[familyop]

Excellent post. Regulations passed by politicians for influential constituents are contributing to worsening artificial scarcity. There are more than enough materials for everyone, but those materials are forbidden by regulations, even to landowners (e.g., ore). Another cause of scarcity is that of sending materials used in the U.S.A. to foreign countries manufacturing for influential constituents (e.g., metals for recycling sent to American-”based” manufacturing on foreign soil). There are many other causes.

Most of the needed materials come from the ground under our feet, and there’s no real overpopulation problem. Some folks simply don’t want to see many unstylish, downscale people around them.

[nathanbedford]

Count me among those who do not want to see "unstylish, downscale people around them."

Do you choose to live in the ghetto or do you choose to live in a leafy suburban neighborhood? How many unstylish, downscale people do you entertain in your home?

The test of overpopulation has to do with quality is much as quantity. The test of overpopulation has to do with my lifestyle and my right to it as much as politics. If I cannot get to my destination because traffic jams are chronic with people who may or may not be unstylish and downscale competing with the for the same road space, parking space, green spaces, I have a population problem if you do not.

The population of the United States has more than doubled in my lifetime, to what benefit? If one cares about the Bill of Rights one must admit that doubling the population has worked toward halving our constitutional rights. The test of overpopulation is not just mineral extraction, not just new technologies in agriculture, it is the quality of life and liberty.

Those conservatives who see the dangers from overpopulation are not benighted Malthausians. Until we conservatives get past this idea that we need a population explosion to pay for Social Security, until we conservatives get past this notion that it is somehow anti-Christian to practice birth control, until we become clear thinking enough to distinguish between birth control and abortion, we will continue to see our liberties and our lifestyles ebb.