Pat Buchanan through the way-back machine...

Remember when Pat Buchanan ran for president of the USA back in 1996? I totally forgot that I watched his campaign with a combination of snickering ridicule, and morbid fascination. I scarcely recall how I formed my opinion of the man, except that I knew he was a woman-hating fascist bigot. Now, thanks to going back to old newsgroups, I can actually trace how I formed my opinion of him and other people I've written about. I'm now cataloging my usenet postings, as part of a project to create a kind of diary of my life, so I can see where I've come from.

I Wrote this back in Feb 18 1996, in the alt.politics newsgroup. This is so we can remember Pat Buchanan at his sleaziest.

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"Pat Buchanan on David Brinkley"

I never saw a man make a bigger ass of himself on a national scale, then when I watched Pat Buchanan defend himself in a no-holds-barred question and answer session with David Brinkley, Sam Donaldson, Cokie ROberts, and some other guy whose name I
forget :)

(1) Buchanan claimed that Women should be allowed to compete in the marketplace (good), but that we need to realize that they are incapable of competing against men because of their biology! He claimed that they could never achieve the same level of competetiveness and success as their male counterparts because of some unwritten biological setback, which he failed to identify or give a reference for.

(2) He claimed that black people haven't been properly assimilated into American culture, and that their subculture has a dangerous effect on the rest of American society.

(3) He claimed that illegal immigrants from Mexico are INVADING America and STEALING jobs from Americans. When it was pointed out that most of the illegals end up getting $2 an hour and getting treated like dirt, and that most are trying to escape their opressive country to look for opportunity and a better way of life, he just kept saying that they are invading the southwest and trying to turn it into another part of Mexico.

(4) He was confronted with the fact that the phone number for his Louisiana campaign office doubles as the office of the NAAWP (David Duke's National Association for the Advancement of White People, which is a well known supporter of the aryan movement and Klan organizations), and tried to blow it off, unsuccessfully, by stating that the person who campaigned for him in Louisiana was a good worker. He never addressed the issue of the association with the NAAWP, and his campaign strategist Pratt's attendence of Nazi and Klan rallies. This was his biggest weakness.

(5) But wait -- that's not all! He made a pitch for the Whacko-Bible-thumping fundies! He was asked about his views on Abortion, and claims that he would like to see Roe Vs. Wade overturned, and doctors charged with MURDER.

(6) IN addition to that, he also revealed that he wished to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools, because Evolution was a "godless, evil verision" of our origins, and that the Bible is the only truth. He claimed that "Evolution is an evil doctrine FORCED on our young people by secular humanists and atheist!"

In my opinion, Buchanan has TOTALLY SCREWED HIMSELF. He is unelectable, especially after toting the whacko-fundy line of extremist politics with a dash of insane religious views. Just his views on women and minorities make him questionable as a candidate, but his ties to Nazis and to Christian Fundamentalist insanity make him put him in the realm of Lyndon Larouche -- TOTALLY OUT-THERE!

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This is from Feb 13th, 1996

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"Pat Buchanon: Fascist for President"

People like Pat Buchanon scare me. Well... they don't scare me as much as they make me angry that there are more mindless Nazis-for-JEE-ZUS out there willing to buy all the "family values" propaganda of the religious conservatives out there.
Pat Buchanon's platform is "win the cultural war and bring America back to God and family values." Buchanon, in interviews, has taken the kookie-Christian viewpoint this time around (he's been running for president since I've been in grammar school), spewing forth all the paranoid propaganda which The Christian Coalition and Pat Robertson have been promoting.

Buchanon, like Robertson, believes that there is a "War against Christian values" going on in America; he believes that the government and society are officially sanctioning overt discrimination against all christians, and against their
values. He has stated that Christians are treated like second-class citizens. He has stated that America was intended to be a Christian nation, and that we have strayed from the goals of the founders.

What a load of absolute bullshit. Buchanon's ideas are founded on the sense of paranoia that Fascist-Fundamentalist preachers dream up to scare their followers into being more religious. The only reason that people like Buchanon feel that
Christianity is under attack is because many people in Politics and Media openly reject the fascist ideas that the Religious Right promotes, such as forcing "creationism" and prayer in public schools, outlawing abortions, and punishing flag-burners with stiff jail sentences (and Jesse Helms once asked for the death penalty!), and teaching "abstinance" in place of actual useful hygenic knowledge about sexuality. People like Pat Buchanon, Pat Robertson and the rest of the Christian Coalition are not under attack by anyone. They are the ones doing the attacking, and they usually attack anyone who disagrees with their paranoid solutions to problems.

But the religious nutcase side of Buchanon is not all I dislike about him. Buchanon is a protectionist. Even though NAFTA has done nothing to harm America, he thinks that it's a bad idea, and that we should impose heavy tarrifs on foreign goods, blocking anything that resembles FREE TRADE. Tarrifs mean big government, which most Americans are trying to reduce. Being in favor of such protectionism is counter to
shrinking the government, because you need a burocracy to keep track of all the taxes and tarrifs. We rejected Ross Perot in the last election, and here is Pat Buchanon repeating many of the same paranoid delusions about how unfairly we should trade without our neighbors.

Buchanan is a space cadet of a candidate, and it's no surprise to me that he got as many votes as he did in a Bible-belt state. We'll have to watch how badly he does in the northern states, where the insanity of Bible-thumping nazis from beyond
the 8th dimension is not so influential.