Required Reading
Mark Steyn talks demographics:
In 2005, some 137 million babies were born around the globe. That 137 million is the maximum number of 20-year-olds who’ll be around in 2025. There are no more, no other sources; that’s it, barring the introduction of mass accelerated cloning (which is by no means an impossibility). Who that 137 million are will determine the character of our world.
The shape’s already becoming clear. Take those Danish cartoons. Every internet blogger wants to take a stand on principle alongside plucky little Denmark. But there’s only five million of them. Whereas there are 20 million Muslims in Europe – officially. That’s the equivalent of the Danes plus the Irish plus the Belgians plus the Estonians.
Read the whole thing – but not at bedtime.
I think Mr. Steyn is extrapolating a bit far from a single data point. I would say he significantly overestimates the role of demographics.
The world of tomorrow is only weakly described by the demographics of today. How many of those 20 million muslim babies born in europe last year will live to reach 20? How many of those will decide that western society and liberal freedoms are a good thing and worth defending? How many will decide instead to take active measures against the society they live in?
Ironically the very example he uses to support his thesis on demographics disproves it. The english settlers were outnumbered everywhere they went, yet they still managed to dominate. Because the English were more effective at implementing their will, through violence and politics, than the natives or other colonial powers.
The numbers don’t look good, but the radical islamic culture has some pretty deep and fatal flaws. I imagine we’re going to see the cultural equivalent of Rorke’s Drift in the next 20 years. We could be seeing it now in Denmark.
TO: Stephen Green
RE: Maybe….
…we can get Roy. W. Wright and Billy [Bo Bob] Beck to protect US?
But don’t hold your breath….
…they’ll be practicing their ‘passive civil disobedience’, until one of the Muslim latter-day-fascists cuts off their head.
Besides, I suspect they consider the US government a greater threat anyway.
As T.R. Fahrenbach put it, in his masterpiece This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness….For legions have no ideological or spiritual home in the liberal society. The liberal society has no use or need for legions
This is where Steyn loses me. I don’t give a damn whether abortion is in the nation’s interest. That is the argument of a socialist. The question is whether a woman has the right to choose or not, and the nation be damned. We (women and men) are not breeding stock for society. Our lives are our own. If one wants to argue about when a fetus’s life becomes its own, then make the argument. Don’t abandon the principle of individual rights, though, and try to nationalize women’s wombs.
If we have to give up freedom to fend off Muslim tyranny, what the hell’s the use?
(Agree with MMDeuce: numbers don’t matter. Moral resolve and rationality were what made the British dominant. I’m much more concerned about our shortage of those qualities than about the shortage of babies.)
>>We (women and men) are not breeding stock for society. Our lives are our own.>By 1820 medical progress had so transformed British life that half the population was under the age of 15.
What country today has half of its population under the age of 15? Italy has 14 per cent, the UK 18 per cent, Australia 20 per cent – and Saudi Arabia has 39 per cent, Pakistan 40 per cent and Yemen 47 per cent. Little Yemen, like little Britain 200 years ago, will send its surplus youth around the world – one way or another.<
Perhaps their morality and rationality consisted of having children within the bounds of marriage.
Ardsgaine, funny old world we live in. Freedom and individual rights allow us to excercise choice, but we have yet to find a way to avoid consequences of our choices.
Lots of choices we make meet our needs or desires in the short term, with consequences for the mid-term and long-term that may, or may not, be as favorable.
And that’s just how it impacts us, personally. We are all part of a larger society, over a longer continuum, and those choices individuals make resonate over time, and ripple through the surrounding society.
The effects our choices have on others cause numerous other effects that reflect back to our own persons. Some are favorable, some are not, most are unintended.
Steyn speaks to only some of the inevitable results of choices, and maybe doesn’t cover the entire picture. But it is something to think about.
TO: Seppo
RE: Indeed
“…funny old world we live in. Freedom and individual rights allow us to excercise choice, but we have yet to find a way to avoid consequences of our choices.” — Seppo
I’d go on to say it is ‘unintended consequences’. But I suspect that the gentleman could not appreciate the interesting irony of it all.
And what sort of ‘freedom’ is he so upset about losing? That to murder a defenseless child. And he thinks THIS is more important than keeping the freedoms ennumerated in the Bill of Rights?
Our vaunted American public education system has definitely failed US.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
The state should ban abortion because we need cheap, non-Muslim labor?
What’s next, banning birth control and homosexuality?
You know, those things combined with encouraging drinking and drug use ought to produce just a ton of fair-haired, good Christian burger flippers.
Scythian wrote:
Guess again, burkha-breath.
Burkha-breath? I’m going to forgo the stream of obscenities that were my first response, and just say that perhaps you should know something about a person before you leap to conclusions. I’m not that kind of liberal.
