Someone Put an Adult in Charge, Please!

Pat Buchanan deftly fisks President Bush's recent comments to the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and almost wants to cry.

Said Bush: "Sometimes, nativism, isolationism and protectionism all run hand in hand. We've got to be careful about that in the United States. The 1920s was a period of high tariff, high tax, no immigration. And the lesson of the 20s ought to be a reminder of what is possible for future presidents."

What is President Bush talking about?

Under Harding-Coolidge and Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, tariffs were indeed doubled to 38 percent, but imports were only 4 percent of GDP and most imports came in duty-free. And Wilson's wartime income tax rates were not raised, but slashed from Wilson's 72 percent to 25 percent.

When Harding took office, the unemployment rate was 12 percent. When Coolidge went home, it was 3 percent and America was producing 42 percent of the world's manufactures. Between 1922 and 1927, the economy grew at 7 percent a year, the largest peacetime growth ever. They were not called The Roaring Twenties for nothing, Mr. Bush.

As for "nativism," the immigration law of 1924 simply cut back immigration to 160,000 a year, and declared that the racial and ethnic profile of America was fine and should not be altered. Sam Gompers agreed. A. Philip Randolph wanted immigration stopped.

Thanks to that law, by the 1950s, almost all immigrants and their children had been fully assimilated and Americanized. What was wrong with that, Mr. President? Or do you and your Journal acolytes simply not like the country you grew up in?

President Bush and the neocon cheerlearders at the WSJ have made a hideous mockery of America's foreign, trade and immigration policies, with the result that the anti-Americanism is at an all time high even among our traditional allies, the U.S. trade deficit is breaking new records (and fueling China's military expansion) and the U.S. is being so overrun by Latino gangs that the mayor of Los Angeles has appealed to Latin American governments for help. Given this, one finds oneself struck at the obviousness of Buchanan's rhetorical question. Does the President really like the nation he is governing straight into the ground? Based on his policies, the answer seems like a clear "No!"

Dumbing Down America

As lousy as George Bush's foreign policy has been for American interests abroad, his domestic policies are even worse. Especially bad is his deliberate policy of transforming the demography of the U.S. through massive migration of Hispanics via Mexico. Not only has the Bush administration refused to staunch the flow of Hispanics (and others) crossing the border in defiance of American law and sovereignty, the administration has done everything it could to make clear to potential illegal immigrants that they are welcome here and will probably be legalized at some point. The long term impact of tens of millions of new Hispanic residents spells eventual disaster for the U.S.

Aside from the cultural and racial conflict it is already spawning, the importing of so many low and unskilled persons will ultimately undermine the U.S. economy and sink American competitiveness in the long run.

US workers may be significantly less literate in 2030 than they are today.

The reason: Most baby boomers will be retiring and a large wave of less-educated immigrants will be moving into the workforce. This downward shift in reading and math skills suggests a huge challenge for educators and policymakers in the future, according to a new report from the Educational Testing Service (ETS).

If they can't reverse the trend, then it could spell trouble for a large swath of the labor force, widen an already large skill gap, and shrink the middle class.

"There is no time that I can tell you in the last hundred years" where literacy and numeracy have declined, says Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston and one of the report's authors. "But if you don't change outcomes for a wide variety of groups, this is the future we face."

The decline in literacy is one of the more startling projections in a report that examines what it calls a "perfect storm" of converging factors and how those trends are likely to play out if left unchecked.

The three factors identified are: a shifting labor market increasingly rewarding education and skills, a changing demographic that include a rapid-growing Hispanic population, and a yawning achievement gap, particularly along racial and socioeconomic lines, when it comes to reading and math.

The individual trends have been identified before, but this study makes an effort to examine their combined effects, and to project a disturbing future, including a sharply declining middle class in addition to the lost ground in literacy.

"We have the possibility of transforming the American dream into the American tragedy," says Irwin Kirsch, a senior research director at ETS and the lead author of the study.

