Posted on 07/14/2012 9:55:36 AM PDT by WXRGina
You can say any fool thing to a dog and the dog will just give you this look that says, My GOSH, youre RIGHT! I NEVER wouldve thought of that! -Dave Barry
I read Mark Steyns book, After America some time ago. It is a compelling discussion about world demographics, birth rates, and the illegal [and non-assimilating] immigrant populations flooding into America and the rest of what is left of Western Civilization. Also discussed in this article are the long-term effects of decisions about married adults not having kids in America anymore.
I seem to recall reading in numerous places that anything less than three native born children per American family endangers societal viability and the sustainability of a distinct American culture. So it is disturbing to think that married Americans are adopting puppies instead of having children or adopting children. After all, God did say to Adam and Eve, Be fruitful and multiply. He did not say, Raise puppies, instead. Puppies and kids together, yes. Puppies alone, no. [Full disclosure: I love dogs. I have dogs ... lots of dogs. I always have, and always will have.]
Many of the people who complain the most about the ever-increasing taxes they pay for the Social Secure, Medicare and Medicaid in the 22-45 year old range do not seem to realize that actions have consequences. If they have no children, there is no American replacement generation. There will be, instead, large numbers of unskilled, un-acculturated and un-assimilated immigrants filling these places who will pay few if any taxes on their low wages under current laws. They will, however, draw many welfare and healthcare benefits. Likewise, the burgeoning numbers of children born out-of-wedlock by irresponsible men and women, oblivious to the long-term effects on their children, and society at large, are growing and the resource base is shrinking. And, oh yes, your own goodies will decrement seriously over time. So, if there is no one to replace the native-born American parents [i.e., at least three to four children], then the burden of paying for societys goodies for all of these new citizens will continue to fall mainly on them until the day they die.
So what do you all think is going to happen to taxes in this case? BINGO! Obamacare, Socialism and Serfdom that you will not enjoy, but that you will not expect until the bill hits you in the face. But dont worry, you will soon adjust to your new status. You will pretend to work and pay taxes, and the Feds will pretend to provide Medical Care, retirement insurance and welfare. Sadly, this will also mean much fewer dog biscuits, fewer trips to the doggie spa, and decremented Obamavet care for Fido.
This wonderful Brave New World is coming to your town soon. In fact, its pre-conditions are all available to you right now:
-Just totally quit having native-born American babies.
-Adopt dogs instead
especially those neutered and already waiting for you at the Animal Shelter.
-Increasingly allow the unskilled Third World to continue to invade Americas borders with illegal aliens seeking benefits [as any reasonable have-not would try to do].
-Accept multiculturalism as the proper fix to finish off the exceptional [but evil & colonialist] American culture.
-Pay higher and higher taxes until the day you die
become the 1% [but only in your mind].
-Forfeit your estate to the State when you die in order to keep this hellish system going just a little longer.
And to think: American culture was once based on individual sovereignty, personal responsibility, Judeo Christian moral conscience, traditional families, and an opportunity to live freely and prosperously.
Now, Americans are encouraged to:
-Make scads of money as their first priority, to Heck with everyone else.
-Let someone else have their back while they protect no one.
-Use abortifacients, abortion and euthanasia to rid oneself of those bothersome responsibilities of parenthood and those less desirables in society.
-Indulge in material goods that are not really wanted, needed, of affordable.
-Adopt the latest religion du jour.
-Carpe diem, and Sayonara!
-Invest in green technologies like Soylent Green
OK, Campers. How long can we sustain the United States under such a scenario?
Honestly, I lay a large share of this decay at the feet of my own Baby Boomer generation. Many if not most Baby Boomers are self-obsessed and spoiled children: Forever-Teenagers. Our Greatest Generation parents were often co-dependent abettors while were growing up. They wanted their children to have everything that they did not have during the Great Depression. Our parents had large families that were far better off than they were growing up. They overpaid, they overplayed, and many ran to the rescue every time one of my ilk failed to mature as adults. We indulged as they indulged us.
