Globalism vs. ethnonationalism

Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no globalists in a global financial meltdown. Pat Buchanan offers a few examples from around the world:

Meanwhile, global institutions, the United Nations, IMF and European Union have lost their luster. Czechs – whose president, Vaclav Klaus, regards the EU as a prison house of nations – hold the EU presidency. When the financial crisis hit, Irish, Brits and Germans rushed to bail out their own banks, as did Americans, who rescued Ford, Chrysler and GM, leaving Toyota, Hyundai and Honda twisting in the wind.

This is economic nationalism.

Inside Ehud Olmert's Cabinet, a rising star is Avigdor Lieberman. What Lieberman's "merry men" advocate, writes the American Prospect, is "ethnic cleansing: As the creepy name (which translates into 'Our Home Is Israel') suggests, Yisrael Beiteinu believes the million-plus Arab citizens of Israel must be expelled."

Barack won the African-American vote 97 percent to 3 percent over John McCain, and 90 percent to 10 percent over Hillary Clinton in the later primaries. McCain ran stronger than George W. Bush only in Appalachia, the laager of the Scots-Irish.

The artificial prosperity of the post-WWII years is draining away faster than the air in a toy balloon. That prosperity warped our view of life, and lulled us into believing not only that abundance was the norm, but that we could forget those stodgy habits of the past that made political stability and economic success possible. Generosity toward all is easy when there's plenty to go around. The resulting "consumerist" worldview gave us the psychedelic 60s, an entitlement culture, and multiculturalism. Now that the party's over, it's time to get down to basics, to rediscover the survival value of tradition, heritage, and culture.

Yes, I'm talking to you, my fellow Baby Boomers. It's time to grow up and get to work. The tinsel of universalism can't support its own weight, much less ours. Our job is to renew forgotten ties of community, of loyalty and love for one's own, and to reclaim the invaluable wisdom of our Christian, Western civilization. As Pat Buchanan reminds us, it's a fight for survival, and we humans naturally band together to protect our own. "Ethnonationalism" is the political scientist's jargon for patriotism, the most natural and invaluable of instincts. It's time to rediscover, renew, and rebuild. Political institutions must be based on human nature rather than on abstract theories.

Our lives, and the lives of our children, depend on it.