At the very moment that international economic competition is becoming almost entirely reliant on a nation's intellectual capital - the brainpower of its people - the U.S. has become the dumping ground for Latin America's poorest peoples, none of whom exhibit significant potential for educational advancement, or come from cultures where creativity or intellectual prowess are historically prized.

Defenders of open borders immigration policies point to the contributions of Irish, Italian, German and Jewish immigrants and argue that Hispanics will make contributions in due time. These advocates root their assumptions firmly in the belief that all ethnic groups possess equal innate characteristics and are thus interchangeable. But they are not. Vast differences in intellectual capability and behavior exist between ethnic groups - differences that are not attributable to environment or culture. Differences that persist no matter where those groups happen to live. Studies of immigrants to the U.S. show greatly varying outcomes for different ethnic groups.

While the vast majority of young adult children of immigrants experience upward economic and social mobility, a new study finds that a significant minority are suffering from lower levels of education, lower incomes, higher birth rates and higher levels of incarceration. Furthermore, it is the U.S.-born children of Mexican, Haitian and West Indian immigrants who experience these problems in the largest proportions.

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“The greatest educational disadvantage is found among children of Mexican immigrants and Laotian and Cambodian refugees in our sample – close to 40 percent of whom did not go beyond a high school diploma,” said Rumbaut. “Education is the key to successful upward mobility among children of immigrants, so the discrepancies that emerge in educational achievement among immigrant groups tend to persist in trends for income, employment and incarceration.”

The researchers also point to the influence of human capital (the skills and education of immigrant parents) as well as family structure, racial prejudice and government policies toward certain immigrant groups – particularly the undocumented – that influence this “downward assimilation” process.

The researchers found that children of Laotian and Cambodian Americans as well as Haitian Americans had the lowest median annual household income at just over $25,000. They were followed closely by Mexican American families, which had a median annual household income of about $30,000. On the other end of the spectrum, children of upper-middle-class Cuban exiles in Southern Florida reported a household income of more than $70,000, and Filipino Americans in Southern California had more than $64,000, followed by Chinese immigrants.

Differing intellectual abilities and behavioral traits manifest themselves in more ways than differences in household income.

Furthermore, the study found that the most educationally and economically disadvantaged children of immigrants were most likely to have children of their own at a young age, compounding their difficulties at pursuing higher education. When surveyed at the average age of 24, none of the Chinese Americans had children, while in contrast 25 percent of Haitians, West Indians, Laotians and Cambodians did, as did 41 percent of Mexican American young adults.

Differences in arrest and incarceration rates are also noteworthy, particularly among second-generation, U.S.-born, males. While only 10 percent of second-generation immigrant males in the survey had been incarcerated, that figure jumped to 20 percent among West Indian and Mexican American youths.

While Asian economies are accelerating, becoming not only more efficient and industrialized, but more creative and innovative, owing to the increased freedoms granted to their native populations, the U.S. is diluting its intellectual base and tolerating an invasion by millions of low-skilled people from countries never known to produce technological brilliance or economic success. Worse, because of their higher rates of reproduction, the children and grandchildren of these immigrants will become increasingly dominant in the U.S. The future of a country can be seen in its classrooms. If you want a vision of what is to come, visit any urban public school. It's not pretty, but unless Americans regain control of their government and their borders, and institute policies meant to benefit the U.S. and not Mexico, it is the future our children will have to endure.

The Illegal Immigrant Tax

As the beleaguered residents of the "Garden State" face yet another year of spiraling property tax increases, with little realistic hopes for relief, it is useful to ask why New Jersey's state government needs so much money. The answer, of course, is America's dirty little secret: illegal immigrants cost more than they contribute:

A new study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) showing that illegal aliens cost New Jersey more than $2.1 billion annually may help explain why the state continues to suffer multi-billion dollar budget deficits, and as Governor Jon Corzine admitted, "one of the worst tax burdens in the United States." The Costs of Illegal Immigration to New Jerseyians analyzes public expenditures for education, medical care, and incarceration for the estimated 372,000 illegal aliens residing in the state.