The World Wars of the 20th Century created a heroic American society on the one hand. On the other hand, the stresses of war and urgencies and emotions of the moment perhaps further propelled the loosening morality and social values begun in the wake of the War to End All Wars, World War I, and the interwar period which was punctuated by the Great Depression. In a certain sense, our Baby Boomer grandparents tried to hang on to the America that had existed before and after WWI. I wonder if that incautious, immodest life-style in America and a growing loss of faith, coupled with the massive European debt following that war, eventually dragged us down too. The situation seems oddly similar in many respects today: Decay in America, Government solutions for every problem, and the sick man, Europe, that will bring us all down soon.
The big difference is family. In America, there is no strong family unit to hold people and society together any more. In the World War II era, the large family of many siblings and two parents was a glue. The growing disease of infidelity and divorce in my Boomer generation attacked that glue at its core: Children. Perhaps many of our young adults do not want kids because they fear that families are characterized by turmoil and not strength. Perhaps they inordinately fear discord and divorce, because that is what they saw and experienced growing up. If this is all true, then we are a nation going under.
Mitt Romney may well win this election. I hope he does. The Obama Alternative Universe would be an exponentially fast descent into serfdom; he has already laid that groundwork. But Mitt Romney cant fix the broken family model in four or even eight years. That is up to future generations changing their minds about having a family, and making that choice soon. I do not know what to say to those who do not want a child, and instead prefer a dog [or dogs]. I guess Id warn that someway, somehow you are going to regret not having those children. In any case, you will still be raising all of those other babies born out-of-wedlock, injured by broken social systems, and lacking parental tenderness, love and care. My wife and I tried to adopt children. We were empty nesters and we were in our fifties. After personally experiencing failed promises, broken hearts & broken kids, and seeing how miserably the states and feds manage their adoption and foster systems nationally, and in California and Florida in particular, we gave up after four years of trying.
I cant help but be sad and depressed by all of this. I wonder if it is too late to get some sled dogs and flee to a redoubt cabin somewhere in Alaska or in the NW Territories? Those dogs may not be able to work and pay taxes, but they can pull a sled and protect me from wolves and government tax collectors.
Civilization really has gone to the dogs.
Oh, good point! :-)
I miss the Far Side!
Do you remember the one where Gary Larson drew his stereotypical scientist in a white lab coat with a gizmo contraption on his head, standing in a residential neighborhood? The caption read, “Professor [so-and-so] becomes the first human being to actually understand what barking dogs are saying.” And, all the dogs in the yards that are barking at him are saying, “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!”
You found it! That’s a good one! :-)
Like your picture. Should probably be pointed out that a three year old human child is far less capable than a same age German Shepherd of tearing the throat out of somebody messing with your two and four year old children. Dogs AND kids. Gotta love it.
Yeah, I saw it yesterday. That puppy had no hesitation and faster reaction than you’d see in most (maybe any) humans. And was amused at how the owner calmly helped the dog over the counter and out after the would-be-robber to go finish his snack.
Americans can’t afford to have kids because they’re supporting the rest of the world, here and abroad. When you’re working through July 15 to pay the government, that doesn’t leave much for your family.
AHHHHHH............!
The famous Roverand Bones!!!!!
What a breathtakingly ignorant article.
Please cite the statistical evidence — not anecdotal about your friend’s neighbor’s cousin — that supports the premise that Americans are choosing not to have children.
There is none.
There is, however, plenty of quantifiable evidence that 11.6 percent of American women — that’s one out of ten — has impaired fertility. And one out of five couples who are trying.
Why the increase? Because two generations of women were falsely promised they could delay having children into their late thirties and forties. And they can’t.
Speculation about a couple’s reason for not having children is usually wrong.
The column is not “breathtaking ignorant.” Just because he did not provide charts and graphs in the piece does not mean what he said isn’t true.
Perhaps you have not researched the steadily declining birthrates for the younger generations in western countries (predominantly “white” people). Younger people in the West are CHOOSING not to have babies or to abort them more than ever before.
