Wednesday, September 5, 2001

I am worried about the level of immigration into this country, but not for racial, ethic, or job security related reasons. In fact, I hire many recent immigrants in my business.

The human population of this planet and by extension this continent has been growing at an ever increasing rate for the last 100,000 years. We all need to face the fact that our planet is now overpopulated. As with the deer in the forest, when overpopulation takes place, disease and starvation increase. But we also face increases in pollution and warfare, and decreases in per capita living space, freedom, and the resources such as water that we all need to survive.

Either we can voluntarily slow or stop our growth today, or we can have it shoved down our throat by a less benevolent, more desperate government in the near future. This means we need peer pressure to encourage smaller families and to eliminate tax code subsidies for large families (i.e., a maximum of four personal exemptions per family).

We also need to replace permanent immigration with a guest worker program which would allow workers to come here, work, pay taxes, then take their money home to their families elsewhere. When we open the flood gates to permanent immigration, we are encouraging other countries to ignore their own overpopulation problems and export people.

When my father was born, there were 110 million Americans; when I was born, there were 190 million Americans. Now there are close to 300 million of us. I don't want to live in a country of 400, 500, or 800 million people. I want my elbow room. I think most Americans do.

If we are not careful our great-grandchildren will be living in a country as crowded as India, China or Bangladesh. I don't care what color my neighbors are as long as there are not too many of them. If we don't act now voluntarily, it will be mandatory later.

Bill Gilmer

wmgilmer@mindspring.com

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