Perhaps their morality and rationality consisted of having children within the bounds of marriage.
If you think that’s the beginning and end of morality, then you’re a poor ally in the war against the jihadis. What about the morality of demanding to live life on your own terms? Are you familiar with the motto, “live free or die?” Or is it just a question of which set of religious proscriptions you’re going to be forced to obey?
–The question is whether a woman has the right to choose or not, –
Define “woman.”
Age 11? 12? 13?
And why don’t they choose not?
If you want to control your body, then control it.
Didn’t I just read Canada’s thinking of lowering consentual age to 16?
What kind of society insists on sexualizing our children?
The proposal in Canada is to _raise_ it from 14 to 16.
Seppo wrote:
Freedom and individual rights allow us to excercise choice, but we have yet to find a way to avoid consequences of our choices.
Nor am I looking for one. A woman making the choice between having a child and aborting it will face consequences either way–and you won’t catch me arguing that other people should pay for her choices. But I’m sure you wouldn’t argue that people who cause car accidents should be left on the roadside to suffer the full effects of their bad decisions, would you? I mean, if they can afford medical help, they should be able to buy it, right?
And that’s just how it impacts us, personally. We are all part of a larger society, over a longer continuum, and those choices individuals make resonate over time, and ripple through the surrounding society.
So… I’m sorry, I’m on Vodkapundit, so I’m not sure where you want to take this. This isn’t an argument for the welfare state, is it? One of those, “we’re all in this together, and what happens to one of us affects all of us” kind of arguments?
Steyn speaks to only some of the inevitable results of choices, and maybe doesn’t cover the entire picture. But it is something to think about.
No, he left out a great deal of things, including some of the points MMDeuce made, and the most salient fact that a few well-placed nuclear missiles could even up the demographics real quick.
Our vaunted American public education system has definitely failed US.
Now, Chuckles, you know I don’t have the stamina to argue with you. I spent a whole day on it last week, and where did it get me? In the end, you claimed to be the recpient of mystical knowledge, and I’ve never found a way to argue with that. I’m too tired to go through it again today.
The British advantage certainly involved rationality and its product, advanced technology. It also involved high IQ, something that won’t be forthcoming from the Islamic masses, no matter how many of them reproduce.
France Surrenders (again)
In reading this interesting article about world demographics by Mark Steyn, I found a great example of French Intestinal Fortitude…
TO: Ardsgaine
RE: Where?
“I don’t have the stamina to argue with you. I spent a whole day on it last week, and where did it get me?” — Ardsgaine
As the lovely and talented Marilyn would say, “With the fuzzy end of the lollipop.”
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. You can use it to clean out your earwax…..
TO: All
RE: Back On-Topic…Sort Of….
I find an interesting report in James ‘Best of the Web Today’.
Seems that the French have recalled their venerated [and ONLY ever] aircraft carrier Clemenceau; from it’s final voyage to a scraping yard in India.
On the face of it, it is because, now get THIS, Greenpeace won a court case against the weapon system being scraped overseas.
However, in light of Herr Jacque Chirac’s waving nuclear attack in the face of anyone who would launch an attack against Le Republique, I suspect someone in the Chirac government is being VERY clever.
For one thing, it’s hard to deliver a nuke from Bourdeau to Tehran in a mere Mirage. You need to get such short-legged aircraft closer to the target. An aircraft carrier would be very useful in doing that.
Less time for the pilot on such a one-way mission to get drunk….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sandy P wrote:
Define “woman.”
Age 11? 12? 13?
No. Obviously, girls that young shouldn’t even be having sex, much less abortions–or babies. And if such a child does get pregnant, there should be some legal repurcusions for the person who got her pregnant, and there should be parental advice and consent regarding her decision to have the child or not. I don’t think that’s a choice for a 13 yr old to make by herself. By the age of 16, though, I think a girl should be able to sue the court for permission to make her own decision in the matter.
And why don’t they choose not?
Some do, some don’t.
If you want to control your body, then control it.
What makes you say they’re not? Or do you mean that they can only have control over their bodies if they are meeting your standard of proper sexual behavior?
What kind of society insists on sexualizing our children?
Not the one I would design, if I could control the decisions of 300 million people. All I can control is my little corner of it, and I assure you that my daughter doesn’t even know who Britney Spears is.
You’re arguing past me.
Anyway, if you go back and read my original post, my point was that Steyn was arguing like a socialist. I thought he was supposed to be on our side. You know, freedom… capitalism… individualism… Conservatives do still believe in those things, right?
TO: Ardsgaine
RE: Eventually….
“You’re arguing past me.” — Ardsgaine
….they all do that. And the ‘past’ is an euphemism for ‘over your head’.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
TO: Ardsgaine
RE: Case In Point
“I thought he was supposed to be on our side. You know, freedom… capitalism… individualism… Conservatives do still believe in those things, right?” — Ardsgaine
Sure. Conservatives believe in such things as (1) freedom, (2) capitalism, (3) individualism and such.
