Adam's Apple
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- Apr 25, 2004
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300,000,000 Strong
By Mona Charen, The Conservative Voice
October 20, 2006
The other morning my family and I ogled a beautiful one-day-old infant girl featured on Fox News as the 300 millionth American. She was so cute that we were prompted to dig out pictures of our own kids as babies.
But, shhh, can you keep a secret? There is no actual baby we can identify as the 300 millionth American. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, there were about 11,265 people born per day in 2004. Assuming they were born at all hours of the day, that's about 470 per hour. But as the Census Bureau website further explains:
"[T]he nation's population will reach the historic milestone of 300 million on Oct. 17 at about 7:46 a.m. (EDT) . . . "
The estimate is based on the expectation that the United States will register one birth every seven seconds and one death every 13 seconds, while net international migration is expected to add one person every 31 seconds. The result is an increase in the total population of one person every 11 seconds.
In other words, we have no idea who the magic 300 millionth person may be. It could be a new immigrant, or it might be the blinking, yawning little wonder we watched on the news. Statistics can be misleading. Recall the politician who, when told that overpopulation in Mexico was so extreme because
"every 60 seconds, a woman gives birth," declared, "We've got to find that woman and stop her!"
Some news outlets greeted the advent of the 300 millionth American with anxiety. There were worried references to pollution and scarce resources, sprawl and crowded classrooms. The same headlines could have greeted the 200 million milestone passed in 1967 -- and that's about how up to date those analyses are.
In fact, there are many more reasons to celebrate our fecundity than to lament it. Let's step back and look at the rest of the developed world.
In the 1980s, we were instructed that Japan's economic juggernaut would overwhelm us in short order. But today, Japan, like so many wealthy, developed nations, is failing to reproduce. Japan's birth rate is among the lowest in the industrialized world, and its rate of decline is the fastest. The graying sumo, now weighing in at 127.7 million (Asia Times), is expected to shrink in half in 70 years. Absent immigration (and the Japanese have never been keen on that), younger workers will face punishing tax rates to support the swollen ranks of retirees.
In Europe, fertility rates are similar. A replacement birth rate is 2.1 children per woman. As Mark Steyn points out in his droll but devastating book "America Alone" (Chapter One: "The Gelded Age"), a number of countries in Europe (Greece: 1.3, Italy: 1.2, Spain: 1.1, Russia: 1.14, United Kingdom: 1.6) have fertility rates "from which no human society has ever recovered."
Unlike Japan, Europe does have immigrants. But that doesn't solve Europe's problem, it compounds it -- because Europe's immigrants are Muslims, many of whom, for many reasons, are not assimilating. On the contrary, a frightening percentage actually wishes to destroy the societies they have infiltrated. In "Londonistan," Melanie Phillips limns the problem:
"[N]o fewer than 26 percent of British Muslims feel no loyalty to Britain, 13 percent defended terrorism and up to 1 percent were 'actively engaged' in terrorist activity. . . . This last number . . . added up to at least 16 thousand terrorists or terrorist supporters among British Muslims."
The average fertility rate for Muslim women in Europe is 3.5 children. For non-Muslims, the rate is 1.4. If present fertility rates among ethnic Europeans and Muslim immigrants continue for another decade or so, Europe as we have known it will be gone by mid-century. This time, Muamar Gaddafi got it right: "There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe -- without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades."
America's growth is a sign of economic, spiritual and psychic vigor. Sure we have immigration problems to sort out, but the alternative to expansion, as we are witnessing elsewhere in the world, is oblivion -- or worse.
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/19498.html
Chuck Asay also had a political cartoon about this. I can't get the url to work; but if interested in looking at it, you can do a search for Chuck Asay cartoons and click on October 19.
By Mona Charen, The Conservative Voice
October 20, 2006
The other morning my family and I ogled a beautiful one-day-old infant girl featured on Fox News as the 300 millionth American. She was so cute that we were prompted to dig out pictures of our own kids as babies.
But, shhh, can you keep a secret? There is no actual baby we can identify as the 300 millionth American. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, there were about 11,265 people born per day in 2004. Assuming they were born at all hours of the day, that's about 470 per hour. But as the Census Bureau website further explains:
"[T]he nation's population will reach the historic milestone of 300 million on Oct. 17 at about 7:46 a.m. (EDT) . . . "
The estimate is based on the expectation that the United States will register one birth every seven seconds and one death every 13 seconds, while net international migration is expected to add one person every 31 seconds. The result is an increase in the total population of one person every 11 seconds.
In other words, we have no idea who the magic 300 millionth person may be. It could be a new immigrant, or it might be the blinking, yawning little wonder we watched on the news. Statistics can be misleading. Recall the politician who, when told that overpopulation in Mexico was so extreme because
"every 60 seconds, a woman gives birth," declared, "We've got to find that woman and stop her!"
Some news outlets greeted the advent of the 300 millionth American with anxiety. There were worried references to pollution and scarce resources, sprawl and crowded classrooms. The same headlines could have greeted the 200 million milestone passed in 1967 -- and that's about how up to date those analyses are.
In fact, there are many more reasons to celebrate our fecundity than to lament it. Let's step back and look at the rest of the developed world.
In the 1980s, we were instructed that Japan's economic juggernaut would overwhelm us in short order. But today, Japan, like so many wealthy, developed nations, is failing to reproduce. Japan's birth rate is among the lowest in the industrialized world, and its rate of decline is the fastest. The graying sumo, now weighing in at 127.7 million (Asia Times), is expected to shrink in half in 70 years. Absent immigration (and the Japanese have never been keen on that), younger workers will face punishing tax rates to support the swollen ranks of retirees.
In Europe, fertility rates are similar. A replacement birth rate is 2.1 children per woman. As Mark Steyn points out in his droll but devastating book "America Alone" (Chapter One: "The Gelded Age"), a number of countries in Europe (Greece: 1.3, Italy: 1.2, Spain: 1.1, Russia: 1.14, United Kingdom: 1.6) have fertility rates "from which no human society has ever recovered."
Unlike Japan, Europe does have immigrants. But that doesn't solve Europe's problem, it compounds it -- because Europe's immigrants are Muslims, many of whom, for many reasons, are not assimilating. On the contrary, a frightening percentage actually wishes to destroy the societies they have infiltrated. In "Londonistan," Melanie Phillips limns the problem:
"[N]o fewer than 26 percent of British Muslims feel no loyalty to Britain, 13 percent defended terrorism and up to 1 percent were 'actively engaged' in terrorist activity. . . . This last number . . . added up to at least 16 thousand terrorists or terrorist supporters among British Muslims."
The average fertility rate for Muslim women in Europe is 3.5 children. For non-Muslims, the rate is 1.4. If present fertility rates among ethnic Europeans and Muslim immigrants continue for another decade or so, Europe as we have known it will be gone by mid-century. This time, Muamar Gaddafi got it right: "There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe -- without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades."
America's growth is a sign of economic, spiritual and psychic vigor. Sure we have immigration problems to sort out, but the alternative to expansion, as we are witnessing elsewhere in the world, is oblivion -- or worse.
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/19498.html
Chuck Asay also had a political cartoon about this. I can't get the url to work; but if interested in looking at it, you can do a search for Chuck Asay cartoons and click on October 19.
