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                            The White Rose Letters 
                                       7

"Nothing is more unworthy  of a cultured nation than to allow itself,
without opposition, to be 'governed' by an irresponsible clique subject to
dark instincts. "  
                                                             -Hans Scholl,
1942
     
     Hans Scholl wrote these words as a college student in Hitler's
Germany, as a brave and perhaps foolish young man who dared defy the power 
of the Nazi government.  He and a few others secretly published and
distributed the  White Rose Letters, seeking to  "convince (their) readers
of the tremendous danger of the Nazi regime", and to "awaken Germans to
what was happening to them."1
     Unfortunately for Hans Scholl, for Germany, and the world, the time
for awakening had long since passed.   The time far the White Rose Letters
was not  1942, but 1925 - before Hitler rose to power.  The time for all
good Germans, struggling in a newborn Weimar Republic, to awaken to the
danger of Naziism was the year Mein Kampf  was published.  If only more
Germans had read the plans that Hitler had made...
     If Hans Scholl had a new life to live over and were free to travel
time, surely he would return to Germany in 1925 to awaken his nation to the
horror of Hitlerism.  Surely he would publish his leaflets again, potent
capsules of information about the NSDAP, its goals, and its leader. 
However, Scholl would not need to travel to the Weimar Republic to fight a
potentially dangerous political movement with his White Rose resistance: 
that fearless fighter would find a worthy mission in the United States of
America in 1992, where a movement from Hitler's heyday has awakened after a
long and fitful sleep. The movement deserving the critical pen of the White
Rose is America First, created in 1940 by isolationists unwilling to save
Europe from Nazi domination, later infiltrated by Nazi sympathizers,
dissolved in 1942 after losing its battle to keep America out of the war,
and revived in 1992 by Patrick Buchanan and his loyal Brigades.
     In a time of national crisis, Buchanan's nationalist imagery appeals
to many who have lost their faith in present-day America.  His program
calls back an earlier time, the booming Fifties, when people knew what was
right, what was wrong, who to hate, and where they belonged. The America
that Buchanan wants to recreate, however, is an America that has never
existed and never should.  His Republic is a parody of what America is
supposed to be, a mockery of the democratic ideals of our Founding Fathers,
an affront to any American that truly loves his or her country and the
principles of liberty on which it was built.
     Buchanan, if elected President, would head straight for the soul of
America without delay.  In his memoir-manifesto, he sets out a plan for a
second Constitutional convention: the amendments he proposes would
reorganize our government fundamentally,  changing the nature and crippling
the power of the Supreme Court, hobbling Congress, all while increasing the
power of the Presidency.  Freedom of expression would be bridled under his
rule, and the separation of church and state in public education would
become virtually nonexistent. 
     These are Buchanan's words on changes to the Federal government, from
his book  Right from the Beginning :
     "All federal judges and Justices of the Supreme Court shall be subject
to reconfirmation by the Congress every eight  years."  (proposed
Constitutional amendment)
     "Decisions of the Supreme Court may be set aside by a two-thirds vote
of both houses of Congress, with the approval of the President."  (proposed
Constitutional amendment)
     "The twenty-second amendment (restricting Presidents to two full
terms) is hereby repealed."  (proposed Constitutional amendment)
     "The amendments (above) dealing with the judiciary would redress the
balance of government power.  There is no reason an excellent President
should not serve for more than eight years; nor any reason an incompetent
judge or Justice should burden us with his presence any longer than that."
     "The only real hope for halting the inexorable growth of government is
a strong, articulate, conservative President able to present his case to
the country -  over the heads of Congress and the national press.  Whatever
reform enhances the power of the President, such as the line-item veto,
should be promoted."
     "In the fight to maintain open markets, worldwide, a strong President,
again, is indispensable.  Congress, composed of 535 moving parts, is
incapable of resisting the concerted pressures of American corporations and
unions."
     From his campaign literature:
     "We must rescue America from the professional political class, and its
allied army of lobbyists, cronies, and registered agents of influence, who
control our capital city.  If eight years is long enough for a great
President, it is long enough for a mediocre congressman."
     "Just as we must protect and preserve America's natural beauty, so,
too, we will take the side of our families and communities in cleaning up
the pollution of our popular culture.  We will fight for a constitutional
amendment to restore voluntary prayer in the public schools..."3

     From his memoir again:
     "While radio and television stations should be free to form networks
and introduce new technologies, there is no constitutional "right" to
befoul the airwaves any more than there is a constitutional right to
pollute our rivers."2
     "The arrogant claim of the intelligentsia - "Everyone's market must be
regulated, except my own" - traditionalists ought not to accept.  Polluted
ideas have caused greater injury to mankind than polluted water, and the
marketplace of ideas is in greater need of watching than the marketplace of
goods.  Ideas have consequences; and all ideas are not equal."2
     Reading the above statements, one might question Buchanan's love of
democracy as those in the United States have come to know it.  Other lines
from his memoir support the idea that the big-R Republican has a distaste
for little-d democracy.
     Reminiscing on his youth in Washington, D.C. :
     "We had no right to vote, when I was growing up, no elections.  We
were governed by three "commissioners," appointed by the President, and
governed well... Perhaps we did grow up in "The Last Colony," but I don't
ever recall feeling "deprived."... Believing ours to be a beneficent
government, we accepted the traditions handed down to us; we never
challenged their legitimacy or authority."2
     On foreign policy:
     "The raison d'tre  of any realistic (i.e., nonideological) American
foreign policy  must be the preservation of the Republic.  Other goals
(e.g. the advancement  of human rights, the alleviation of poverty and
hunger, the spread of democracy) are secondary and subordinate."2
     The Republic that Buchanan wants so badly to preserve is not a
Republic that exists, or should. The America he wants to put First is not
the America of Washington, of Jefferson, nor even of FDR; it is a darker
America with different heroes, different allies, and different enemies. 
Buchanan's bugbear, Communism, fled his hunting ground, leaving his party
directionless:  "Anti-Communism, the defining doctrine of the Right since
Goldwater, the glue that kept the Reagan coalition together, can no longer
work its old magic."  The question remains, then, who are America's
enemies?  For, sadly, a nation is defined as much by what it despises as by
what it holds dear.
     Buchanan offers a clear picture of who and what is not the enemy in
his memoir.
     "We have a different sense as well of what truly threatens what we
cherish most: family, faith, and country.  It is not Botha or Marcos or
Pinochet; it is the Soviet Union and its genuinely evil ideology."
     In the same chapter, Buchanan describes his father's admiration for
another anti-democratic  "hero" :  General Francisco Franco, fascist
dictator of Spain.
     The America that  sent her sons (and daughters) to battle in World War
II knows that democracy is her ally and fascism her enemy. Although she is
a nation of many views, values, and beliefs, these two points should be
indisputable as a basis for forming foreign and domestic policy.  "In our
social and cultural life, we begin to resemble Weimar", Buchanan states in
his memoir-manifesto.  If America is now Weimar,  she must take drastic
action now to prevent herself from collapsing into the same hell that the
Weimar Republic did - the Thousand-year Reich. 
     Wake up, America!  Think, before it's too late.