Dec 15^th

Pat Buchanan’s opinions appear in today’s paper. These are quite predictable if you know the typically xenophobic ideas Buchanan usually has. He is all for a “moratorium” on Muslim immigration until we can, in Donald Trump’s words,  “…figure out what the hell is going on.” You can be sure that both Trump and Buchanan will agree that figuring that out won’t happen any time soon. Buchanan seems to have an atavistic paranoia toward anyone who doesn’t look like him. Some years ago a conservative icon, William F. Buckley, writing in the National Review, the magazine he founded, said, “I find it impossible to defend Pat Buchanan from…a charge of anti-Semitism.”

Buchanan worked for President Richard Nixon another notorious anti- Semite. He was also an apologist for the Nazis, even maintaining that Germany was well within its rights to invade Poland and calling World War 2 an “unnecessary war” caused primarily by Winston Churchill’s insistence on preserving the British Empire. Buchanan even wrote a book with “The Unnecessary War” as the title.

So what’s the deal with banning Muslims from entering the country? It is perfectly legal…it’s also perfectly stupid. The government can ban anyone it wants to from entering the country. Constitutional protections begin for foreigners after they get here; the constitution’s freedom of religion, trial by jury and other rights apply to “persons” not just citizens. Voting and holding elective office are another matter.  The restriction on who can come in to the country has been curiously asserted in the past; for example children of an unmarried couple at one time could not come in to this country. I don’t know if that’s still the case. Maybe that’s one of the laws the administration isn’t enforcing. Deny entrance to the children unless the parents can prove they are married and you’ve got the cudgel the “defenders of marriage” demand.

Buchanan’s and Trump’s proposal to exclude Muslims from the country is particularly stupid for several reasons: First, we need information about potential attacks by Muslim terrorists and this information is most likely to come from other Muslims. If we alienate the American Muslims, we have isolated our security people from a valuable information source. Second, ISIL wants to institute an “us against them” scenario in which all of the Muslim world is seen as pitted against all of the West. A blanket prohibition on Muslims entering this country reinforces that scenario perfectly.

The advantage of the prohibition is that it plays nicely into the fear and paranoia that Trump, Buchanan and others on the right are stoking. Trump supporters have now become unhinged at any criticism of their hero. Last night at a Trump rally a protester was ejected but not before trump’s supporters were screaming, “kill him,” “shoot him,” “burn the ****.” A new era in American politics has arrived.