But, as we’re discussin in THIS situation….
….we DON’T believe in MURDERING LITTLE BABIES.
Hence my earlier observation that eventually everyone who ‘argues’ with you finds themselves arguing ‘PAST’ you. As you end up doing a shoddy imitation of a turtle.
Hope that ‘helps’….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
But, as we’re discussin in THIS situation….
….we DON’T believe in MURDERING LITTLE BABIES.
As I wrote before, Chuckles: “If one wants to argue about when a fetus’s life becomes its own, then make the argument. Don’t abandon the principle of individual rights, though, and try to nationalize women’s wombs.”
He was making a socialist argument: “we need X for the good of the nation, therefore you should not be allowed to do Y.” It could just just as easily be turned around, a la China, to “we need fewer people, therefore you should not be allowed to have more than one baby.” Get it?
I think you’re the one with the reading comprehension problem.
TO: Ardsgaine
RE: Slow Learners R U
“As I wrote before, Chuckles: “If one wants to argue about when a fetus’s life becomes its own, then make the argument. Don’t abandon the principle of individual rights, though, and try to nationalize women’s wombs.”" — Ardsgaine
Yeah?
What about the rights of the child?
RE: Make the Argument
You already KNOW the ‘argument’. You just do a poor rendition of a ‘turtle’ about it.
And by the by….
…any woman can ‘exercise’ her preorgative over reproduction by the use of her knees.
It’s all a matter of ‘free will’. The problem is when reality conflicts with image. I think I’ve mentioned that here and elsewhere on other occasions. But, I suspect, you were doing your turtle act at the time.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. In China, they seemed to be more interested in the “Y” than in the “X”.
And you accuse ME of ‘reading comprehension’ issues?
P.P.S. No matter how you split the hairs in this matter….
…you’re STILL a ‘baby-killer’.
And to think that Roy W. Wright would accuse ME of such….
“Ironically the very example he uses to support his thesis on demographics disproves it. The english settlers were outnumbered everywhere they went, yet they still managed to dominate. Because the English were more effective at implementing their will, through violence and politics, than the natives or other colonial powers.”
Exactly – just as the Muslim settlers are today in Europe they have a will, they have pride, and they are willing to use all means to achieve their goals. Just like the Brits, but wihtout the Shakespeare and John Stuart Mill.
Seems that the French have recalled their venerated [and ONLY ever] aircraft carrier Clemenceau
Actually, Chuck(le), France has built and operated at least four aircraft carriers: Bearn, Foch, Clemenceau and the nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle. Note that this doesn’t include UK or US-built carriers operated by the French.
http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/france.htm
(I know this seems a trivial correction, but let’s leave the inaccurate recounting of history to those on the Left, shall we?)
TO: AurciTech
RE: French Naval ‘Farces’
Well….
…I never claimed to be an authority on French naval prowess.
After all, my only encounters with them was when my battalion dug up one of their ‘special fecees’ teams while digging into a defensive position during REFORGER 81.
They were not particularly impressive then; on the land. They’ve not really been reliable on the seas. [Note: However, in terms of an ‘act of God’, they were on-the-spot when we REALLY needed them outside of Yorktown, some while back.
At any rate, I’m glad to see they’ve got more than I thought regarding projecting a military presence. They could make a good ally, IF they’d get their ‘act’ together.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Holdfast- You don’t think the Zulu’s had numbers and pride? Or the Indians (either type)? The English might have had half their population under 15, but England is a small country, and in 1820 it’s population wasn’t exactly huge (not to mention a large portion, and a sizable chunk of those teenagers, were Irish, and somewhat less than reliable when it came to fighting for the king). Half of a small number is still a small number. Spread that out over 3 continents and half the world and you’re seriously diluting your forces. In fact I can’t think of a single English colony where the English outnumbered the natives.
The jihadi’s may have numbers, and they may have access to modern weapons, but they have a fatal weakness. They’re eager to die for their cause. The western world is eager to accomplish its goals. In 10 years there are going to be damn few 30-year old jihadi’s, while today’s corporals and privates will be sergeants in western armies. An experienced 30-something with 5 20-year-olds has more lethality than 50 teenagers with Kalashnikov’s. And that doesn’t even consider our dominance in air power and armor.
Chuck-I think you’ve pretty well demonstrated why abortion debates are fruitless. There’s no common language. You define the fetus as a person, and thus entitled to protection under the law. I do not. Until there is a concrete, specific, and common definition of personhood there can be no meaningful debate on abortion, only acrimonious mud-slinging.
Chuckles wrote:
What about the rights of the child?
