Nice post.

Am I the only one who appreciates the historical magnitude of our current time?  Mass immigration is injecting peoples who employ r-selected reproduction into societies of great prosperity.  This is a recipe for marginalization of this indigenous people.  This is good only if you feel all people are the same......however, if all people are the same, then why the multi culti manifesto?

I didnt see anything on the links provided as one was a Amazon link creator and the other a sign in page.

I suppose this is related to Pat Buchanans book Death of the West and the collapsing birth rates of US and Europe.

Vladimir Putinin says birthrates are collapsing in industrialized countries.

But its not just the West with falling birthrates/populations

he table below compares the 2005 populations (in millions) for four countries with the Census Bureau projections for 2050.
2005 - 2050
Germany 82.4 (mil.) 73.6
Italy 58.1 50.4
Japan 127.4 99.9
Spain 40.3 35.6

If the West ‘dies’ it will be because of our fiat monetary financial system of of deflation/inflation that throws us into third world status, but hey the population would then rise. [snark]

American fertility is roughly at the replacement rate, 2.1 children per woman. Nor does the U.S. rate merely reflect, as some think, a higher rate among Hispanic Americans. The fertility rate is 1.9 for non-Hispanic whites and about 2 for African-Americans, reports demographer Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute.

“Shorto’s talk of “society” masks a division of labor emerging across the continent in which the white people pursue careers and maximize self-fulfillment and the immigrants have the babies.”

Sharp criticism, I missed this point.

I thought there was one especially good point in the NYTimes piece: “trad” societies which rely on grandparents for childcare break down when the average age of marriage and first childbirth is delayed until grandparents are too old to assist.

In Israel, it is the ultra-Orthodox Haredi women who are squirting kids out like crazy.  Th nice, liberal, college-educated feminist, atheist, Euro-wannabe Ashkenazi women are having their obligatory 1 or 2, but call it quits.

The Haredi women, largely ill-educated like their Muslim sistren, are socialized to be mass baby-makers from an early age and take to it like a duck to water, many of them having 5-10 kids.

The Ashkenazi elite is on its way down.

The headline of this article may in fact be correct, without the irony.  Because (contra the New York Times) feminism does lower fertility, feminism may be the most, uh, potent weapon in our arsenal.  Let’s raise the consciousness of our immigrant sisters!  Let’s teach Fatima that her husband Mohammed is exploiting her--and his other wives--by using them as baby factories.  Fatima must do what’s right for her, she must make her own choices (i.e., do what the magazines tell her to do) and put her education and her career ahead of raising children.

Our goal should be to raise the consciousness of all our immigrant Muslim sisters, and if that results in a sharp drop in Muslim fertility, well, that’s just a price we’ll have to pay.

Big Bill, some of what you said was partly true.  Haredi women have lots of kids, but so do National-Religious women and so do Israeli Arab women.  Also, haredi women are much better educated than Israeli Arab women, even assuming that by “education” you mean schooling.

Ashkenazim in Israel are not Euro-wannabe in any way, shape or form.  All Israelis without exception are pure, true-blue American-wannabes.  And secular Ashkenazi women have more than one or two kids; it’s more like two or three, sometimes four.

The idea that an elite is on its way down because its relative numbers are declining is ridiculous.  Elites are, almost by definition, small.  Besides, there’s a very high rate of “intermarriage” between Askenazim and Mizrahim in Israel.  The old prejudices are mostly gone.

Most important, Israeli Jews are painfully aware of demographic issues, and they talk about them openly and without shame.  It’s the Left, not the Right, that talks most about the demographic dangers to the Jews as Staatvolk.

One can certainly disagree with Shorto’s analysis, as I do, but the first thing to do is to give him his due for bringing up the problem in a major American newspaper, since the “birth dearth” has been a taboo topic in the mainstream press.

Nor should Shorto be shorted for merely pointing to a fact: the problem is more acute in Mediterranean countries than in Scandinavian ones.

Nor is it true that “Societies” don’t have children, women do. In fact, social attitudes, customs, laws, and shared beliefs do affect our actions; otherwise there would be no point in discussing feminism, women in the workforce, laws, etc.

