Culture Human Diversity Politics

Steve Sailer Examines Robert Putnam's Long Awaited Diversity Study

Diversity Is Strength! It’s Also…Oh, Wait, Make That “Weakness”

By Steve Sailer

We will be celebrating a happy Fourth of July this week. The American public has declared its independence from the Washington insiders who tried to slip amnesty past us on the Q.T.

Still, no matter how long the odds were against us, winning a battle like this isn’t the same as winning the war. After relaxing over the Glorious Fourth, it will be time to begin a counter-offensive. It promises to be a long, hard slog.

One striking aspect of the last six weeks’ debate is how decisively patriotic immigration reformers won the intellectual battle. The inanity of the other side’s talking points, based as they were on mindless sentimentalism toward illegal immigrants and mindless hatred toward patriots, was never more obvious.

One of the roles that VDARE.COM plays in the broad immigration restrictionist coalition is to be the Research & Development arm. By choosing this untrodden path, far from the highway of political correctness, we’re able to follow logical connections all the way through – an opportunity denied to all those who heed the big signs in their heads flashing “Uh-Oh, Better Not Go There, Bad for My Career.”

(You listening, David Frum?)

Nothing illustrates the vapidity of mainstream intellectualizing about immigration than the ironic story of social science superstar Robert D. Putnam. [Send him mail]

Last month. Putnam finally published an article about his lavishly-funded 2000 survey of 41 American communities that found that ethnic diversity, especially immigrant diversity, damages trust and “social capital.”

Putnam’s data is important, but the spin he worked on for five years to prevent it from being used by racists and anti-immigration activists is in some ways even more significant.

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