Conventional Wisdom

Andrew Sullivan posts a letter from a reader that is full of the usual B.S..

According to the reader, the illegal aliens are "the cream of the crop" because they are "adapting as best possible to their environment." The assumptiuon here is, of course, that those who do not immigrate do not do so because they are not ambitious, not because they have found ways to succeed in Mexico.

Certainly the statistics do not assert that the Mexican immigrants, or more importantly their descendants, are more particularly successful. Indeed, they have more problems than the composite average of Americans (look at Ed Rubenstein's many articles on the subjext).

The next statement, "If Hispanics were listening in on these shows, they are hardly likely to vote Republican for years to come," ignores the fact that the people we are importing are likely to vote overwhelmingly Democratic anyway.

Certainly California seems to show that increasing the Latino population makes a state more Democratic, despite the attempts to blame this on Proposition 187.

That is all.