Concern about "overpopulation" seems like a relic from the 1970s, when alarmists were predicting that, by now, the world would have run out of food. Apparently, the danger of "overpopulation" still has the editorial board of the New York Times fretting, as it does today, that "waves of refugees could destabilize neighboring nations."
The Times editorial says, "Overpopulation and environmental devastation have already contributed to similar situations on a smaller scale. The Clinton administration intervened in Haiti largely to prevent a flood of new refugees in Florida. Haiti's criminal leadership was the immediate cause of the problem, but the country's rapid rates of population growth and deforestation contributed to its misery and the desire of Haitians to flee."
Some simple numbers make clear how bizarre is the New York Times' concern about overpopulation. Taiwan has 615 humans per square kilometer and no one is trying to flee there. Japan and Belgium each have 334 humans per square kilometer and no one is trying to flee there. Haiti, the Times' prime example of overpopulation, has only 248 persons per square kilometer. Rwanda, another example cited by the Times of the alleged evils of overpopulation, has 310 humans per square kilometer. New York City has about 23,000 persons per square mile.
The recent history of immigration in America and in the 20th century is largely that of individuals moving from less crowded places to more crowded places where there is more freedom and more money. The "waves of refugees" that have landed at, among other places, Ellis Island in New York Harbor, have had the effect not of "destabilizing" America but of immeasurably enriching it. It's no accident that New York and Tokyo and Hong Kong are some of the most densely populated cities in the world and also the richest. President Clinton would have been wise to welcome those immigrants from Haiti, as the president was counseled at the time by his best counsel.
The fact that the Times is still concerned about "overpopulation" in the face of these facts is almost enough to make one think the paper has an agenda about immigrants or abortion, not simply "overpopulation."
Musical Betrayal: The "In America" column on the New York Times op-ed page today is devoted to a denunciation of a rapper who operates under the name "Eminem." "What is the artistic value here? Trust me, it's not the music," the columnist writes. "Album of the year? Only a lunatic could think this was the finest album of the year."
Well, by that standard, the Times is employing a "lunatic" as one of its own pop music critics. The Times Arts and Leisure section's December 17, 2000, listing of its critics' choices of the top 10 albums of the year put the Eminem album at the top of one critic's list. "The best," the critic said. The album also appeared on the best-of-the-year list of another Times arts section critic, who offered by way of explanation, "the reason it's not higher on this list is that when Eminem runs out of ideas, he regularly reverts to homophobia."