Posted on 08/09/2012 9:44:16 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
A group of lawmakers from German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party called Tuesday for same-sex couples in civil partnerships to be given the same tax breaks as heterosexual married couples, but the idea faced skepticism among traditionally minded colleagues.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
All of this type of crap goes away if you have one, low, flat rate that applies to EVERYONE.
Ah, the fallacy of linear extrapolation. In the real world, numbers go down and up over time. Around 1700 there were less than 20 million Germans. 80 million today. It's anyone's guess how many there will be 200 years from now.
It depends how you characterize a "German".
Ethnic Germans or foreign imports, or a combination of both?
Either way, the gay lifestyle won't add to the numbers.
Ethnic Germans or foreign imports, or a combination of both?
I'd say anyone who identifies themself as "German." Over the past centuries there were Hugenot immigrants, Polish immigrants, etc. all of whom assimilated without major problems. More recently, muslim immigrants - not so much.
Either way, the gay lifestyle won't add to the numbers.
Very true. Luckily only a small percentage. Not enough to matter in the greater scheme of things, in any case. (I'll bet there was a small percentage of fags in the 1700s as well. Didn't matter.)
Good point.
Germans aren't having children. Germans spend their treasure on holidays, nice restaurants, and extending their adolescents into middle age.
German baby boomers are now moving past the age where they even can have children. ‘Germans’ of the future will be people who immigrated there and chose to have families rather than indulge themselves in shallowness... I don't believe the situation can be turned around...
If there is no God ( and most Germans are liberals who are waaaaaay to sophisticated to believe in conservative ideas like religion) then why not base your life on 'what feels good'? Of course if your life is based on 'if it feels good, do it', why sacrifice for children? Children take work, commitment and a belief in the future. A belief beyond 'what feels good'.
So the Germans are going to die out. Same with the French. Their languages will die with them... Happens. No one speaks Latin, right?
Quite some hyperbole in your post. OK, Germans *are* having children, albeit at a rate below replacement/growth. So the population will shrink, probably for a some years, even decades.
BUT, the children that *are* born are not sterile. There is nothing that will prevent *them* from having larger families than the current generation.
It may go against the agenda of cultural pessimism, but I can see things swing the other way again.
100 years ago German families typically had 3, 4, 5, or more children. The children born today by the baby boomer parents often have no siblings.
Imagine these children thinking, "hey, it would've been nice to have some brothers and sisters when I grew up. *I* will have a large family like my great-grandparents had." And when that happens, the current trend is stopped and turned around.
There is ample empiric data that shows that younger generations do things different than the generations of their parents and grandparents. Swings between a conservative and liberal mindset etc. Why not have a slightly more optimistic outlook?
Sorry, but the children of German baby boomers are old enough to have children and grandchildren and none of ‘em are having replacement kids. The only thing to support your position is wishful thinking ...
You do realize that the highlited part of your statement is just silly? Easily disproven by taking a quick look at any of the readily availabe online sources with demographic statistics. Thus, the current trend may be reversed a few generations down the line. That's neither "wishful thinking" nor rocket science! Over and out!
Sorry - there are children being born in Germany. Lots of immigrant (Muslims etc.) are having large families. It’s ‘Germans’ who aren’t replacing themselves. My comments were about the people be generally think of as ‘being’ German. My bad. Of course there will be people living in on the land now called ‘Germany’.... they’ll probably be Muslim or some other nationality - but, as you imply - the land itself will still exist...
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