Posted on 07/20/2011 7:24:27 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
DAVID AND VICTORIA Beckham were overjoyed by the birth last week of their fourth child, a baby girl they named Harper. “We all feel so blessed and the boys love their baby sister so much!!!’’ the former Spice Girl exulted to her vast following on Twitter. A few days later she posted a picture of her husband cradling his new daughter, with the tender comment: “Daddy’s little girl!’’
Whose heart wouldn’t be warmed by the Beckhams’ delight in their newborn?
The Observer’s wouldn’t.
In a remarkably churlish article on Sunday, Britain’s influential left-leaning newspaper (the Observer is the Guardian’s sister Sunday paper) pronounced Harper’s parents “environmentally irresponsible’’ for choosing to bring her into the world. Headlined “Beckhams a ‘bad example’ for families,’’ the piece was a blast at parents who raise good-sized families. “One or two children are fine but three or four are just being selfish,’’ Simon Ross, executive director of the Optimum Population Trust, told reporter Tracy McVeigh. “The Beckhams . . . are very bad role models.’’
McVeigh also quoted natural-history broadcaster David Attenborough, who recently “made a passionate speech about how the world’s baby-making was damaging the planet.’’ Fifty years ago there were 3 billion human beings, Attenborough had lamented. “Now there are almost 7 billion . . . and every one of them needing space. There cannot be more people on this Earth than can be fed.’’
Has there ever been a more persistent and popular superstition than the idea that having more kids is a bad thing, or that “overpopulation’’ causes hunger, misery, and hopelessness? In the 18th century, Thomas Malthus warned that human population growth must inevitably outstrip the food supply; to prevent mass starvation, he suggested, “we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction,’’ such as encouraging the spread of disease
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I think you make a valid point. If I were to guess, based upon what I have noticed over the years, it is the low-class, low-intelligent people who are producing the most children. High-intelligent people, as a rule, don't have a lot of children; there are exceptions, of course (Tax-Chick would be one of those exceptions).
.....Well, maybe not a brain in Friedman's case.
The cure for “over-population” is more capitalism governed by the rule of law. Industrialized democracies have populations that are either declining (Japan, Western Europe) or remaining static (the US). The more affluent a country, the more people will delay having children. As always, the answer is more Liberty.
The amount of life the Earth can hold has not remained constant over 4 billion years. It has increased as organisms become better at unlocking the energy in new environments. This idiot might as well look out over life in the Cambrian period where life was stuck in the seas and say "well, that's it...I guess the Earth is full!" Yeah, except that in subsequent ages, there would be huge forests spread out all over the land. Life adapted to take advantage of new environments.
Provided that life becomes more efficient at deriving energy from the sun, from geothermal sources, and from technologies like nuclear energy, the earth will be able to hold more and more life as time goes on.
Liberals also argued for free abortions for welfare recipients which was enacted during the sixties I believe. Less babies was supposed to cut the crime rate. Instead, due to a number of factors, the crime rate exploded. Turns out it was not having the babies per se but how the babies were raised did a lot more to affect the crime rate.
Twitpic of David Beckham with newborn baby. Harper, the first daughter for
the celebrity couple who have three sons: Brooklyn, 11, Romeo, 8, and Cruz, 5.
David, 36, and Victoria, 37, married in 1999.(Copyright ©2011 KABC-TV/DT.
All Rights Reserved.)
Unlike our current Pres__ent, I (and my FReepless husband) have the test scores and transcripts to prove our intelligence ;-). And several other FReepers have more children than we do, to the great benefit of the nation.
Nonetheless, it was not poor people with a dozen children who enacted socialism, anywhere. It was wealthy ideologues with small families - Roosevelts, Rockefellers, Fords - the equivalent of today’s Friedman and Attenborough and Ted Turner. Their goal was not to help, but to take control.
That is also the goal of “environmentalists”: to control. “Green” on the outside, red on the inside. If they can get freedom-loving Americans to buy into “Just enough of me, way too much of you,” instead of “Way too little freedom, way too much government,” then they win and everyone loses.
The fact is we do have welfare programs and they are not going away anytime soon, unfortunately. And, the results will only get worse as they reproduce more and more welfare mothers and more islamists.
The kind of liberals who influence legislation, the courts, the media, and so on have, if not objectively high intelligence, then elite credentials that help to place them in positions of power.
And yes, we do have welfare programs, but if it all falls apart, as it may, the self-sufficient will survive and own the future.
“Population boon. More People Means More Prosperity (An argument against the Malthusians out there)”
So....
How many folks does the United States really need?
300 million? We’re there now.
Would 700 million mean “more prosperity”?
Would 1.3 billion Americans mean “more prosperity?”
Would 3.5 billion Americans mean “more prosperity?”
Seems like the most conservative folks live in less-populated areas. And one thing they DO NOT want is for more people — especially liberals — to start movin’ in.
I can understand why they feel that way, and have no problems with such sentiments. They’re absolutely right.
It’s exactly for that reason I don’t believe when it comes to population, that “more means better”. In reality, “more” often means “more liberalism” and “more complications”.
The nation of the Founders worked — and grew (within reason and limits) — precisely because there was ample room for growth, and folks still by and large remained “spaced out”.
When people crowd (or are pushed) together, it’s like more atoms crowding together. Things “heat up”, particularly friction between competing groups (and we know how well “diversity” works, eh?). Almost like a chain reaction.
And what “keeps the lid on things”, so they don’t heat up to the point of combustion?
Why government control, of course!
I know most of those who consider themselves “conservatives” in this forum will disagree, perhaps vehemently, to what I’ve posted. So be it.
But “conservatism” per se springs from the word “conserve”:
“1. to prevent injury, decay, waste, or loss of:
2. to use or manage (natural resources) wisely: preserve: save”
(source, old Random House Webster’s College Dictionary)
We do not “conserve” a nation, a culture, a people by “more, more, more, more”. (Aside, aren’t we seeing the effects of “more, more, more” in _government_ right now?)
A “population boom” ends the same as any OTHER “boom” or “bubble” — eventually, with a crash. How many on FR bemoan the “Baby Boomers” (a “boom” if there ever was one) and the future drains they will impose upon the public treasury?
Growth is (usually) inevitable.
But save the “booms” for somewhere else.
I’ve had enough.
Just sayin’....
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