Tell us what it is that you want us to understand. The title of the book is "Will America Survive to 2025 - Suicide of a Superpower." And in the preface you say:

"The last decade provided corroborating if not conclusive period that we're in the Indian Summer of our civilization. Historian Arnold Toynbee wrote civilizations die from suicide, not by murder. and so it is. We are the prodigal sons who have squandered our inheritance, but unlike the prodigal son we can't go back home."

What do you want us to understand about Pat Buchanan's view of America?

Buchanan: What I want you to understand, Charlie, what I want the folks to read that book and understand, is that Western civilization is in its Indian Summer. It is on, in my judgment, pretty much its last legs, and I'm not sure it will survive this century.

If you look at Europe, not a single European nation has a birth rate among its native born which will enable it to survive in its present form. We do know about the economic crisis over there, but there is also an ethno-national crisis. Merkel says in Germany that multiculturalism has utterly failed. Cameron says the same in Britain. Sarkozy says so in France. We saw all the riots in London last summer where, first ethnic groups rose up and rioted all across London, and then the Londoners went along with them.

And what I'm warning about in our country is that the United States of America which is shifting to become a multi-cultural, multi-national, multi-ethic, multi-lingual country, there is nothing that's going to hold us together if we lose our common language, our common Christian, Judeo- Christian faith, our common moral consensus, which we are losing.

Rose: So you're not saying the nation has to be white and Christian which some of your critics believe you are saying?

Buchanan: The critics should read the book instead of trying to blacklist and censor the book, Charlie. No. Any individual can be a good American. When I was a young man in 1960, because of the melting pot we had all come together - Irish and Germans and English and Polish and Jewish and Czech and Greek - into one nation and one people under God.

But the culture and all these things that held us together, we have thrown out. The public schools which introduced us to English literature, American history, American heroes and holidays, that's thrown out. We are becoming a Tower of Babel, and I don't think we can survive as a great nation or one republic under God, indivisible.

Rose: But I thought what America meant was diversity. I thought what the Statue of Liberty meant was that we welcome everybody to our shores and that that is what has made us strong, because people have come from outside the united states to make giant contributions - in war and peace - to make us the strong country that we are, and that is what our central power - that is what has given us enormous strides in technology, in science, in health, and, yes, in fighting the wars that we felt were necessary for our national security.

Buchanan: Charlie, what is the motto of the United States? E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. It is not just a diversity that makes America strong. It is the unity we finally had in the Depression and World War II, in the 1950s. We were one people united under God, indivisible in one nation.

What is happening now is that the elites in this country have taken the melting pot and thrown it out. They're saying to people, 'Come to America, keep your culture, keep your separate religion, keep your separate different beliefs.' America is becoming a nation of nations.

Rose: How are they saying keep your beliefs but not at the same time accept the values and the Constitution of the country that you have come to? It is one thing to understand your own roots, it's another thing not to accept the principles and the Constitution of the United States.

Buchanan: All right, Charlie, let me ask you about the Constitution of the United States. What does the Ninth Amendment say with regard to the killing of the unborn or pro-choice? We are divided over what the Constitution says. What does the 14th Amendment say about affirmative action which is discrimination against white folks? Is that legitimate under the 14th Amendment? We disagree over the First Amendment, freedom of religion. President Obama thinks it means you go into the Catholic Church and tell them, 'Start distributing condoms and abortifacients and start doing sterilizations in your institutions.'

Rose: As you know, Pat, the president pulled back from that. You know that as well as anyone. He has changed that with respect to the insurance issues that arose out of that controversy.

Buchanan: Can I tell you a story, Charlie? My father ran an accounting firm in D.C. It was the largest of the smaller firms, not the big eight. He was a devout Catholic. Under Obama's rule he would still be required in that firm to provide health care, which meant distribution of condoms, it meant sterilizations and things like that. He would engage in civil disobedience rather than do that.

The government of the United States has got enormous power, and it's growing in power, and it has driven Christianity out of the public schools and out of the public square. Now it is encroaching on the realm of the church itself. I do believe that. Look, these Catholic bishops, they're not natural born fighters, say, like Pat Buchanan. They don't want to fight with President Obama. But for the first time -

Rose: Well, they did speak out. Obviously we're up against the clock here, Pat. Thank you for joining us.

Buchanan: Thank you, Charlie.