Ding, ding, ding! Now, you’re arguing from an individual rights perspective. See? That’s all I wanted, just a little intellectual consistency.
P.P.S. No matter how you split the hairs in this matter….
…you’re STILL a ‘baby-killer’.
Heh. Yer funny. I take it an angel came down and told you that life begins at conception, and hence abortion is murder? Or did you get it from the big guy himself? Maybe you read it in Leviticus…? No, don’t tell me. It’s enough for me to know that it wasn’t a conclusion you arrived at through reason.
MMDeuce wrote:
Until there is a concrete, specific, and common definition of personhood there can be no meaningful debate on abortion, only acrimonious mud-slinging.
Again, you nail it. That, of course, is where the debate is. Both the leftists and the religionists want to declare that issue settled in their favor, and then act like the other side is evil for not agreeing with their conclusions. Not surprising since both sides reject reason as a basis for deciding the issue. The one considers it a white male prejudice, and the other considers it inferior to divine revelation.
We can win a full out war regardless of demography with Islamist forces, thanks to technology and force application. We’re more vulnerable wrt India and China as they’ll be more or less equivalent in tech. Hopefully we’ll work on building close alliances with India and work on its politics.
Where demography is critical is within countries. Europe has a big problem, in that those who accept Enlightenment constitutions and the current social arrangement aren’t replacing themselves and those who don’t are. Europe’s refusal to integrate, provide economic opportunity, and offer a real place in society for immigrants is what makes their problems so serious.
Look at the UK for how they treat people whose families immigrated. People can reach high positions but the locals tend to treat them very, very badly (see how they dealt with Michael Howard’s Jewishness). Sarkozy in France also sees this, and in both countries prejudice lasts generations and generations, from both the aristos and the working classes.
Look at the US, where immigrant business leaders and politicans are unremarkable. Thus the Anglo colonies have much less to fear from demographic issues than Britain and Europe.
I’ll agree that the argument is pointless, but if you’re gonna kill something shouldn’t oughta you be the one to prove it’s not a person?
Anyhow, I don’t know how Ardsgaine came up with this idea that “this is good for society” is the equivalent of calling for state intervention and welfare. There are all sorts of other avenues perfectly acceptable to libertarian types. Informal social pressure, for one. Personal advocacy as an element of personal responsibility, for another. The state does not need to come into this at all.
We can say, “Having children is a good thing” without inviting Hillary to take over our villiage.
*Apart* from the fact that I believe that “not harming another person” includes not harming the unborn, it’s clear to me that abortion is an overwhelming statement of how our society views children… since the point of it is to avoid ending up with a child.
Do you *believe* that babies are a good thing, or do you *believe* they are a bad thing that people have out of self-indulgence? Do you, in your personal interactions with others, view children in the community as “not mine” and resent having to endure the presence of, or heaven forbid, being expected to lend the smallest helping hand to someone else who, after all, *chose* to have that child?
Steyn mentions in his article than the West has been taking the over-population alarmists seriously. I graduated high school with the belief that having more than two children was simply morally *wrong*. (I grew up with less guilt from my church than that.) That was more than 20 years ago and it’s gotten no better. It’s not that we *allow* young women to choose, it’s that we tell them over and over again that having a child will ruin their lives, that bearing a child is not something that enriches either yourself *or* the community, indeed, it’s self-indulgent to release this blight unto an already over-burdened world.
We don’t *need* a government program in order to individually cry bull-shit over this.
It’s not that mothers (particularly of young children) need government support, sometimes all they need is an understanding smile to replace the “so what you’re overwhelmed, you chose to have the little leaches” sneer.
And if you’ve been out and about with more than two small children you’ll know exactly what that sneer looks like.
Julie,
I’m a stay-at-home dad, raising and homeschooling two children. Just about every time I leave the house I have two children in tow. I honestly haven’t seen that sneer you’re talking about, but I will take your word for it that you have. You run into all kinds of people out there, but fortunately, I tend to get a lot of smiles. Maybe they’re just laughing at the guy trying to deal with two unruly children.
As you can no doubt guess, I love my children as much as I love my own life, and would rather die than have to live without either of them. Having children is a good thing, but it’s not for everyone. Some people lack the requisite patience, some are not settled enough, some are involved in careers that don’t leave them time for children, and then some are psychologically disturbed and others are just emotionally immature. I think that it’s better that such people not have children. So I don’t think that a blanket statement about the desirability of children is helpful. Nor is a blanket statement about the undesirability of children. It’s a decision that each individual has to make for himself, and whoever asks me gets a straight answer: being a father is a difficult but rewarding job. I think if a person is going to resent the demands that it makes on his time and the curtailment of his freedom, then he had best forgo it.
