CPAC 2012: English-Only Advocate Blasts 'Leftist Thugs' for Attacking 'White Nationalist' Peter Brimelow

By Sara Dover: Subscribe to Sara's RSS feed

February 9, 2012 9:42 PM EST

Robert Vandervoort, head of the English-only group ProEnglish, thanked the Conservative Political Action Committee Thursday for not giving in to "leftist thugs" who criticized its annual conference for featuring so-called white nationalist Peter Brimelow.

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"I applaud CPAC for standing up to the leftist thugs who tried to shut down this panel," said Vandervoort at the beginning of the event, which aimed to argue why English should be the official language nationwide.

"The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the Pursuit of Diversity is Weakening the American Identity" drew ire, particularly from a liberal blog, for including the author and founder of VDARE.com. The Southern Poverty Law Center has called the site a "white nationalist hate group" for hosting white supremacist writers like Kevin MacDonald and including blog posts like "How to Sell a Used Car to African Americans." Brimelow denies the label.

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RightWingWatch.org wrote they were particularly bothered by how "CPAC gave the boot to the gay conservative group GOProud 'because of their behavior and attitude,'" but "apparently running a Web site dedicated to promoting white nationalism is just fine."

CPAC did not back down from inviting Brimelow. Conference spokeswoman Kristy Campbell told Buzzfeed they are "proud to have more than 150 sponsors" and noted the panel was hosted by ProEnglish.

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Brimelow is also the author of the book, "Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster." VDARE is named after Virginia Dare, the first child born to English settlers in America.

In the discussion, Brimelow focused on his native Canada, blasting the government for forcing bilingualism on their people when only a minority speaks French. He claimed that the "institution of bilingualism" is about power, and warned about growing "enclaves" of American communities in which whole families don't speak English.

"They [Canada] are responsible for a number of political diseases that have entered our country. One of them is bilingualism," he said.

Along with Brimelow, the CPAC panel featured Robert Vandervoort, the executive director of ProEnglish; John Derbyshire, contributing editor at National Review; and Dr. Rosalie Porter, author and a chairman of the ProEnglish board. A few dozen people filled the room.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, also dropped in on the discussion to advocate for legislation he introduced to make English the official language of the United States.

"If you look throughout history and try to find the most powerful unifying force... it is a common language," said the congressman, who is a featured speaker at CPAC.

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