It’s funny, the discussions we never have, even when they involve that proverbial elephant in the room. Here’s one:
Since the U.S.’s population is only increasing because of immigration, when do we decide we have enough people and end it?
Our population is now 343.6 million, up from 338.3 million in 2021. This itself is up from 311.2 million in 2010, 282.4 million in 2000, 223.1 million in 1980, 176.2 million in 1960, and 148.3 million in 1950. Oh, I know we Americans are sometimes concerned with being number one, but we’re already the world’s third most populous nation. Will we only be happy when our population exceeds India’s 1.451 billion? (Yes, India seized the title from China a while back.)
Now, there are some people who apparently yearn for a Soylent Green situation. For example, commentator Glenn Beck — whose political and social prescriptions range from brilliant to boneheaded — insists we must have one billion “Americans.” His theory is that we won’t be able to compete, or something like that, unless we’re teeming with huddled masses. It’s not MAGA but MACA: Make America China Already!
(Well, that’s one way to end our H-1B visa controversy. Indians will stop coming to the U.S. and taking American jobs once we make America like its next door neighbor.)
For the record, I’m not a misanthrope or antinatalist (such as the man who sued his parents for giving birth to him without his consent.). If you aim to have 11 kids, like a wonderful editor I’m friends with; or eight, like a devout Catholic cop I know and respect, knock yourself out. I’m a man of faith and treasure family and fecundity. But Americans deciding to procreate and increase their family population is one thing. Increasing our national-family population by importing foreigners, however, is another.
As mentioned earlier, too, (im)migration has been the only source of U.S. population growth for decades now — more than half a century, in fact. Our fertility rate hasn’t been at or above replacement level (2.1 children per woman) since 1972 and now stands at 1.787.
“Ah, that proves immigration’s necessity!” some will say. Ex-chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, who couldn’t flood Europe with “diversity” agents fast enough, warned in 2019 that her nation needed “skilled non-EU workers” (after having just admitted waves of unskilled Third Worlders). But not so fast. In the U.S., artificial intelligence and robotics are already replacing American workers and are poised to eliminate a high percentage of jobs in the near future. (Germany will be no different.) Moreover, the official unemployment rate is basically phony. For instance, back in 2022, when the unemployment figure was supposedly 3.7 percent, the “true rate” was calculated to be 23.6 percent.
In other words, we have plenty of potential workers, more than our developing high-tech world may require. (What is true is that while there are no “jobs Americans won’t do,” there are wages for which Americans won’t work. Ending immigration and thus limiting worker supply would increase those wages.)
Now, this said, there are many reasons to end immigration completely, ranging from the cultural to the demographic to the electoral. But I’ll exercise discipline and keep the focus here narrow, on population level and overcrowding’s effects.
As to this, do we really need more strains on resources (e.g., water) and more crowded schools, hospitals, and highways? Do you take your morning commute and, while battling traffic with the white knuckles strangling the steering wheel, think “Gee, what would really make this trip more interesting is 35 percent more cars on the road”? And as the aforementioned statistics inform, we’ve added to the U.S. in just the past three years a foreign population (5.3 million) greater than that of each of a majority of our states (27). Is this wise?
Founding Father Thomas Jefferson certainly didn’t think so. “When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe,” goes a famous paraphrase of his thoughts, “we shall become as corrupt as Europe.”
Population density’s implications should be seriously pondered, too. Just consider, as a cautionary tale, ethologist John Calhoun’s 1968 to ’72 mouse experiments. To be brief, Calhoun investigated the effects of overpopulation by allowing eight mice to breed in an area of limited space while providing them all the food and water they needed. As the population density grew high, violence, miscarriages, poor parenting (ignoring of offspring), narcissistic behavior and, eventually, demographic decline and population collapse resulted. They became “piled upon one another” — and became “corrupt.”
Now, to be fair, the above is a bit like those old studies in which, investigating the effects of artificial sweetener saccharine, researchers would feed lab rats doses that were, proportionately, hundreds of times greater than what any human would consume. It’s a sort of caricature of a phenomenon. What’s more, we should always be careful about extrapolating animal-study data to people, as man is not just a beast but a being with intellect and free will.
Nonetheless, whether you believe we and other life forms are all a product of evolution or of the Creator, the reality is the same: We share origins. We thus will have other commonalities as well, and Calhoun’s findings do very much reflect the social ills evident in inner city areas.
The bottom line, though, is that there’s much talk today about “sustainability”; it has become a buzzword. Given this, why is there virtually no discussion about how the only thing preventing us from sustaining our population’s current level is immigration? There’s a reason, too, why Montana’s largest predator is the grizzly and Germany’s largest predator walks on two legs (and sometimes has a funny accent): Germany has approximately 83 million people while Montana, which is about the same size, has one million. Wide open borders — which still exist, metaphorically, with high levels of legal immigration — mean fewer wide open spaces.
This said, not everyone will agree with every point above or treasure the wilds as I do. But for certain is this: The past half century’s immigration-born U.S. population increase will continue as long as we’re an attractive destination. So do we accept limitless population growth? Or should we resolve to eliminate its cause at some point? What would that point be? Five-hundred million? Seven-hundred million? A billion?
Or, should it be today’s 344 million? Whatever the determination, this is a national discussion we should be having — now.
Of course, there are those who point out that the entire world’s population could fit in the state of Texas (not realistic), with everyone having about 100 square feet to enjoy. Sounds quite intimate. But before we come closer to putting this to the test, can we at least have that all-important national discussion? Or must immigration be, inexplicably, the one constant in an ever-changing universe of policy?
Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on X (formerly Twitter), MeWe, Gettr, Tumblr or Substack or log on to SelwynDuke.com.
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