Letters to the Editor
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Waiting for the shoe to drop here
A lot of these conservatives are afraid of Latinos "outbreeding" Anglo women in the U.S., just as Muslims are the bogeymen (bogeywomen?) of Europe. They won't quite come out and say so, but that's the motivation behind much of this fulmination against "illegal immigration."
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@Ramesees
Uh, the Muslims in Europe don't think anyone should be stoned. First of all, most Muslims don't think that to begin with, only a few crazy, self-important theocrats in Saudi Arabia and Iran (both of which are in power directly or indirectly thanks to America). But the Muslims in Europe are to a large degree from Turkey and North-West Africa. Which are heavily western-influenced. Second, in order to actually come to Europe, the original immigrants had to be somewhat open to begin with . Then their kids go to European schools, so they usually assimilate by the second generation. Of course, there are always exceptions, but those exceptions don't pose a serious problem by themselves.
Besides, the math is bad: By the second or third generation, most immigrants will end up having just as few children as the locals, so they're not gonna out-populate us to begin with.
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Incompatibility of motherhood and professional career
I think one of the major reasons for the drop-off in births is that it is virtually impossible in many countries of Europe, like Italy or Germany, to find work as a mother. Laws protect you to the point of making you an undesirable employee, and law also demands that your family status (married/single/divorced, number of children) stands on top of your CV. Holding back this information voids any work contract made on the basis of an incomplete CV. Childcare is almost inexistent, and using it is frowned upon.
So having a child, certainly having more than one child, results in many women's permanent loss of employment.
At the same time, laws that used to protect housewives, are silently eroded. Only last month, Germany ratified a law that effectively ended divorced mother's right to spousal support.
The result is that the bulk of poor and very poor people in Germany and Italy are divorced mothers and their children, and old women who spent many years of their lives looking after their families.
You would have to be crazy to start a family in this situation because the result in most cases will be utter, depressing poverty and a state-alimented life at the fringes of society. No wonder, most women - especially the ones with a modicum of education - don't take this gamble and decide to remain childless.
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Nicely arrogant
They won't quite come out and say so, but that's the motivation behind much of this fulmination against "illegal immigration."
Nicely arrogant for you to have decided for everyone why unchecked illegal immigration is wrong.
You are completely wrong, a nation is supposed to have defensible borders, but I admire your bravery in displaying your stupidity to all.
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Wasn't this tried already?
I seem to remember Ceaucescu decaring that Romanian women had to produce some astronomical number of children. The human fallout from this ill-advised program was ugly. And then there was Nazi Germany and its Aryan breeding program, which was even more disturbing and repugnant. I don't think European countries are eager to replay these scenarios, regardless of how far their birthrates fall.
Economics and social attitudes are going to drive family size. It's useless to exhort people to have more children if they believe they can't afford them or face problems after they have them. Removing employment barriers for working mothers in Europe would go a lot farther to persuade European women to have children than forcibly taking away their birth control or appealing to them to preserve the master race. They could take a page from America's situation, flawed as it is. In America, one's marital and parental status is supposed to be off-limits for job interviews. Nobody posts their marital status prominently on their resume here -- the very idea seems absurd! Childcare is expensive, to be sure, but it's also readily available. There's not a great deal of stigma attached to going back to work when your kids are young, either. Part-time work is an option that many American mothers take, too, which may not be as available in Europe. Lots of mothers start their own home-based businesses, which I believe is much easier here than in many European countries. Generally it seems like American mothers have a wider range of options when it comes to combining work and childrearing.
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It's simple
Europe will probably cut off immigration from culturally 'troubled' countries as Islamist populations become breeding grounds for Al Qaeda and similar groups. Russia is likely to do the same. These people will have to figure out how to live on the resources available in their own countries. Europe may accept poor people from Latin America. Spain, Portuagal and France at least have some responsibility to do so, as they colonialized the area. Other countries may take more immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa (though this brings its own cultural difficulties. It will work itself out, as Europe realizes that it cannot assimilate people from culturally Islamist backgrounds. Europe has tried to assimilate Islamic immigrants much harder than America has tried to assimilate Mexicans; and they have failed. Period. The end. America can't assimilate true cultural Islamists either, but has fewer. Most immigrants to this country really like Westernism; they aren't just economic migrants. In the end, you can try as hard as you like to change people with statist tools, but parents have a huge impact. If daddy said that a fornicating woman deserved to be punished, well, who is his boy going to listen to, daddy or the state?
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Ah, the immigration debate...sigh...
Ah, the immigration debate...sigh...
The number I hear over and over again is 12 million illegal immigrants have made their way across the border since the Immigration Reform Act negotiated by Reagan and Tip O'Neal back in the mid-80's. Has anyone accually done the math on this?
We are now a country of over 300 million people. A 12 million increase is an increase of 4% (over 20 years!). This occuring in a nation that would actually be declining in population if it weren't for the Latino community. Some "invasion". As I hear "concerned citizens" refer to it.
Maybe I'm just simple, but doesn't this just scream out as being an attempted wedge issue for this election year, perpetrated by some misguided GOP planner? It obviously hasn't worked, given the fact that none of the remaining major candidates even address the issue as one of their core concerns, be it a Republican or Democrat.
But, I guess I could see one way I could have been convinced of the seriousness of this issue. But that would only happen if I had made such bad decisions in my life that I was worried about losing my job to someone straight off the boat, with limited English skills at that. Sheesh.