Immigration and the Soul of a Nation

Stephen Kershnar

Immigration and the Essence of a Nation

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

December 27, 2021

 

            Large numbers of immigrants have recently come to the United States. This will change the country.  

            Using Census Bureau numbers, the Center for Immigration Studies reports that in the US there are now 46 million immigrants (legal and illegal). This is the largest number ever recorded. Immigrants are now 14.2% of the population. Roughly, this percentage has tripled since 1970 and doubled since 1990. It is nearly the highest percentage ever. The highest was in 1890 when 14.8% of the population were immigrants. By 1910, the percentage of immigrants began to drop precipitously.

            This flood of immigrants ratcheted up the country’s population. Using Bureau of Labor numbers, roughly 86 million people – 26% of the US population – are immigrants and their children. This makes the country considerably more crowded than it was in the 70’s and 80’s.

This flood of immigration is not only new but differs from the rest of the world. In 2015, the US had a larger immigrant population than any other country. It had 19% of the world’s immigrants despite having 4% of its population. Currently, no other country has even a quarter the number of immigrants we do.

            The Biden administration is on track to let in more than 2 million illegal aliens. There were already more than 22 million illegal aliens in the country. On one estimate, the average illegal alien and her children cost taxpayers $8,000 per year. As a group they cost taxpayers more than $100 billion per year. These estimates are controversial and other estimates are far lower. Still, on most estimates, illegal aliens pull money out of citizens’ wallets.   

            The question is how this flood of immigrants will change the US. One important issue here is whether the United States is constituted by a people, a set of ideas, or both. Many countries are constituted by a people or a limited number of peoples. Consider, for example, China, Denmark, Israel, Japan, Norway, and South Korea.

It is often thought that the US is not constituted by a limited number of peoples - despite its Western European and African heritage - rather it consists of a set of ideas. These ideas include economic and political freedom, specific Constitution-based content and structures, and individualism. This is what allows the US to persist despite incorporating 86 million new people. The question arises whether the new peoples accept this set of ideas.

Currently, the politically freest countries in the world are European and some East Asian countries (Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan). The economically freest countries largely follow roughly the same pattern. It is not obvious that immigrants from countries that are currently and historically unfree will support the American set of ideas. As George Mason’s economist Garrett Jones argues, immigrants tend to bring their worldview with them and change the country they move into to be more like the country from which they came. If this is correct, we can expect immigrants who come from countries with less of a history of freedom to be less likely to support this set of ideas than those from countries with better histories.

This is not merely an economic finding. Consider whether the historic American people – that is, current Americans minus immigrants and their children - would have voted for the Biden administration and Democratic Party that continues to try to cut back on freedom, engages in political corruption, and considers destroying long-standing American institutions. For political freedom, consider free speech on university campuses, gun ownership, and social media censorship. For economic freedom, consider attempts to jack up taxes and regulations, monitor people’s bank accounts, and push affirmative action and quotas. For corruption, consider immigration policies that run roughshod over the law, Obama-era IRS corruption, the Russia Hoax, and unconstitutional Covid policies. For attempts to change long-standing American institutions, consider attempts to add DC and Puerto Rico as states, eliminate the electoral college, nationalize election procedure, and pack the Supreme Court. Consider, also, the administration’s indifference to inflation. Were the 86 million new people not here, most, if not all, of these changes would not have occurred and the proposed changes would not get serious consideration.

This is not to say that immigrants do not bring plenty to the nation. They clearly do. But it is to say that they will greatly change it. This is especially true with regard to immigrants who are not from Western or East Asian nations. Part of the problem here might be cultural diversity. The most culturally diverse countries in the world are poor – consider India - and often unfree – consider, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, and Nigeria. Economist Erkan Gören found that cultural diversity is inversely related to per capita income. Still, one might doubt whether cultural diversity causes poverty or unfreedom. Some of the worst nations in the world lack diversity. Consider Haiti and Rwanda.

Massive immigration - especially from non-European and non-East-Asian countries – will likely change the set of ideas that are part of the American identity and affect Americans’ wealth. Even if this were not true, it is unclear that a nation is merely a set of political institutions or a way for citizens to become wealthier. Arguably, it is a people who have a shared history and identify with one another. This explains why no leading figure supports admitting 20 million third-world immigrants a year even if doing so would make us freer and richer. Similarly, almost no one wants Americans to be citizens of ten or more countries and, thus, have little connection to the American people. It also explains why almost no one wants her small town to be flooded with Hasidic Jews or strictly observant Muslims regardless of how they vote and regardless of whether they are pleasant and supercharge the business community.

As the US takes in a massive number of immigrants it will change the country. This change is worth considering before we let in another 46 million.  

The Left Dominates the Professoriate

Stephen Kershnar

The Left Ratchets Up Its Control of Academia

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

December 14, 2021

 

            The left has a chokehold on universities. This will shape the America for years to come.