I agree with you fully about the BS regarding overpopulation. I read just recently that if you brought the entire population of the world to the US, the population density would be about 25% of the population density of Staten Island. It seems to me like we still have plenty of room for more people, and as far as resources, people are the ultimate resource. Left free to think and act, they will create what they need to survive.
As far as my objection to Steyn’s column, he suggested that the demographic trends indicate that we should ask whether abortion is good for society. My response is that this form of argument is one commonly used by socialists. They claim that X is harmful to society as a whole in some vague and tenuous way, and therefore it ought to be outlawed. If people want to retain their freedom, then they have to reject that form of argument. The only proper way to argue for outlawing X is by showing that it does objective harm to invididual Y. Obviously, there is an argument of that form regarding abortion, but I have noticed a trend recently of conservatives abandoning that argument for arguments that reek of sophistry.
If you read James Taranto’s Best of the Web column, you’re probably familiar with his recurring claim that Democrats should oppose abortion because it has the effect of reducing their numbers in the long term. The argument is absurd on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to begin. Suffice it to say that he would never accept the argument that, since the majority of the members of the military are Republicans, Republicans should oppose the war in Iraq because it reduces our numbers. We support the war because we think it’s right, and considerations about party politics don’t enter into that.
Anyway, I’ve been long-winded enough, and it’s time I was in bed. Goodnight.
Ardsgaine,
While I’m about as far from Chuck as possible on religious matters (Agnostic with strong pagan leanings, not that it’s anyone’s business), I do have to side with him on the abortion issue. With a reason based arguement, no less. I’m adopted. Had I come along a few years later, I could have been simply aborted, resulting in much less trouble for my birth parents. (From what I’m told,they were struggling college students, a demographic particularly likely to take that option nowadays) On what grounds was I not a person? That procedure would have ended my life just as certainly as if someone were to walk up and plug me between the eyes with a .45 tomorrow. Dead is dead.
Now, back on topic. Demographics are destiny in the sense that the kids born this year are the maximum that will be entering the workplace or what have you twenty years hence. There’s nothing to say that the 1.3 birth rate is etched in stone. The only birth rate that is an unreversable death spiral is 0.
This is where Steyn loses me. I don’t give a damn whether abortion is in the nation’s interest. That is the argument of a socialist. The question is whether a woman has the right to choose or not, and the nation be damned. We (women and men) are not breeding stock for society. Our lives are our own. If one wants to argue about when a fetus’s life becomes its own, then make the argument. Don’t abandon the principle of individual rights, though, and try to nationalize women’s wombs.
-Ardsgaine
You’re going to learn that Mark Steyn, despite his Canadian citizenship, is far from being a socialist. What he’s doing is extrapolating from current trends, pointing out that demographics indicate that the problem is very likely to become much worse as time goes on. The bit about abortion is probably due to him not having much in the way of ideas about how to increase the US/EU birth rate*, so the next best thing is to look at the things that a driving that birth rate down- such as abortion.
Holdfast- You don’t think the Zulu’s had numbers and pride? Or the Indians (either type)? The English might have had half their population under 15, but England is a small country, and in 1820 it’s population wasn’t exactly huge (not to mention a large portion, and a sizable chunk of those teenagers, were Irish, and somewhat less than reliable when it came to fighting for the king). Half of a small number is still a small number. Spread that out over 3 continents and half the world and you’re seriously diluting your forces. In fact I can’t think of a single English colony where the English outnumbered the natives.
- MMDeuce
Numbers count for something, but numbers aren’t *all* that count. As quite of a few people discovered.
“Whatever happens we have got
the Maxim gun and they have not.”
-Hilaire Belloc
Feel free to replace ‘Maxim Gun’ with ‘MLRS’ if you think the line needs an update, but the fact that technology is a very effective force multiplier is as true now as it was back then.
*personally, I think that letting people keep more of their money instead of re-distributing it to the unproductive types is likely to result in more of the productive types deciding that they can afford to raise children, but maybe that’s just me.
Ards:
“Some people lack the requisite patience, some are not settled enough, some are involved in careers that don’t leave them time for children, and then some are psychologically disturbed and others are just emotionally immature.”
Are you implying that those are the only reasons people shouldn’t or don’t have children?
“The one considers it a white male prejudice, and the other considers it inferior to divine revelation.”
You don’t have to rely on divine revelation to get to the belief that a fetus is a person. It has a complete human DNA structure, for one thing.
For another thing, just look at a 20-week sonogram and try to convince yourself that’s not a baby. Why do you think Planned Parenthood and others are trying to get elective sonograms banned? (And doesn’t that give the lie to the “pro-choice” notion? They don’t like anything that interferes with the choice they prefer.)