At $1.85 billion annually, public education for K-12 represents the largest fiscal liability. FAIR estimates about 50,000 children are in the state illegally and an additional 94,000 are children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens. Combined, these students represent about 10.3 percent of New Jersey public school enrollment. Publicly funded, unreimbursed medical outlays for health care cost the state about $200 million a year, while the personnel cost of incarcerating deportable aliens in state and local prisons amounts to about $50 million annually.

Parse this for a minute. Law-abiding residents of New Jersey are being taxed to pay to the expenses of people who are breaking the law, and ruining their communities. New Jerseyans, like the rest of Americans, are being forced by their own government to subsidize their own destruction.

"New Jersey's financial situation is so bad they furloughed 80,000 workers last year, then immediately increased taxes on average citizens to pay their way out of a growing $4.5 billion deficit," said Dan Stein, President of FAIR. "With proof that illegal aliens cost the state at least $2.1 billon per year, New Jersey can longer ignore the massive burden these people are placing on the state budget and they certainly should not be encouraging even more by harboring illegals aliens in sanctuary cities like Trenton."

So much for the "contributions" that illegal immigrant advocates (best exemplified by that shrewd fiscal conservative, George W. Bush) have assured us that tens of millions of Mexicans working for peanuts are making to America's economy. The goal of current US immigration policy (aside from not having an actual policy) is to make the US look like Mexico.

Actually, it's the only Bush administration policy that's actually working exactly as planned. But like all the other Bush policies, it's working to America's detriment.

The UK's Pakistani Disaster

As poll after poll (see posts below) finds more and more British muslims sympathetic to, or openly supportive of, jihad against the West (including their "home" country, the UK), British police uncover yet another terrorist plot involving homegrown muslims: to abduct, torture and behead British muslim soldiers.

For the past six months, every police force in the country, backed by the intelligence services and foreign security agencies, has been involved in uncovering what, if proved, would be the most extraordinary terror plot yet uncovered in Britain. Known as Operation Gamble, the focus of their attention was about a dozen men, most of them British-born, and from a corner of south Birmingham known locally as Muslim Central. All of them were of Pakistani origin.

Some of them had apparantly followed the well-trodden path of travelling to Pakistan where they were put in touch with extremist groups which could offer their own brand of terror training. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates needed some new tactic to terrify their enemies in Britain.

The July 7 attacks on the London transport system had seen the first homegrown suicide bombers to strike in the West. Subsequent bomb plots were foiled, not least because the police got wise to would-be terrorists trying to buy the materials they needed for bombs. Kidnapping a British Muslim was seen as simpler and far more sinister. There were plenty of websites instructing new recruits how to stalk then seize their victim. These sites stressed the need for publicity.

As brilliant as it is evil, the plot would have instantly struck terror in the heart of non-radicalized British muslims, causing them to withdraw from non-muslim society for fear of being targeted and killed by their own co-religionists. Contrary to the constant screaming of muslim "activists," Muslims have far less to fear from the hands of non-muslims than they do from the jihadis determined to make all muslims toe the party line. Fear and intimidation are the dominant societal mechanisms in every muslim society, so it should come as no surprise that muslims have imported them into the West along with themselves.

And, as usual, the fountainhead (with all apologizes to Ayn Rand) for this is Pakistan. Virtually every muslim terrorist operating in Britain has been traced back, by origin or support to Pakistan. If Britain were governed in the interest of the British people, all tourism and immigration between the UK and Pakistan would be immediately and indefinitely suspended. That would seal off the principal source of jihadi training, personnel and material support.

It also bears constantly repeating that there would be no problem of Islamic terror in Britain if there were no muslims there to begin with. Muslim terrorists must first gain access to non-muslim societies in order to attack them. There is little fear or chance of a major muslim attack in, say, Japan, because there are precious few muslims there - and the Japanese are extremely keen on keeping almost every one who isn't Japanese out.

But Britain is not governed for the benefit of the British people, who are increasingly viewed as an inconvenient remnant in their own country. The British government has decided to remake Britain as a multiracial, multicultural nation - and is in the process of importing a new people and supressing the native populace and culture to make this so.

And they are reaping the whirlwind.