Americans are roughly evenly split between liberals and conservatives. Here I use party affiliation as evidence of political orientation. The Pew Research Foundation found that the ratio of Democrats to Republicans is 1.1 to 1, that is, roughly equal (2020 data). Specifically, 33% of registered voters identify as Democrats and 29% identify as Republicans.

First, consider top universities. Brooklyn College’s Mitchell Langbert and Heterodox Academy’s Sean Stevens found that in 2019 at top universities - specifically the best private universities, public universities, and liberal arts colleges in each state - the ratio of Democrat to Republican professors is 9 to 1. The drift to the left appears to be increasing as the ratio among younger tenure-track professors is 11 to 1. Among female professors the ratio is an incredible 16 to 1.

In some fields, the ratio is even more skewed. Langbert and Stevens found that the Democrat-to-Republican ratios for some departments are as follows: anthropology (42 to 1), English (27 to 1), and sociology (27 to 1).

Second, consider the Ivy League. In 2016, The Washington Times’ Bradford Richardson reported that Columbia and Princeton had 30 Democrat professors for every Republican professor. In 2020, The Yale News’ Madison Hahamy reported that Yale professors gave less than 3% of their political donations to Republican candidates and affiliated groups.

The elite schools matter. Six of the last ten presidents graduated from Ivy League schools and another two graduated from the Ivies’ peers (Duke and Naval Academy). Seven current Supreme Court justices went to the Ivy League or Stanford for both undergraduate and law school. Ditto for the senate majority leader. The Ivies and their peers produce a significant portion of the leadership of Silicon Valley, U.S. military, and Wall Street. The faculty’s ideas likely explain - at least in part - the nearly homogenous public views of the leaders of these fields concerning affirmative action, Big Tech censorship, illegal aliens, interventionist wars, transgenderism, vaccine mandates, voter IDs, etc.   

            Third, consider top tier liberal arts colleges. Examples include Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore. Langbert found that the ratio of Democrat to Republican professors at these schools is 10 to 1. Incredibly, 39% of the colleges – 20 of the 51 - did not have a single Republican professor. In New York State, these schools include Colgate (19 to 1), Hamilton (25 to 1), and Vassar (35 to 1).

            Lest one thinks this is just a feature of the faculty, Sarah Lawrence University’s Samuel Abrams points out that university administrators skew even further left than the faculty. Their liberal-to-conservative ratio is 12 to 1. In contrast, Abrams points out, most occupational categories have more conservatives than liberals. As a result, the administrators will not be keeping the faculty’s political biases in check.

            The University of Colorado’s Spencer Case argues that the lopsided ratios are in part the result of discrimination. He cites research from several sources. The University of Toronto’s Yoel Inbar and the University of Cologne’s Joris Lammers found that 38% of social and personality psychology professors said that they would hire a liberal over a conservative if forced to choose between two equally qualified candidates. A significant minority said they were willing to discriminate against conservatives regarding grant review, paper review, and symposia invitations. In 2010, University of North Texas’ George Yancey found that roughly 30% of sociologists would be less likely to support a job seeker if they knew that he was a Republican. Cambridge University’s Uwe Peters et al. found that a significant minority of surveyed philosophers were explicitly willing to discriminate based on political orientation. The further to the left a philosopher is, Peters et al. found, the more she is willing to discriminate. Case points out that this willingness to discriminate aligns with conservative professors’ perception of hostility. Nearly half report censoring themselves.

There is no clear solution to this problem.

First, at least some of the leftist bent among faculty is due to demographics and self-selection. Writing in The Atlantic, Adam Harris points out that in the 2018 election, college-educated white voters were noticeably more likely to cast their votes for Democrats than white voters without a degree. Demographic and self-selection factors are difficult to disentangle from discrimination. 

Second, there is no way to prevent this discrimination without having outside people hire and promote faculty. The willingness to discriminate is too strong to be voluntarily set aside. Outside people would lack the expertise to make these decisions or would come from the same class as current discriminators.   

Third, affirmative action for conservatives would come at the expense of merit. Conservatives would end up underperforming. This would result in people looking askance at conservative faculty just as they do regarding current affirmative action faculty.  

The problem here is Robert Conquest’s second law of politics. It states that, “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.” If this is correct, then conservatives will have a significant presence at a university only if it is explicitly right-wing. There are some universities that have such an identity – for example, Brigham Young, Hillsdale, Liberty, and SMU – but they lack the national importance of the elite universities. In addition, they are often sectarian and, thus, lack broad-based appeal. The elite schools continue to have the best faculty and students. A conservative attempt to capture an elite university would be prohibitively expensive (the schools have large amounts of money that would be used to fight the capture) and, if successful, would likely endanger its elite status.  

