A dimension of the immigration problem that even liberals can no longer ignore

Surprisingly, the Educational Testing Service has published a study, and the Christian Science Monitor has reported it, saying that America’s intellectual skill levels are going to undergo a dramatic decline over the next quarter century, leading to the weakening of the “sort of democracy based on an informed middle class that the country was founded on.” Even more surprisingly, ETS frankly identifies the causes of our coming decline toward Third-World status: Hispanic immigration and the lower intellectual abilities of Hispanics and blacks. Ten years ago, the only person who dared say such a thing was Japanese economist Yuji Aida; and the Japanese, of course, are unabashed racists. Now the Ur-liberal ETS and the Ur-liberal Christian Science Monitor are saying it.

But, just like those Islam critics who declare that Islam threatens to destroy our society, but never suggest reducing Muslim immigration, ETS, having announced that the immigration-fed growth of the Hispanic population is the principal cause of America’s coming intellectual decline, never mentions the possibility of reducing Hispanic immigration. Nope. Liberalism does not allow that thought even to be hinted at. Instead, the president of ETS, Kurt Landgraf, says that what is needed is “increasing attention and resources to early childhood education, to the social factors that affect young children, to continuing adult education, and to programs that keep kids from dropping out of school and address the achievement gap.” Yep. That’ll do it—this hoary collection of liberal programs will achieve what no such programs have ever achieved, turning 90 IQ people into 100 IQ people, turning a Hispanic population famously indifferent to books and education into a population that cares about books and education.

As we keep descending that disintegrating staircase that Winston Churchill warned about, our choice keeps become ever more stark: either we—meaning America and the West—renounce our liberal beliefs, or we die.

- end of initial entry -

N. writes:

Such a decline in literacy and numeracy could end the American experiment. Think of a country where the kinds of mob marches we saw last summer are a normal part of politics. Think of a country where the number of poor, and illiterate, who have no hope for much more than stoop labor is large and growing, but who demand “more” for their children. In fact, think of a country with a solid voting bloc that will support a Peronist-style party/leader…

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 20, 2007 01:17 AM | Send