THE BIG LIE
While Americans celebrate diversity in politically correct fashion, their pockets are being picked
BY KEN WARD

Ken Ward is opinion page editor of the Press Journal in Vero Beach, Fla. A Las Vegas resident from 1990-2002, he was a freelance columnist with the R-J and assistant managing editor at the Sun. E-mail him at kenricward@juno.com  Other stories by Ken Ward

"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."
- Edward Abbey

America's population will hit 300 million this year, prompting supercilious comparisons to yesteryear. Our super patriots are impressed that the country had just 200 million people as recently as 1967, and that we're three times bigger than we were in 1915. And, of course, everything is so much better nowadays.

If goodness is measured by the proliferation of Starbucks, X-boxes and inane cable channels, then, yes, the Age of Materialism has ascended to record highs. If size truly does matter, then America's population expansion must be the sign of a healthy nation.

But it doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing, and it shouldn't take a curmudgeon to see this boom going bust.

Look to Florida, the canary in America's goldmine shaft. While it took the United States nearly a century to triple in population, the Sunshine State's census quadrupled to 18 million in less than half that time. Is that a salutary event? You decide.

First, look at the landscape. Straining under no-holds-barred development, the luscious tropical environment is taking a beating. World-famous citrus groves are giving way to cookie-cutter subdivisions as new highways rip apart heartachingly beautiful glades and timberland.

It's more than a little ironic that the arena for the National Hockey League's Florida Panthers was built so far out into the sawgrass that the real panthers have been chased out of their habitat. Ditto for countless other hard-pressed species, from butterflies and scrubjays to sea turtles and manatees.

To be sure, the steroidal growth has ushered in a wave of prosperity. Foreign money continues to wash up on South Florida's Gold Coast, and snowbirds keep building their beachside McMansions. For Chamber of Commerce shills focused on the bottom line, what's not to like?

Yet the largesse isn't lifting all boats. In fact, the state's legions of service-industry workers are actually making less in real dollars than they were a decade ago. Manufacturing jobs? Forget about it; they went the way of the Hula Hoop.

A widening socio-economic divide, which is emerging nationally, is readily apparent here. In many respects, this bifurcated state is starting to look more like a Central American backwater, and less like the northern and midwestern places from which most Floridians hail. 

And make no mistake: Growth is the driver of dysfunction. Note: Bustling Orlando, Mickey Mouse's East Coast home, has become a crime leader with a homicide rate comparable to Puerto Rico's. (Not coincidentally, Puerto Ricans have begun flocking to the city in the past five years.) 

Miami, despite its burgeoning Latin and Haitian communities - or more correctly, because of it - is the poorest big city in the United States.

Florida's public schools are now majority minority, and the best that educators can hope for is to "close the gap" between blacks and Hispanics and the diminishing white student body. In other words: Dumb 'em all down.

Nationally, we know that immigrants are fueling the population gains. One in 10 Mexicans now lives north of the border -most of them illegally. At least 1 million immigrants, legal and illegal, arrive in America every year. Craven politicians and greedy corporations keep that mojo going for their own benefit, public opposition be damned.

In states like Florida (and Nevada), where immigrants are most heavily concentrated, Third-World sensibilities take their toll. Among the chief symptoms: Creeping bilingualism (and illiteracy), sharply higher social-service costs for jails, schools and hospitals (tuberculosis is making a comeback) and pressure for ever-bigger government to serve the masses.

So, while Americans celebrate diversity in politically correct fashion with more Mexican restaurants, cheap lawn care and Spanish lessons, their pockets are being picked - and the country of their forebears (assuming they've been here more than one generation) fades into history.

Florida offers a preview of this darkening picture. If current demographic trends persist, will this sultry state be a better place to live when it hits its projected 100-million mark? Will America's quality of life improve when its population reaches 400 million-plus?

I think we know the answer to those questions. LW