Last week, the Mayor of Rome officially opened the Mausoleum of Augustus to the public.  The ashes of our greatest emperor were interred there in A.D. 14 as well as an engraved summary of his career called the Res Gestae (“Things Accomplished”).  Both his ashes and the engraving are long gone, but copies of the Res Gestae were found in Turkey.  Included in his accomplishments was a census of Italy at his death – 4,957,000 Roman citizens.  These included free men, women, and children of unified Italy; of all ethnic roots – Italic, Etruscan, Greek, Celtic, Ligurian, et. al. – but all now Latin-speaking “Italians”.  With five million people, Italy was not only able to field unstoppable armies but to colonize Europe and the Mediterranean – from Britannia to North Africa, from Spain to the Middle East. Italian colonists brought Italic culture and Latin to approx. 70 million non-Italians. Exporting its population was the real secret of Roman success.

Excess population was a factor in Viking expansion, as well as Arab/Islamic conquests and Mongol invasions, to name a few.  The story of human migration is an endless chain of one group replacing another.  The first requirement is to have a population explosion, enough of your own kind to cross a natural barrier and elbow out another group. 

Native American activists must replay 1492 and 1620 over and over again in their minds.  If their ancestors had only wiped out White people on the beaches, their lives would be just peachy today. The Taíno tribes almost got it right when they murdered the 39 sailors Columbus left behind on Hispaniola on his first voyage.  Who would have thought that the Genovese navigator would ever survive a back & forth crossing of the dark Atlantic that year?  But, back he came to the same spot in 1493, this time with 17 ships and a Noah’s Ark of strange animals, plants, and armed colonists.  Overpopulated Europe would soon inundate the Americas.

The same thing happened to the Wampanoag natives at Plymouth Rock.  At first they felt sorry for the few bedraggled Pilgrims – fed them and taught them to survive.  But within a year, some young bucks sensed these pale strangers had covetous intentions, and schemed to wipe out their beachhead.  Unfortunately for the bucks, Miles Standish and his cohorts got wind of the plan and implemented their own pre-emptive strike.  Native heads literally rolled when the Pilgrims conned the bucks into a “friendly” pow-wow.  An overpopulated England rushed into the now peaceful Massachusetts.

Europeans had awesome technology, skills, and weapons that enabled them to dominate every continent through trade or conquest.  But, Europe was divided, so its populations were not one ethnic mass.  Africa and Asia, which had their own ample populations or unhealthy climates, weren’t as inviting as the New World or Australia to Europeans.  The Russians had barely enough people to colonize Siberia, and none for Alaska, which is why they sold it.  Napoleon sold us the Louisiana Territory because he didn’t have enough Frenchmen or Spaniards to fill it.

Today, the Third World is reversing European colonization.  It is they that have the exploding populations and the means to flood the First World.  No need for superior technology or glass beads to disarm us.  We are told that allowing everyone in is only fair since we let poor Europeans in by the millions.  But times are different.

When Italians and other Europeans came, there was no safety net – no Section 8 rent assistance, no housing projects, no food stamps, no child support, no disability payments, no affirmative action.  And of course, English was the only language, and farm work or digging the subways was the only career choice for the unskilled first generation.  But, they also brought tremendous skills in every field, little appreciated now. However, European immigrants found out soon enough that they had an obligation to America – to be its cannon fodder in every war.  What is the obligation for today’s legals or illegals?  There is no longer a military draft.  Even assimilation and acculturation are optional.

 If there were only a way to tailor mass immigration to further some cause, like global peace. Here’s a wild idea: if we invited in 5 million industrious Palestinians, instead of millions more Central Americans, we could solve the Middle East’s enduring problem. That would surely be another type of victory by immigration. 

One hitch: Which way would the new Palestinian Americans vote? -JLM