Since you may not have done any research, I found a few quick links to the plain evidence that is plentiful if you bother to look:
Lots of “statistical evidence” in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Death-West-Patrick-J-Buchanan/dp/0312302592
More “statistics”: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2012/0507/current-events-population-global-declining-birth-rates-lee-kuan-yew.html
Census “statistical evidence”:http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/17/census-2011-data-confirm-trend-of-population-diversity/
http://whiteminority.wordpress.com/links-found-november-2008-on-negative-white-birth-rate/
There’s plenty more “statistical evidence” to be found with a simple Internet search.
Although some people have fertility problems, those problems are not the main reason for the declining birth rates. As Tom McLaughlin said in a column linked above,
“When I’ve asked them why their children are not having children, I hear: They cannot afford them. They want to buy property instead. They want to travel. They don’t want to stretch out their bodies in pregnancy. They want to concentrate on their careers. They’re afraid of what is happening in the world and don’t want to bring children into it. They think the world is over-populated and don’t want to add to it. They think having children will stress the environment. They think there won’t be enough food for everyone, et cetera, et cetera.”
The sources you cited simply document that American birthrates are declining, which no one disputes.
The question is “Why?”
The one source you do cite for a ‘why’ is a columnist — A COLUMNIST — who asked around about why some people are or aren’t having babies.
It’s nothing more than anecdotal information, and you would be laughed out of any elementary statistics class for trying to draw conclusions from it.
On the other hand, the cold hard indisputable numbers of infertility rates are tallied up when couples seek treatment.
In the face of those staggering numbers, how can you continue to assert that Americans aren’t having kids because they want more money? Or they’re selfish? Or something about careers? THEY’RE GOING TO THE DOCTOR SO THEY CAN HAVE KIDS. In droves. In the millions. They’re not having kids because they demonstrably CAN’T.
It’s a popular social meme right now for frustrated couples with children resentful of couples without to attribute a childless state to selfishness about money and careers and such. If you’re going to plant your flag in that camp, you better come with a refutation of the indisputable, quantifiable evidence that belies your premise.
You are awfully edgy about this subject, to the point of hostility. It seems you have a problem seeing the fact that we have selfish generations of younger people who want nothing to do with having babies. To blame it all on infertility is ridiculous, especially when you consider our narcissistic culture of death (environmental nutcases who push the lie of “overpopulation” and the lie that humans are a “cancer” on the planet, for instance).
Maybe you have a problem with infertility, but infertility is not the case with the majority of people who choose not to have babies or choose to abort them.
“You are awfully edgy about this subject, to the point of hostility.”
Yes. So what?
“It seems you have a problem seeing the fact that we have selfish generations of younger people who want nothing to do with having babies.”
I have a problem with unscientific assertions about “selfishness” when one out of five American couples trying to conceive are sitting in fertility doctor waiting rooms. And you keep saying that irrefutable stat doesn’t matter. Doesn’t exist? Or something. Because people are really just “selfish.”
“infertility is not the case with the majority of people who choose not to have babies”
I have cited plenty of numbers that refute what you’re saying. Go argue what you “feel” is going on with the Center for Disease Control.
And here’s some more anecdotal evidence for you, since you value it above stats: lots of infertile couples lie, lie and lie some more about why they don’t have kids. Even to family members. As is their right. Because it’s painful. You’d do well to think about that the next time you accuse a couple of “narcissism” when they get a dog, Judge Judy.
Regardless of the reason for your unwarranted hostility, what I “feel” about this issue does not change the facts that are easily verifiable, even if you do not want to accept a single source (there are plenty more sources than the few quick hits I provided).
Infertility does not explain declining birth rates, or else we would always have had similar birth rates, with perhaps a rise in births with modern medical technology helping infertile couples who wanted babies.
The percentages of infertility rates are too small to account for the decline across America and the West. The CDC will tell you this: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/fertile.htm
In fact (not “feeling”), the fertility rate for the U.S. is the highest it’s been since the 1960s, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
The BEHAVIOR CHOICES of people in the latest few generations explains the declining birth rates, behavior like abortion (50 million or so in America alone since 1973) and the CHOICE to not have babies when previous generations did not CHOOSE not to have babies like so many do today. That is not what I “feel”; that’s just the way it is in our world today—like it or not.
Anyway, of course we will not agree on this. No biggie. The truth is what it is, regardless of what we “feel” about it.
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