Shorto is more vulnerable on the conclusions he offers (or rather, allows others to offer with only a minimal critique) that a smaller population would be better. No, it won’t be. It will be--and already is--an economic and social disaster.

As for the North-South split on this issue, I’m not sure what the answer is, but I suspect that modernism has a more pronounced and dislocating effect on more traditional societies. But this needs more analysis. The whole difference cannot be explained by the different rates for immigrants, since both Spain and Italy have large immigrant populations as well.

I suspect that at least one element of this problem is the relationship between women and work. Feminism sought to “free” women to work outside the home. But is it “freedom” if they no longer have the option of working at home? Is paid work now required of women for the financial survival of the family? This is a strange freedom that makes such work compulsory.

Another problem is that our society simply does not value what used to be called “women’s work”. When my wife was at home caring for 5 children and a husband, it used to drive her crazy when people asked her, as they did all the time, “do you work?” You say that “societies don’t have children,” but societies that ask this question so casually will discourage women from having children.

John Medaille - you are absolutely correct.  Add to your observation the fact that women have been told for three generations now in America that they cannot give birth without a ceasarean, that breast-feeding is a choice ( and choosing to do so is the obvious wrong choice, and that a man is not needed for the health and well-being of children.

American fertility is roughly at the replacement rate, 2.1 children per woman. Nor does the U.S. rate merely reflect, as some think, a higher rate among Hispanic Americans. The fertility rate is 1.9 for non-Hispanic whites and about 2 for African-Americans

Well, I’m no mathematician, but 1.9 and 2.0 are still less than 2.1, aren’t they?  Granted they are not much below 2.1, but that means the deficit has to be made up somewhere by other groups being above 2.1.

More importantly, what’s the trend?  Has it gone from 2.3, to 2.1 to 1.9?

It is up to the men of Europe and America to save their nations.  Not only is it up to them to enact and execute policies that diminish mass immigration from the Third World, it is up to them to marry good women, make many children by their wives, and raise a vigorous family steeped in the best of our cultural traditions and in Christianity.

C Matt, you the numbers have to do with TFR or......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate

More importantly, what’s the trend?  Has it gone from 2.3, to 2.1 to 1.9?  C Matt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate

+It is up to the men of Europe and America to save their nations.  N “… it is up to them to marry good women, make many children by their wives, and raise a vigorous family steeped in the best of our cultural traditions and in Christianity.’

And where does that leaves those of us who loathe the little beasts? Do you support forced breeding? I can think of nothing worse than to have a baybee in the house, not to mention several. And who, pray tell, will pay for them?

If you don’t want to bring “little beasts” into the world, don’t.  Die alone, Marley, if you wish.  My wife and I have six children and hope for more.  The future belongs to those who breed.

Libertarians are such a joyless, ideological lot.  It is no surprise that pure libertarianism is so unpopular with the public at large.  Libertarians are more a debating society than a realistic alternative to the socialist welfare state.

Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk wrote of the “little platoons” which were the base of any traditioal conservative society.  Thus, because children are a resource for the future, a wise conservative agenda believes in tax rewards for those who have large families.  Even George W. Bush understands.

Government has always been about rewarding certain groups from the tax trough and always will be.  Today in America, lobbies such as the elderly lobby, the military-industrial complex, the real estate lobby, the roadbuilding lobby and the agribusiness lobby get the bulk of the loot.  I’m happy to get my small portion; I’ve put in enough in the past to get some back.  And if the Republican Party and the conservative movement want the political fealty of my family and me, they better keep the spigot on.

“It sickens me to see people with many children who take socialist welfare so that they can be lazy and have others take care of the kids instead of themselves.”

I’m sure that Derek’s six kids will be more than able, as taxpayers, to pay for his health and social security costs when he’s old. Will the same be true for your children?

Or are you counting on immigrants to foot the bill?

If you don’t want to bring “little beasts” into the world, don’t.  Die alone, Marley, if you wish.”

Why is the future so important?  We all die alone, in case you haven’t noticed. Responsible people don’t bring their personal little pieces of death into the world