More "Population Bomb" Nonsense

Here’s another wonderful post from my husband, Santiago J. Valenzuela.  I’m formally changing his title from guest blogger to co-blogger, and I really appreciate all of the wonderful work he’s been doing for MoE lately! 

One of the more interesting confluences in the immigration debate is the synergy of racism with environmentalism.

"Frosty" Wooldridge describes himself as "speaker, author, environmentalist, patriot." He has, in past articles smeared all Mexicans as wishing merely to invade and take over parts of the US.  He states:

Mexicans can’t run their own country with any degree of success, so, they overrun our country with their desperately poor, diseased and dispossessed. From historical perspective, you can expect that the new Aztlan will be much like the quagmire of Mexico City - transplanting itself into our country.

(But he isn't racist. Trust him.)

More recently, he has published an article warning of the dangers of population growth through immigration:

What I seek to convey to the American public stems from my bicycle travels on six continents and through the most densely populated countries of the world. I’ve seen the misery, suffering, debasement of human living conditions and I’ve witnessed that once human numbers exceed carrying capacity, all life suffers. Examine China, India, Africa and Bangladesh for starters. They grow worse by the day. They can’t solve their problems once manifested.

Environmentalism and racism go together quite well but fall short when you try to combine them with facts rather than fleeting impressions from the seat of a bicycle. Lets look at India, for example.

India used to be a socialist state, mired in poverty. In 1980, it had 687 million people living within its borders. They were kept destitute by the evil policies of the government. In 1991, economic liberalization began. Today, India has 1.15 billion living within its borders - almost double the population density! Yet by every measure one wishes to go by (standard of living, per capita GDP, people below the poverty line), India has had a meteoric rise since liberalization started. Indians today are wealthier, healthier and live longer than their parents did. Yet India's population density, by the standards of "zero growth" population advocates, is out of control and just under a whopping 350 people per square mile!

Compare to Nigeria, a country that has a population density of 23 people per square mile, yet requires routine aid from international organizations to stave off imminent starvation. Nigeria's economy is tightly controlled, taxes are high and as a result, nothing gets done.

As Ayn Rand wrote in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal:

Another current catch-phrase is the complaint that the nations of the world are divided into 'haves' and the 'have-nots.'  Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not.

It is the measure of its freedom, not "population density," that determines the standard of living in a nation. The nativists, in their efforts to keep the "dirty" races out of America, wish to gloss over this fact. They fantasize that without these people, America can be kept more racially and ecologically pure while still being economically prosperous.

However, facts are not pliable to fantasies. If America continues to restrict the freedom of individuals, whether in the name of nativism or environmentalism, then keeping immigrants out will not save us. And if we recognize the rights of individuals to work where they can and hire whom they wish, immigration will only improve the opportunities available for individuals living here.

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