Posted on 04/19/2006 2:47:41 PM PDT by Heartofsong83
America's Immigrants Woes Pale Compared to Europe's
Americans like to be first in everything, even when it comes to immigrant strife. And so, in anticipation of what they think will be another historic battle of the US culture wars, the old left has donned its armor and sharpened its rhetoric, this time in the name of undocumented workers and their human rights (do bank robbers make undocumented withdrawals?). And with courage and vigor the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles has told his flock to gird for civil disobedience to thwart an immigration law that does not exist and that would not do what he says — make criminals out of priests and nuns — if it did exist.
In reality, the immigrant problem in America is a minor one, especially when it is compared to the European dilemma. To juxtapose: In the United States, immigrants (both legal and illegal) supplement native births that hover at replacement rate. The combination of these native births and immigration has resulted in continued population growth. And, according to the economist consulted, illegal immigrants either act as a slight brake on an otherwise robust economy, or they actually contribute to this growth. Immigrants, even illegal immigrants, generally accept the propositions upon which the nation has been founded: free enterprise, the notion of individual liberty and rights, and the broad strokes of representative democracy. And, although it is indelicate to mention it, they are mainly Christian, thereby suggesting that their ethical standards, standards at least informed by if not founded upon this religion, will reinforce the common beliefs and standards of many of their new neighbors.
To know all of this, simply check the roster of a New York City firehouse or police precinct, and you will find Gonzalez and Lopez along with Fitzpatrick and O'Malley. We even share the same national pastime.
Europe's problem is far more serious, and it is based upon the cataclysmic reality that native Europeans have largely stopped having children. More native Germans were born in 1946 — with all of those missing men, in the hundreds of thousands, killed or wounded or marching into captivity, every city bombed to rubble, and real starvation hanging in the air — than in 2006. If people need hope to bring children into the world, those Germans of 1946, picking through the literal and figurative rubble of their very civilization, still managed to possess more hope than the privileged Germans of today.
Thus, immigrants have been brought to the continent of Europe not to supplement native births, but in a very real sense to replace the native births that no longer take place, or no longer take place in sufficient numbers. And these immigrants, largely North African, largely Muslim, decidedly do not share the principles and propositions of their adopted homeland, the Enlightenment principles of rationality and tolerance, nor do they respect the institutions — including the pan-European secular, bureaucratic, social welfare state — that reflect those principles.
These immigrants have a very long memory (some Spanish Muslims still hope to avenge the actions of Queen Isabella, 500 years hence), and possess a tangible and realistic plan for the near-future (Muslims in northern European countries have worn T-shirts with the message, "Ours in Thirty Years") based upon the simple reality that they will birth their way to dominance.
The only European institution that seems to understand all of this is based in Vatican City. In an April 5 speech at the United Nations, the Vatican representative to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, moved the debate far beyond the US discourse — legal versus illegal — to the European level of the problem, the level of societal survival.
First, Archbishop Migliore established that "sane" population policies had to replace the presumably insane policies that have resulted in the "serious problems brought about by falling birth rates." Governments seek to restrict births at their nations' peril.
Next, Migliore made the obvious point that immigration cannot replace births, that "immigration cannot be the single solution to demographic and labour problems." Finally, he asked his audience to contemplate what a European country such as Italy would become if 50, 60 or 70 percent of its population were Muslim: "The social impact of migration on receiving countries with shrinking birthrates, now needs to be better understood as well. Demographic shifts in populations on such a scale will surely have radical consequences for the entire composition of nations."
The first step from insanity to sanity seems to be simply making basic points such as these. They were echoed in a speech that Pope Benedict XVI made to a group of European politicians on March 30, when he listed "the protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death, recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family — as a union of a man and a woman based on marriage . . . [and] the protection of the right of parents to educate their children" as the three "principles which are not negotiable."
"Sane" programs and "non-negotiable" principles: The Vatican could not be speaking any clearer. And such clarity is necessary right now. Every 10 years, the United Nations Population Division surveys governments concerning their views and policies relating to population. The Italian government's 2005 opinion on its nations' population prospects were distressing: "View on growth of population size: TOO LOW;" "View on fertility level: TOO LOW;" "Level of concern about size of the working-age population: MAJOR CONCERN;" "Level of concern about aging of the population: MAJOR CONCERN." But then the UN asked for "Grounds on which abortion is permitted." In 1996 (the last survey), the grounds were: to save the woman's life, to preserve physical health, to preserve mental health, rape or incest, fetal impairment, and economic or social reasons. In 2005, an additional ground was added to the list: "on request." Yes, sanity is needed, and noting the depths of Europe's demographic woes, that is not negotiable.
Douglas Sylva is Senior Fellow at the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM). His e-mail address is dsylva@thefactis.org.
ping
BUMP!
Blather, blather, blather. Note to journalists - never try linking illegal aliens with legal immigrants in the same article.
More generally, have lefties ever accurately predicted a single event?
"...he asked his audience to contemplate what a European country such as Italy would become if 50, 60 or 70 percent of its population were Muslim..."
They are already demanding special rights for themselves. At 50% (or 51%), they will simply vote themselves whatever "rights" they want - Shuria law, headscarves on all women (or worse), more muslim immigration, etc.
The socialist welfare-state notion that these folks will happily toil away as 2nd-class citizens to support the aged, infirmed European populations is flat-out wrong-headed. At 51% they will simply change the socialist safety net into something more to their liking - and more in line with the Koran.
In some things they can be linked. Demographics is one of them.
"Weren't lefties predicting an overpopulation-based Malthusian catastrophe a few decades ago? The Population Bomb and all that?
More generally, have lefties ever accurately predicted a single event?"
The population is increasing in third world countries and among Muslims wherever they exist.
Unfortunately, most Europeans prefer a life of luxury (or near luxury) to the cost and effort that come with children.
Interesting ping.
It is even worse than that. College educated Europeans like the protestors in France are leaving and taking their fertility and expensive educations with them to places where there is more opportunity by the tens of thousands. Those must be some real selfish socialists.
Hi AC, thanks.
Ping...
Immigrants stop worrying about them, look look at Europe what a mess its in, now go to sleep.
Worry about Europe's problems real or perceived that way you can ignore or feel better about your own.
Oh yeah, global cooling. Forgot all about that.
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