A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.
~George William Curtis
I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.
~Abraham Lincoln
America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact - the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality.
~Adlai Stevenson
~John Gunther
Places I used to go as a kid seem much more crowded these days. The roads, the stores, the expansive neighborhoods where corn fields once stood. How much more can my neck of the woods take? For that matter, I don’t think that it is only in my neck of he woods where this is happening. We have lots more people in this country and the world today than we have ever had. I have been giving some attention to population studies for the last month or so. I recently wrote a piece on world population sustainability. Thinking about how many people our planet can sustain on a global scale got me to thinking further about how the little old United States of America is doing.
We’re only a little more than 200 years old. We have many government social programs that are getting us into deep budget trouble and some people want to see even more. We’ve got a Social Security program that is functionally bankrupt. Incidentally, I recently learned that our Social Security program was instituted in 1935, with a very important assumption that is not the case today. At that time life expectancy in the U.S. was 61 years. Social Security payments weren’t expected to support a majority of our population while they lived well into their 70s and 80s. I point this out about our Social Security program as more than a mere footnote. This is great evidence of how government programs outlive and indeed evolve well beyond their intended originations. Unemployment rates are a few percent higher than we normally like to live with. Of course, we have the current healthcare debate centering, at least for the Democrats, on the uninsured. Depending on who you are the change we are seeing in our government is either cause or effect. Clearly we are a society that is very concerned with either spending too much on government or spending too little.
Faced with this dilemma, I did what I find myself doing more and more lately—I looked for historical or current examples that may shed help some light on the situation. Are there any examples out there for us to analyze? Are any of these social ills entirely unexpected in a country whose population has grown as quickly as the United States over the last 50 years (or whatever time period)? How about when you consider our very diverse demographics and influx of illegal aliens flying under the radar, or our democratic version of government? These questions and many others all seem to me to be within a scope of my population interest.
What are the facts about how we built to our current population? It took about 200 years, between 1700 and 1900, to get the first 100,000,000 people in the U.S. It took only another 68 years to double that and reach 200,000,000. It took less than 40 years to add another 100,000,000 for a total now of more than 300,000,000 people. The pending census may prove us to be substantially higher.
Has the U.S. population grown more over the last 50 years than anyplace else? Has it grown quicker than in the immigration heyday (Ellis Island)? Are those that immigrate now assimilating differently than previous waves of immigrants? How about the demographic change from European to other? Are these problems to be expected no matter the good intentions of immigrants because such a spike in population is hard to absorb? Could we expect to be able to sustain our standard of living with such growth? Is this growth unprecedented in history? Questions, questions.
Immigration numbers for each of the last 2 decades are higher than any single decade in our history. People are coming here in never before seen numbers. This is difficult enough to absorb, but today’s immigrants present another problem. They are not as interested in assimilation as the immigrants in previous decades, especially before WWII. The countries currently supplying us with the most immigrants are Mexico, India, Philippines, China, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Cuba, Korea, and Columbia. Maybe when I say that our modern immigrants are not as interested in assimilation as historical immigrants I am being a bit unfair. Perhaps the problem is not them at all. The real problem is that we no longer demand assimilation. Thomas Paine, in his great work, Common Sense, said “Emigrants of property will not chose to come to a country whose form of government hangs but by a thread and is every day tottering on the brink of commotion and disturbance…”(emphasis mine). This statement is telling in more than one way, but notice the not so subtle interest in attracting “Emigrants of property”. Paine understood then, as we all should today, that this nation is best served by an influx of foreign immigrants with some existent financial worth and the accompanying interest in maintenance and growth of good fortune. We have gotten to a point where our founding fathers’ vision of a single nation united around core values is so diluted by cultural relativists that we have completely lost the reason we sought national independence in the first place. Where once people came to America to unify and prosper, they now come to America to differentiate, diversify and deplete government money. The first great immigration wave was from Ireland and Germany in the 1820s. For the next 100+ years our immigrants were mainly European. Of course, the founders of the United States were of European ancestry as well, so the reasons for immigration were very similar to that of the early settlers. Also similar were the willingness and ability to assimilate. Groups treasured and maintained their heritage while understanding the importance of assimilation as a key aspect of success in the land they deemed gave them unparalleled opportunity. As a nation we are losing sight of what made us great. Pandering to one another’s differences did not build this nation—celebrating forming one team to achieve common goals did.
Some brilliant people facing problematic governments in Europe found a relatively unsettled land across a vast ocean. Here they came and settled with no small amount of difficulty. Once established and independent they designed a new form of government as a solution to the problems they knew only too well in their varied yet similar homelands. The U.S. Constitution was created as the law of the land. Certainly some very important revisions were made, but we lived true to this Constitution for the better part of 2 centuries. Then something happened. Somehow our population came not to appreciate the great country that this great document created. As our population grew and diversified there came ideas for utopian change. Not change founded on any reality or any experience, but change founded on ideals proven unrealistic. Our mistake was in moving away from the letter and spirit of the great document. Instead of holding firm to the tenets that we knew were effective, we sought to accommodate. We should have treated our new inhabitants, native born and immigrant, as new employees to the world’s most successful company. “We don’t care how you did it at your old company, you’re with our company now and we have a model here that is proven and effective.” But our own pursuit of freedom, equality and innovation has left us susceptible to change not always in the best interests of our country. Seemingly overnight the concept of limited government “by the people and for the people” was being replaced with government intervention in places once unimaginable. We set out on a path to recreate our nation in the image of the nations we left behind.
Still, we’re not doing too badly when you compare us to some other examples in the world. Has any other country grown by 300,000,000 people in 300 years? Well, there are only 2 countries, India and China, which have 300,000,000 or more people. It goes without saying (or does it?) that these two countries are not societal examples to strive for. Their governments are completely different than ours. There is not nearly the opportunity in those nations nor is there anything approaching our standard of living. Indonesia is running in 4th position, but has nearly 100,000,000 people fewer than the United States. That said, it is a pretty screwed up place too. It is safe to say that no other country even approaching our size is a model worthy of copying. Ours is an experiment never before seen. To maintain such a high standard of living, with unsurpassed human rights and individual freedom, it appears, is not an easy thing to do. Nobody else has done it.
We’ve got a good thing going. Our fortune is based on a societal model we literally invented from a grand vision rooted in Western experience. The model proved out to be everything our founders envisioned. The greatest, most equitable, richest, strongest, least imperialistic nation ever conceived came to be and grew strong for 200 years. Why would anyone want to change from the most successful fruit bearing societal model ever to one that is at best proven less successful or at worst proven fatal? Those old models--dictatorships, monarchies, socialist, Marxist and communist haven’t worked under any conditions, let alone the conditions present in the United States. I guess my point is, why try rebuilding this nation in image of anything we’ve seen before? That we have the greatest nation ever and have grown peacefully to our current level is no accident. Our strength began with the uniqueness of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. We cannot be swayed further by newcomers and idealists that do not recognize their own great fortune. Any movement away from the intent of those 2 revolutionary and foundational documents is movement intent on destroying the greatest nation ever. To what end?
Many have contemplated these same thoughts. I began this piece with more quotes than usual--I end it with a couple more.
Of all the supervised conditions for life offered man, those under USA's constitution have proved the best. Wherefore, be sure when you start modifying, corrupting or abrogating it.
~Martin H. Fischer
The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.
~Adolf Hitler
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