TO: MMDeuce
RE: Common Language
“There’s no common language. You define the fetus as a person, and thus entitled to protection under the law. I do not. Until there is a concrete, specific, and common definition of personhood there can be no meaningful debate on abortion, only acrimonious mud-slinging.” — MMDeuce
Well, right now the SCOTUS has decided that the unborn are just the ‘niggers of the now’. Just as the SCOTUS decided blacks were not actually human beings entitled to the same rights you and I enjoy today, when they made their infamous Dredd Scott decision.
I bear no hatred for the people who murder their own children. Only disappointment and sadness for, as one Wag put it, “They know not what they do.” I don’t fear for the children they murder. As I’m certain that as God lives, He is quite capable of caring for them better then their parents did. Likewise, He’ll take care of their parents too, in due time.
There IS a common language. It’s found in a very old Book. The problem is that many people just don’t care for it. Something to do with ‘free will’. Eventually they’ll recognize it, but for many it’ll probably be too late.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Never let the Sun go down on your anger.]
TO: Ardsgaine
RE: Turn About….
“Now, you’re arguing from an individual rights perspective. See? That’s all I wanted, just a little intellectual consistency.” — Ardsgaine
I’m arguing that babies, in or out, are human beings.
However, unlike YOU, I recognize the law of the land. I just say that it’s wrong and work to correct it.
It’s not a contradiction. It’s a recognition of fact. The contradiction would be if I opposed murder but supported abortion. Not what your befuddled grasping at straws would call a ‘contradiction’.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Only half of the people who go through an abortion, survive the procedure.]
TO: All
RE: Back On-Topic
The abortion supporters are a dying bread. They are killing themselves off by killing their children. James ‘Best of the Web Today’ Taranto calls it the Roe Effect. And it IS working….
The problem is, for Europe, that they have a hostile population that is out-producing them, in place. We get to watch the fun from afar.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Numbers count. Especially in the voting booth.]
cybrludite wrote:
[I] do have to side with him on the abortion issue. With a reason based arguement, no less.
I appreciate the appeal to reason. Wouldn’t you have been just as “not here,” though, if your birth parents had used contraceptives? I don’t think you can equate preventing a birth with killing someone after they’re born. The argument has to be focused on the status of the fetus qua person.
Rob wrote:
Are you implying that those are the only reasons people shouldn’t or don’t have children?
No. Those were just a sample of why it might be a good choice for some people not to have children. I definitely didn’t mean to suggest that anyone should have to justify their decision to someone else.
denise wrote:
You don’t have to rely on divine revelation to get to the belief that a fetus is a person.
Right, and what’s more, one shouldn’t. In making laws, we should only consider evidence grounded in observation and reason. Mystic insights are notoriously variable between individuals, but reason and observation are something we all have access to.
It has a complete human DNA structure, for one thing.
I’m not an expert on biology, but doesn’t it have that DNA structure from day one? If so, are you then claiming that even taking a day-after pill would be murder? Are you wanting to take the absolutist position that any measure taken to prevent birth after conception is murder?
For another thing, just look at a 20-week sonogram and try to convince yourself that’s not a baby.
That’s at 4.5 months. What about 3 months? Or 2 months?
I think the majority of people are uncomfortable with either absolutist position. My own beliefs about the proper basis of rights leads me towards the absolutist pro-choice position. A child is not an individual until it is born and separated from its mother. Prior to that, it is dependent on her and its rights must be subordinate to hers. Still, I can’t deny that at some point late in the pregnancy it becomes monstrously evil to have an abortion for any reason other than to save the life of the mother. The question, then, is whether all evil actions ought to be against the law. I don’t necessarily think they should, and I don’t think that unlimited abortion would lead to an outrageous explosion in late term abortions. Women don’t carry babies to their 7th or 8th month and then decide on a whim to abort them.
I’m not absolutist enough about my absolutist position, though, to fight very hard for it, especially given the inflammatory nature of the subject and the need for a position that a majority of Americans can support. Therefore, I fall back on simply supporting Roe v Wade. I recognize, however, that that decision is based on compromise rather than principle. Picking an exact point between conception and birth at which a fetus becomes a human being with full individual rights is an impossible task. We are faced with a political need for compromise, and a constitutional need for a rights-based principle. We can’t have both, so we ended up with Roe v Wade.
Rosignol wrote:
The bit about abortion is probably due to him not having much in the way of ideas about how to increase the US/EU birth rate*, so the next best thing is to look at the things that a driving that birth rate down- such as abortion.
What about banning contraceptives? My guess is that far more pregnancies are prevented by contraceptives than are ended by abortion. No, I still think he was using a bad argument to advance a pet position.
*personally, I think that letting people keep more of their money instead of re-distributing it to the unproductive types is likely to result in more of the productive types deciding that they can afford to raise children, but maybe that’s just me.
