Comment by Jeb Bush on Hispanic Fertility Rate Actually Makes Sense

Making an argument for overhauling the nation’s immigration system Friday to a crowd of conservative activists, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush claimed immigrants were “more fertile” and thus a great benefit to American society.

His remark was referred to by CNN as “an inarticulate reference to immigrants’ fertility rates,” which data show are higher than native-born Americans. Bush said at the annual Faith and Freedom conference in the nation’s capital.

Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans over the last 20 years. Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity.

The remarks were met with vigorous scrutiny on Twitter, among other social media venues, in which the left accused him of being insensitive, while conservatives viewed it as the latest pander from the GOP member who has been known to be sensitive to the Hispanic cause. However, there is something to the comments made by the former Governor, as well as solid ground for some of the criticisms coming from the right.

Yesterday we learned that America’s racial and ethnic minorities now make up about half of the under-5 age group, reflecting sweeping changes by race and class among young people. Due to an aging population, non-Hispanic whites last year recorded more deaths than births.

These milestones, revealed in 2012 census estimates released Thursday, are the latest signs of what is a historic shift in which whites will become a minority within a generation, in approximately 2043. These numbers come after the Census Bureau reported last year that whites had fallen to a minority among newborns.

Fueled by immigration and high rates of birth, particularly among Hispanics, racial and ethnic minorities are growing more rapidly in numbers than whites. The decline in the U.S. white population has been occurring more quickly than experts have previously expected, resulting in the first “natural decrease” for whites — deaths exceeding births — in more than a century, census data show. For now, the non-Hispanic white population continues to increase slightly, but only because of immigration from Europe.

Based on current rates of population growth, whites in the under-5 age group are expected to fall below 50 percent this year or the next, according to Thomas Mesenbourg, the Census Bureau’s acting director. William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institute, said:

This is the tipping point presaging the gradual decline of the white population, which will be a signature demographic trend of this century. More so than ever, we need to recognize the importance of young minorities for the growth and vitality of our labor force and economy.

The data has been revealed behind the backdrop of the Senate push for immigration reform, which many have considered to be a repeat of the failed 1980’s amnesty legislation. The greater concern, although certainly the immigration laws in this country desperately need reforming, is that unlike other past periods of immigration in American history the more recent  waves of immigration to the United States has a greater potential to fundamentally change America.

I am not reference the change in the face of American society. In fact, contrary to the progressive narrative the face of American society has repeatedly changed, but the American identity – the identity which is responsible for our success – has remained constant and is a separate entity altogether from American culture.

The secret to American success has been its ability to accept people from all over the world, while persuading them to assimilate and adopt the American national identity. How do we define the American national identity, and more importantly, what about the American national identity has been the cause of America’s success?

Much to the chagrin of the progressive left – some of which are ignorant useful idiots, while others are fully aware of this truth – the American national identity was born in the Protestant churches throughout the colonies far before the United States ever became an idea in the minds of revolutionaries.

Max Weber was correct to recognize that the mainstream American Protestant ethic, which professed a duty of “calling” to work and labor and the virtues of obligation to one’s self and their community for starters, were central tenets of what is justly called the “Protestant ethic.”

Aside from the transformations that have occurred as a result of the “biggest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people regarding their national identity,” the removal of the “ethic” has had profound and negative far-reaching consequences on the economy, both directly and indirectly.

In the past, European immigrants that fled to the shores of America left in search of an alternative existence than the oppressive-progressive social contract under the governments of Europe. However, and the same is still true for Catholic immigrants of Europe, many of them came with nothing more than their ability to work, and they were all more than happy to adopt what we refer to as traditional American values and ideals. The belief in the American dream, or the idea that if you work hard and accept responsibility for yourself and your own then anyone can achieve their state of happiness and well-being, is nothing more than an extension of the American mainstream Protestant ethic.

These duties and obligations to ourselves, our families, our communities and country, all were first and foremost obligations to God, as “the greatest deed you can do to show your love for God is to do good by yourself and your fellow-man.” Unfortunately, aside from the obvious dangers of secularization – remove God, then you remove the obligation – unlike prior migrations today’s immigrants have arrived in this country unwilling to adopt the ideals of the American national identity for the most part.

Why would they want to since America’s own leaders have viciously attacked the American mainstream Protestant ethic?

In my new book, “Our Virtuous Republic: The Forgotten Clause in the American Social Contract” I have documented and defended the psychological benefits of the ethic in an effort to save our American identity. American academics and think tanks such as the Brookings Institute, have refused to step outside of the constructed cage of political correctness in order to defend American traditionalism – I am not.