The best alternative is to offer alternative programming. Conservative organizations try to do so. Perhaps the most high-profile instance of this is the Federalist Society, which provides a vital counter to the left in law schools (Disclosure: I was a member). Still, it is unclear if this alternative programming does much to counteract the leftist programming.

How the Supreme Court Should Approach Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Stephen Kershnar

The Constitution Does Not Protect Fetuses

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

November 29, 2021

 

            This Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization concerning Mississippi’s abortion law.

Mississippi banned abortions performed after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. The law does not permit abortion in the case of rape or incest but permits it when there is a medical emergency or severe fetal abnormality. The 15-week period is odd. A fetus begins to have a heartbeat after 6 weeks, forms a brain after 6 weeks, and – on one influential account - does not become conscious until 24 weeks. It is unclear what happens at 15 weeks.

            Other states have also passed other pro-life laws. The Texas Heartbeat Act prevents abortions after fetal heartbeat, which usually occurs 6 weeks after conception. Georgia banned abortions after 6 weeks. The three states’ laws conflict with Roe v. Wade (1973), a landmark Supreme Court case that held that a woman has a right to an abortion up to 24 weeks because fetuses up to that time are not viable. A fetus is viable when it can survive outside the womb.

            One issue is whether the Constitution protects fetuses. There are two provisions that someone might think protects the fetus. The Due Process Clause says, “[No state shall] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The Equal Protection Clause says, “[No state shall] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Emphasis added. The issue here is in part whether “person” refers to fetuses. Oxford University’s C’Zar Bernstein argues that the Due Process Clause is less relevant because, in the context of abortion, the life-takers are private citizens rather than the state. He also notes that the argument over abortion does not concern procedure.

            The most plausible way to way to interpret the Constitution involves originalism. Originalism asserts that the meaning of a Constitutional provision was set at the time it was passed. The idea is that Constitutional provisions have meaning, and this meaning persists over time. This can occur only if the meaning is set when it was originally passed. On different interpretations, the meaning of a provision is fixed by the authors’ or ratifiers’ intention, the ordinary meaning of the language to the public when it was passed, or its inherited common-law meaning. On this last view, the law incorporated the common law – specifically, English-judge-made law – because it used common-law words and phrases.

            The meaning of “person” should be understood in common law terms because it – along with other terms such as “cruel and unusual punishment” – was intended and understood to be a term of art, that is, a word whose meaning tracked specific legal meaning rather than ordinary meaning. One reason for this is that the Constitution’s authors and ratifiers thought about and wrote the Constitution with common-law meanings in mind. Another reason for this is the way in which language works in specialized fields. Consider, for example, how commerce, science, and sport use terms of art.

            Bernstein argues that the common law set the meaning of person according to the Born Alive Rule. This rule states that a human being becomes a person only after live birth. This can be seen in English common law regarding homicide (homicide applied only to the killing of a born human being), tort law (no liability for pre-natal injury), and inheritance (a human being may inherit only if he is born). This matters because the 14^th Amendment’s Due Process and the Equal Protection clauses used some of the same language as the 5^th Amendment’s Due Process Clause, language that came from the British common law.

            If this common law interpretation is correct, then the Constitutional term, “person,” does not refer to a fetus. It still might be the case that as a matter of constitutional law, states have a compelling interest in protecting fetal life and that the ban on abortion is a necessary means by which to do this, but this involves the sort of moral reasoning that originalists hesitate to engage in.

            Consider the moral debate over abortion. It comes down to three issues. (1) Is the fetus a person in the metaphysical sense? That is, were we ever fetuses? (2) Does the fetus have a moral right to inside the woman? (3) If the fetus does not have a right to be inside the woman, may the woman kill it as a way of protecting her body against invasion? That is, is an unwanted pregnancy a body-invasion similar to a rape? These philosophical issues are outside of the Supreme Court’s expertise and ones that it botched in the past. Perhaps the court must address these issues in deciding what the Equal Protection Clause means, but then it seems to blur the distinction between interpreting and making law. That is, addressing (1) to (3) appears to be legislating.

            If the common-law interpretation is correct, then professors – for example, Oxford University’s John Finnis – who argue that the Constitution requires that abortion be made illegal because the Constitution protects “persons” - are mistaken because fetuses are not Constitutional persons. In addition, if the common-law interpretation is correct, then the Justices should be wary of putting too much weight on precedent - especially Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) - because the Court decided these decisions without acknowledging that a fetus is not a Constitutional person and because it did not show its moral reasoning, particularly with regard to issues (1) to (3). In addition, its focus on viability is best seen as a political compromise rather than a good faith attempt to interpret the Constitution.

            Instead, the Court should do one of two things. It should engage in explicit moral reasoning regarding women’s and fetuses’ rights. Alternatively, it should declare that such reasoning is legislating and hold that Constitution does not address the issue. The issue would then get kicked back to the states.