Personally, I think you nailed it. Allowing for industrialization and availability of birth control, low birth rates seem to be more common in socialist countries. We could do a lot to encourage a higher birth rate simply by rolling back the nanny state. I despair of the Republicans in Congress ever axing a single welfare program, but the new initiative to allow for education tax credits is a nice step forward, assuming the teachers’ unions don’t slam the door on our foot.
Ards, earlier I said out with *more* than two small children. Try four and you *will* have a different experience. (Though being a guy minding the kids, they may still think you’re cute instead of destroying the world with your selfish proclivity for reproduction.) I’ve first hand experience with the reaction of some people when they look at your belly and ask, “Your first?” and you answer, “No. Third.” The shock is nearly comical except that it gets old so fast.
The most amazing thing to me is that four children is NOT a large family. Not really. In fact, it barely makes up for those who don’t or can’t have children when it’s all averaged out.
What we are seeing as the result of all these years of preaching overpopulation and children as consumers only rather than producers and destroyers of women’s equality (let us not forget that please) are these negative fertility rates… not holding even… not even replacement rates.
Per the abortion sub-thread: I’ve got little time for the argument that a baby in the womb can be done anything too by the owner of the body where it lives. It sounds way too similar to my ear to men who feel entitled to harm the people dependant on them who live in their house. I’ve heard the argument, “none of your business what goes on in my house.” I can’t avoid the comparison.
Ardsgaine, I’d encourage you to read a little more deeply into the Steyn article. He was talking about a Parliament member (Australian) who had opined that “Australia’s aborting itself out of recognition” and posing two questions himself: first, whether as a society we should encourage or discourage abortion (not top-down outlaw it – I admit I reach that interpretation of his wording through familiarity with his other writings), and second, whether an increasingly Muslim society will or will not maintain the civil liberties that are our foundations. These questions derive from the numbers: the US, for instance, has a (most recent on record) birthrate of not-quite-replacement at 2.07 births per woman (replacement is 2.1). European nations are all WAY lower. Islamic nations tend to be WAY higher, some in the range of 6+ births per woman. To an extent, Third World countries need a higher replacement number because of higher infant mortality – but a factor of three? And if the traditionally-based high reproduction rate continues in a First-World environment, wherein infant mortality is drastically reduced, while at the same time non-Muslim Europeans are enjoying their coffee and baguettes and having a designer baby when the biological clock gets to ticking too annoyingly loudly to ignore – well, the demographics of Europe are going to change dramatically.
As for the British Empire, yes, British colonists were outnumbered everywhere they went – but they were supported by (a) a society that had gone farther than any other at the time to reduce infant mortality, so that more babies who were born would also live to reproduce (and here’s where we could launch into a GGS thread but let’s not), and (b) a society with a rapidly growing population that could continue to export colonists and replace itself at home. So they were outnumbered, but able to keep adding to their numbers at a faster rate than competing societies could. Their ascendancy in technology and governance might be more of a result than a cause.
It’s a doubling-rate issue. A population growing at a rate of 2% per year will double in 72/2 or (about) 36 years; a population growing at a rate of 0.5% will take four times as long to double. A population with a negative growth rate, if that rate continues, will dwindle. (It’s apparently actually the “Rule of 69″ rather than the “Rule of 72″ when you’re talking about population growth, presumably because of mortality rates.) Check out this link – http://www.prb.org/Content/NavigationMenu/PRB/Educators/Human_Population/Population_Growth/Population_Growth.htm – for enlightening graphics and information.
I found Steyn’s article absolutely chilling, especially read in conjunction with his Opinion Journal piece here – http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007760 – which peers into the not-distant future and sees A Handmaid’s Tale with Islamist actors.
Julie wrote:
Ards, earlier I said out with *more* than two small children. Try four and you *will* have a different experience.
I’ve tried it with three, my two and an extra. Perhaps we just have different sorts of neighbors. I live in a red county in the south. Even in the blue county north of me, though, I don’t get a negative reaction.
Heh. My mom had five children, and it wasn’t unusual for us to pick up a few extra on the weekends, so when we went anywhere, it was like a small army trooping around. Honestly, I don’t know how she did it–or how anyone does it. My two are enough to run me ragged.
(Though being a guy minding the kids, they may still think you’re cute instead of destroying the world with your selfish proclivity for reproduction.)
Yeah, that might have something to do with it.
I’ve first hand experience with the reaction of some people when they look at your belly and ask, “Your first?” and you answer, “No. Third.” The shock is nearly comical except that it gets old so fast.
People can be nosy and rude, and it seems to be worse for pregnant women. It’s as if pregnancy is a public event, and they feel free to inform themselves about it and express unsolicited opinions on it.
The most amazing thing to me is that four children is NOT a large family.
Yeah. By my parents’ standards, eight was kind of pushing it, but four or five was about right. Children used to be your retirement fund, and you had to have a lot of them if you wanted some of them to still be around when you hit old age.
