Sent: Mon, Jul 29, 2019 3:15 p.m.
Subject: Kendall Stanley on Dr. John Tanton's Life and Death
Monday, July 29, 2019
Kendall Stanley on Dr. John Tanton's Life and Death
OPINION: Kendall Stanley — The enigmatic Dr. Tanton
- Jul 27, 2019
For years I've known this day would come — what to say in a column about the life and interests of John H. Tanton, who died last week at the age of 85.
A respected and caring ophthalmologist in the community for years, he and his wife Mary Lou were instrumental in forming many organizations we just consider part of the fabric of living here — Northern Michigan Planned Parenthood, Top of Michigan Trails Council, the Audubon Society, Sierra Club and others environmental causes.
John was one of the litigants in the case against Birchwood Farms, fighting to ensure that the giant housing project did not pollute the area. Following success at that endeavor, he was one of the founders of the Little Traverse Conservancy.
He was an autodidact, taking an interest in many different areas. He remains one of the brightest people I've ever met, without letting you know that he was one of the brightest people you'd ever meet.
Growing up on a farm in the Thumb and learning about farming under the tutelage of his father and grandfather, he would occasionally pen a letter to the editor about winter vegetable gardens and other farm-related things. He was also a beekeeper.
Thus as stalwart members of the community, nothing prepared you for the cover of the Southern Poverty Law Center's magazine back in 2002 with John as the puppet master of a number of groups spread across the U.S. which the Southern Poverty Law Center described as hate groups or white nationalist groups.
His most recognizable organization is FAIR — the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Started in 1979, it soon became a major player in the immigration debates in Washington, pushing for lower immigration levels across the board.
The Center for Immigration Studies was his think tank on immigration studies, the Immigration Reform Law Institute the law side of the equation. He founded U.S. English to seek a ballot initiative to make English our official language.
Locally his organization was U.S. Inc., and the publishing arm The Social Contract Press.
A large part of what Tanton did was guided by his environmentalism — how will an increasing population impact the environment; how will immigration change the United States' environment and culture?
His provocative comments were fodder for his critics, of which there were many.
Will "Latin American migrants bring with them the tradition of the mordida (bribe)." he asked.
And "As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night. Or will there be an explosion?"
Daniel Stein, head of FAIR, in a statement on the organization's Web site said of Tanton following his death:
"John was not a politician. He was not made for the public spotlight. He was a creative intellect who sought to develop ideas and send them up as trial balloons for feedback. He was stubborn and he was persistent. But simply because he wrote an argument down did not mean he agreed with it or even supported it; often it was merely the process of generating discussion around it. As he learned the hard way, promoting informal ideas — even where they were uniformly dismissed immediately by others — could cause unethical advocates who disagreed with you to ascribe to you policy positions that you yourself never adopted. This nasty sleight of hand was used repeatedly against John, especially in cases where he was floating an idea out as an intellectual exercise."
The problem with floating ideas out there as an "intellectual exercise" is you always face the question of "just how serious is this" and "how far do we go down this road."
When you republish Jean Raspail's novel, "The Camp of the Saints," a dystopian look at brown people taking over white Europe, is it any wonder that some white nationalists put it on their must-read list?
There's a fine line between floating an idea and being a provocateur.
But this could always be said of him: He didn't back away from his views, and he put his time and efforts where his thoughts were.
Want to fight for smaller immigration? Found an organization that fights for lower immigration quotas. Want English as our only language? Found an organization that fights for that. Want to protect land in Northern Michigan? Found a conservancy to do just that.
John always had his critics and his acolytes who could make arguments for or against his positions and they remain welcome to them.
Then there are those of us who put him in the role where he laid out his extensive intellectual musings and pretty much let us decide which were worthy and which were not.
In the end, however, he never stopped thinking about the world around him and how it would look in the future if this happened or that happened. Few if any people we come across in life are like that. Like him or not, he was an original.
And if, as John might have suggested, you want to get a fuller measure of the man, his work, his detractors and his defenders, just Google John Tanton and you will find more citations that you can imagine. Don't miss www.johntanton.org where he answers his critics, the Southern Poverty Law Center in particular.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
And "As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night. Or will there be an explosion?"
I wrote those similar words,similarly constructed,without hearing about John Tanton last year.Does this make me a great thinker?
No.
This comment is not meant to say I'm as educated as he was(not a chance),but as I noted in a previous comment concerning the MSM assertion that our "Founding Fathers" MEANT to include non-whites as a covered group in the Bill of Rights.However,Stephen Douglas made the perfect argument against that idiocy,long before(159 years) I scribbled a similar theory.
Most everything I think of regarding race or society at large has been said by others in the past,though I'm unaware of it until an obit shows up--like today-- of someone having views synonymous with mine.
The deflating aspect of Tanton's passing is that his accurate views and philosophy of race and sociology were not widely known (I never heard of him).The ultimate question still looms:"Do we go quietly or is there an explosion in the future?"
The latter event occurring would no doubt make Tanton's afterlife more satisfying(if such things are possible),knowing that whites decided to save themselves.It's what we all hope for here on NSU.
--GRA
Anonymous said...with better editing.
And "As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night. Or will there be an explosion?"
I wrote those similar words,similarly constructed,without hearing about John Tanton last year.Does this make me a great thinker?
No.
This comment is not meant to say I'm as educated as he was(not a chance),but as I noted in a previous comment concerning the MSM assertion,that our "Founding Fathers" MEANT to include non-whites as a covered group in the Bill of Rights,(delete however)Stephen Douglas made the perfect argument against that idiocy,long before(159 years) I scribbled a similar theory.
Most everything I think of regarding race or society at large has been said by others in the past,though I'm unaware of it until an obit shows up--like today-- of someone having views synonymous with mine.
The deflating aspect of Tanton's passing is that his accurate views and philosophy of race and sociology were not widely known (I never heard of him).The ultimate question still looms:"Do we go quietly or is there an explosion in the future?"
The latter event occurring would no doubt make Tanton's afterlife more satisfying(if such things are possible),knowing that whites decided to save themselves.It's what we all hope for here on NSU.
--GRA
Post a Comment