
 |
|
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Oct. 20, 2006
/ 28 Tishrei, 5767
300,000,000 strong
By
Mona Charen
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
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.
| BUY THE BOOK |
| Click HERE
to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund
JWR.).
|
| 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.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR contributor Mona Charen's column by clicking here.
Mona Charen Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|