Per the abortion sub-thread: I’ve got little time for the argument that a baby in the womb can be done anything too by the owner of the body where it lives. It sounds way too similar to my ear to men who feel entitled to harm the people dependant on them who live in their house. I’ve heard the argument, “none of your business what goes on in my house.” I can’t avoid the comparison.
Well, while I would say that a woman’s body is off limits, I would never say that a man has the right to abuse the people in his household. I see a difference between the two.
Jamie wrote:
Ardsgaine, I’d encourage you to read a little more deeply into the Steyn article.
I read all of it. It was just this one part that I really had a problem with.
first, whether as a society we should encourage or discourage abortion (not top-down outlaw it – I admit I reach that interpretation of his wording through familiarity with his other writings
I’ve read some of his columns, but I can’t claim to be familiar with all his writings. I think everything I’ve read by him has been about the war, and on that subject he is usually pretty good. Perhaps you could refer me to some of his writings on domestic policy. I more often find myself agreeing with him, but I found the form of this particular argument very objectionable. If he’s not arguing for outlawing abortion, though, then that would change my opinion.
“Children used to be your retirement fund, and you had to have a lot of them if you wanted some of them to still be around when you hit old age.”
Children are *still* your retirement fund, it’s just that they don’t have to be *yours*. What do you think pays for social security?
As for the second… it’s been a long time since mortality meant that a person had to have extras to be sure at least some of your children lived to support you.
And as someone and more than someone has mentioned… in effect… we need more than that. Enough to care for elders and enough to spare on progress itself.
TO: Ardsgaine
RE: Not Necessarily
“Wouldn’t you have been just as “not here,” though, if your birth parents had used contraceptives? I don’t think you can equate preventing a birth with killing someone after they’re born. The argument has to be focused on the status of the fetus qua person.” — Ardsgaine
Looking at it from a different perspective
P.S. That was from Mark 10:14-15.
P.P.S. You’ve been prolific in my absence. I’d like to read more and address more, but I’ve got a high school debate tournament to judge, again today. And I’ve got to get ready.
P.P.P.S. These kids are good. I’m glad their parents decided to accept their coming. I’m having a LOT of fun with them…..
P.P.P.P.S. Cripes!
That last round was a hoot! Both the Affirmative and Negative were VERY good.
It was a Lincoln-Douglas style event over the Kelo v. New London case.
In the early rebuttal, the Aff introduced a new argument. This sort of thing is supposed to be ignored by the judge. I was curious if the Neg would catch it.
Sure enough, he did and he couched it in the proper terms.
However, the Aff won the round on his final rebuttal with a flurry of strong arguments regarding (1) how many times the SCOTUS has reversed itself, (2) evidence that only the poor seem to suffer from local government avarice and (3) that property rights equate to justice much more so than mere prosperty.
Then there was the babe dressed to kill
Chuck,
Enjoyed your description of the debate. It sounds like it was a lot of fun. I’ll have to find something like that for my 9 yr old when she gets older. She already bullets her points when she’s arguing with me. I don’t know where she gets that from.
I’ll give you the last word on our debate, and let the readers score it. Hope you had a good evening. I’m off to bed now. Goodnight.
TO: Ardsgaine
RE: HS Debate
“Enjoyed your description of the debate. It sounds like it was a lot of fun.” — Ardsgaine
It IS a ‘lot of fun’. And nice to see we’ve got SOME keen minds still in that particualr system.
I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys (1) ‘interesting’ discussions on blogs and (2) can drop their particualr political agendas and focus on how well arguments and evidence are presented.
I’m opposed to Kelo v. New London, which was focus of this tourney’s Lincoln-Douglas rounds. However, I gave the contenders who supported the decision two rounds of four I judged because they were more forceful in their arguments.
However, I did mange to point out to all parties, on the ballot, areas where everyone could benefit from learning a little more. My two-bits to improving American public education….for those who care to learn= better.
RE: This Debate
The ‘last word’? Hardly….
I’m sure we’ll cross swords on this sort of thing in the future.
In the meantime, when you kiss your 9-year old goodnight….consider how empty your life would be without her.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom.... -- some Wag]
TO: All
RE: Odd After-Thoughts
Here am I, working on dinner; talapia filets, spinach-ceddar souffle and some form of starch which the distaff has not settled on….
…and I was remembering the discussion (above) and a stray thought floated by that I grabed by its ankle and examined.
Remember that bumper sticker, provided by our friends at Planned Parenthood? The one that had the stick-figure images of children and said…
Look at it from the perspective of Christ.
The problem, from that perspective being NOT a matter of every child being wanted, but that every adult wanting children.
From this perspective, only selfish, e.g., childish, people would kill such a child that would compete with them.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Change your perspective and you change your world.]