The Heritage Foundation Instructs

Jason Richwine

Jim De Mint

Don't you just love studies?
The Phantom certainly does.
Why just the other day he was driving to work listening on the radio as Jim DeMint told a very earnest story about all the misconceptions he had about the role immigrants play in American Society, which had been corrected by a recent study.

You remember Jim DeMint: he resigned his job as a United States Senator from South Carolina,  so he could serve his country by taking a job as the  head of the Heritage Foundation where he would no longer be  unobstructed by all those annoying Democrats in the Senate who kept getting in the way whenever Mr. DeMint tried to block the door to some immigrant or when he tried to deny health care to some undeserving poor person.

So, Mr. DeMint was talking about a study done by his own Heritage Foundation which revealed that immigrants are a burden to the United States of America, not an invigorating tonic.

Being from South Carolina, Mr. DeMint slid easily into his humbler-than-thou mode, and he allowed as he had many misconceptions about immigrants his own self, before he read this study: Mr. DeMint thought maybe immigrants were good, took jobs Americans did not want to do, built house, took care of kids, tended lawns, washed dishes and did all the menial tasks the darkies used to do before the Yankee government crushed that cherished South Carolina institution--you know, slavery.

But, no, now that a scientific, unassailable study had been completed, it was clear immigrants are a net burden to the U.S. economy--all those immigrants washing up in emergency rooms demanding medical care, going on welfare, gobbling up food stamps, becoming a burden to the American taxpayer. It's all right there in the study.

Who woulda thunk?

Mr. DeMint emphasized that all those free spending Democrats who wanted to pass legislation throwing open the doors to immigrants, "Don't have single study to back their claims. Not like we do. We got a study."

One of the study's co-authors, Jason Richwine is a bone fide smart boy from Harvard, so there's no disputing the study. Mr. Richwine's doctoral thesis was about immigrants, so he knows of what he speaks.  In his thesis Mr. Richwine noted, "Immigrants living in the U.S. today do not have the same level of cognitive ability as natives."  He further observed, "No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach I.Q. parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-I.Q. children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against."

Yes, the Phantom well remembers in his own family, it took several generations before anyone figured out exactly how to mark between those lines with a number 2 pencil and how to erase completely. So, it wasn't until the third generation that his family members scored much higher than the family yellow Lab on any of those computer graded IQ tests. It was only by sheer determination the Phantom's family did not become a burden on the Irish, Italian and German immigrants who had preceded them. Of course, each of those groups were pretty dumb when they first arrived, until they learned to master the number 2 pencil.

The Heritage rushed it's study's findings out to be available in time for Congress's deliberations on the immigration bills before it. 

There is an amendment proposed by New Hampshire's Kelly Ayotte that Marco Rubio has to take an IQ test before he is allowed to vote on any legislation having to do with immigration.

Mr. DeMint has refused to take the IQ test, but he is no longer a Senator, and really, with a name that is so close to "demented" can anyone blame him if he refuses, on principle?

As for Mr. Richwine--Really, could you make up such a name for a comic book character and get away with it?--he does not have to take the IQ test because, after all, he went to Harvard.

As for Lindsey Graham, he will only take an IQ test if it is scored under South Carolina rules:  1. You get  80 points for being white.  2. You get an extra 15 points for being male. 3. You get 30 points if your great grandfather fought for the Confederacy  4. You get 20 points if you have any relative who went to the Citadel or ever considered applying 5. You get 10 points if you part your hair down the middle. So Mr. Graham starts with an IQ of 155, which ought to insure his right to vote on the immigration bills, but it will likely get him into all kinds of trouble with his constituents because, don't youall know, it's hard being humble when you're so damn smart.