Right Wing Extremism & Pat Buchanan’s Confused View of Traditional American Values

I’ve often noted the tendency of many on the right to portray themselves as victims. This includes the protests of the tea baggers over the imaginary injustices and our delusional decline into socialism which they were warned about by watching Fox. (And notice that my use here of Fox, and not “Fox News, ” predates the arguments from the Obama administration that Fox is an arm of the Republican Party and not a legitimate news organization.) The shock of having a black man in the White House, added to all the other imaginary injustices felt by the far right, has led to increased signs of extremism. The Secret Service reports an unprecedented number of death threats against Obama and a rise in racist wing hate groups. Expressions of violence from the right have become commonplace–including from mainstream conservatives in the Republican Party.

In this atmosphere, right wing pundit and Nazi-sympathizer  Pat Buchanan feels comfortable being even explicit about his views. He showed his sympathies towards Nazi Germany in a column last month. Now he writes about the persecution that he sees white working-class voters being subjected to.  The column is full of absurdities which other bloggers have already discussed at length, so I will limit this to one particularly ridiculous line. Buchanan writes: “In their lifetimes, they have seen their Christian faith purged from schools their taxes paid for…”

Yes, and this is a good thing. The schools are not the place to spread the Christian, or any other faith. Even Mike Huckabee has expressed some support for the idea that prayer does not belong in the schools. (If only he extended this to also opposing the teaching of creationism). Such separation of church and state was a fundamental principle of the founding fathers, who realized that this was necessary to preserve freedom of religion. While I would strongly object, it is logically possible to argue for having a state religion which is supported in the public schools.  It makes no sense to argue for this in a column which claims to support traditional American values.

If you support the inclusion of religion in the public schools you are directly opposing traditional American values.  With their growing cheering against America and opposition to the values we were founded upon, the word conservative has taken on an Orwellian meaning as we wonder what it is that conservatives want to conserve. This should come as no surprise when we have those on the right who claim to support a strong defense while supporting policies which undermine our national security. The right speaks of freedom while supporting an increasingly authoritarian society, ignoring true violations of civil liberties but see attempts to provide people with affordable health care as an intrusion on our liberties. The right speaks of supporting capitalism while backing a form of crony capitalism which would make Adam Smith roll over in his grave. While Pat Buchanan’s views are contrary to traditional American values, they do fit in will with the contemporary conservative movement.

1 Comment

  1. 1
    Eclectic Radical says:

    Well, prayers and hymns were a traditional part of community schoolhouses in many parts of the country for many years and some school districts included them in their classrooms when public education was established and expanded in the Progressive Era. So there is an American tradition of Christianity in the classroom whether it is rightly a part of ‘traditional American values’ or not. Christianity was removed from the classroom because of a growing movement among Christians who were opposed to their kids being taught the wrong hymns and prayers by teachers of the wrong denominations even before the modern ‘secular movement’ decried by today’s evangelicals began. The modern secular classroom is thus a result of a consensus among people of faith that religion and religious values are best taught at home by parents.
     
    Pat Buchanan is, once again, proving his ignorance of basic history in his quest to prove himself a public fool.
     

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