Derbyshire On "Will The United States Survive?"
01/05/2007
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John Derbyshire writes in the New English Review on the question "Will the United States Survive Until 2022?"

He reminds us that when Andrei Amalrik wrote a book in 1969 asking Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? , the answer turned out to be "1984 yes, 1990 no!"

One of the many problems highlighted in the article is this one:

Intellectual failure.

A conservative—I had better say, paleoconservative—acquaintance of mine is fond of saying that the two body blows against the USA in the past half century were, first, the 1965 Immigration Act, which fired up the odious doctrine of multiculturalism, and second, the Griggs v. Duke Power decision of 1971.

The second of those is of course much less well known than the first. It essentially rules that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act forbids employers giving aptitude tests to prospective hires. In other words, it forbids an employer from trying to find out how smart you are before hiring you.

The message of Griggs and "disparate impact" theory: if minorities fail tests at a higher rate than whites, it's the test that's wrong.

Steve Sailer wrote about the Griggs decision in April, 2005: End The April Agony—Bring Back IQ Tests!

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