Posted on 08/13/2007 7:07:25 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Joan Blades describes herself as, among other things, a “nature lover” and a “mother.” She is also a co-founder of the liberal activist group MoveOn.org and a regular contributor to the liberal blog The Huffington Post.
In a recent post, Blades wrote about an article she read in her local paper. It described a group that supports the kind of measures Blades expected liberals like Huffington Post readers to support: health care for children, “fair wages,” and flexible work schedules for moms.
What Blades found surprising were some of the comments that came into the paper’s website. One person “reasoned” that if he has to pay $25 for a dog license, why should parents expect help when they “choose” to have kids. Another commenter simply wrote, “Can’t feed ’em, don’t breed ’em.”
Of course, this is the Internet we’re talking about. Still, Blades felt compelled to refute the erroneous assumption underlying those comments, that “choosing to have a child is purely an individual act” and not “a contribution to society as a whole.”
Their response to Blades’s response was—what else?—more of the same. A “chunk of the replies” objected “to contributing to the wellbeing of children” because they did not want to “reward or encourage” “indiscriminate breeders.”
To be fair, many of the replies were supportive of Blades’s views. Still, there were enough people using terms like breed and critters, terms normally associated with animals, to prompt Blades to write another article.
This anti-natalism is not limited to liberals. A few years ago, at a dinner I attended, a conservative Christian advocated sterilizing poor women as a solution to welfare dependency. And today, leading immigration-reform groups have links to zero-population growth advocates.
The divide is not between Republican and Democrats or liberals and conservatives—it’s between those who regard children as a blessing and those who view them as, at best, a burden.
While Blades is right when she says that plain selfishness accounts for some of the hostility to families with children, there is something else at work here as well. As Catholic writer Erin Manning says, the belief that growth in human population should be controlled is “an important tenet of mainstream environmentalism.”
Environmentalists agree that “there are too many people on the earth,” and that repairing environmental damage requires “aggressive measures to limit and restrict human population.”
In contrast to the Christian idea of stewardship, which “wishes to conserve and protect the natural resources of the planet for the sake of future generations,” this viewpoint “wishes to eliminate future generations for the sake of the planet.”
This is only one example of the cultural message today driven home to Americans: that is, that large, or even medium-sized, families are an impediment to the good life. Even if the kids are not yours, their existence will have a negative impact on you—whether it’s higher taxes or global warming.
Blades was rightly disturbed by the sentiments expressed, but she should not have been surprised—not in a culture where being a “nature lover” and a “mom” is viewed as a contradiction in terms.
(This commentary first aired on March 9, 2007, and is part three in a three-part series.)
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NumbersUSA is one of those anti-human groups who only oppose immigration (NOT illegal immigration -- all immigration) because it's part of their radical liberal zero population growth philosophy.
One of the leaders of this anti-human movement is John Tanton, a Planned Parenthood and anti-immigration leader who is a contributor to the Tom Tancredo campaign.
Tancredo took a lot of flack for accepting Tanton's support, but he apparently sees nothing wrong with it. It's very disappointing when conservatives don't see what kind of scum these people are who are trying to jump into bed with them to further their radical agenda.
Seems to me that both Blades and Colson miss the point.
Yes, children are a blessing (I have a son) BUT they are also a responsibility and if you cannot or do not want to bear that responsibility the DON’T breed!
Do not expect the rest of society to make up for your mistakes or uncaring attitude.
We will HELP once but we will NOT relieve you of your responsibilities or allow you to continue to burden us.
Actions have consequences!
conservative Christian advocated sterilizing poor women as a solution to welfare dependency
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what a horrible thing to say. Government did something stupid so let’s take it out on the victims of liberalism?
Perhaps should read Genesis 9:7
Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with a zero population growth philosophy. The real issue is how you implement it. Depriving liberty should never be an option. On the other hand, taking away freebies, supplements and incentives sounds good to me. Regulating immigration so that it acts as a positive force for our nation was the norm until the 60’s. Then it was morphed into a policy of ‘anything goes’ regardless of it’s effect on the nation.
I believe it.
There are a lot of anti-human people in this world, and many of them think they're conservatives.
No, you have. Go back and read the article again. The psychos condemning "breeders" are objectiing to having to pay anything to support any kids, and are hostile to the very idea of human reproduction. Thay are not raging against the welfare state itself, and only one of the examples included involves anyone saying that parents shouldn't have kids they can't take care of.
For one thing, you should take a close look at the people and organizations who support such philosophy, and then you'll get a clue.
Also, any philosophy that takes people as a neutral or liability rather than an asset is completely at odds with reality, including a mountain of empirical data. In a sense, probalems get solved when we have more people around to solve them.
This is certainly the message I've gotten--other than chuches, there is a very real anti-child ethos in upper-middle-class America.
I'm certainly not anti-human. I'm pro-life in all cases (including rape and incest), anti-death penalty, against state funded embrionic stem cell research and against doctor assisted suicide.
As I said before, depriving liberty is NEVER an option. I believe civic policy in the gray areas where liberty is not a question could benefit from a zero-growth perspective.
In the US, we are already slightly below a zero population growth rate. In most of the developed world, the birth rates are much lower and the "rate of growth" is highly negative.
I guess we've been inundated with "population explosion" propaganda for so long we are unable to recognize it when the explosion becomes an implosion.
I was reading an SF novel recently where only one woman in 10 gave birth, and pregnant women were hunted through the streets by murderous mobs, yet somehow the "population explosion" was continuing. Not very scientific, I fear.
What this poor, blind, myopic soul fails to see:
A) HE was once a "kid";
B) A dog cannot care for him in his old age.
That is what robots do. I take a look at the issues and decide what I think about them. I can agree with policy decision of individuals or groups without agreeing with the points that brought them to the conclusion.
I agreed with Hillary that we should go to war with Iraq. She came to the decision through political calculation, while I came to it through a security interest. I also agreed with many Democrats who voted against the Medicare Prescription bill. They didn't think it was socialist enough and I though it was too socialist.
When I was born (1 generation ago) the U.S. had around 220 million people. We now have over 300 million people. That is roughly a 1/3 increase in 1 generation. Last time I checked we have not acquired any new territory. The only conclusion that I can come up with is that we are more crowded now than we were then. I really want to get to the bottom of this so let me know where my logic is flawed.
Talk about libs wetting their pants.
Before social security, people had incentive to have and raise productive members of society: it was their retirement plan. These days parents get little back for raising their children to succeed. If the government paid a small commission to parents for taxes paid by their children, and took away a bit of social security if their children ended up a burden in jail, suddenly you'd see parents being more careful about who they have children with and how much effort they put into their upbringing.
Wrong. It's true that which org supports what isn't always an indicator of right and wrong (such as when the ACLU ends up on the right side of a case every once in awhile) but it usually is a good indicator of where things are going. It's even better than usual in this case. overs of death are supporters of this philosophy.
And as I said, anyone who sees humans as a liability or a zero-sum game is working against reality.
I have been saying that for years. I could not agree more.
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