Posted on 02/06/2003 7:44:17 PM PST by friendly
If Russia's sharply declining birth rate is any indication, depopulation, and not an overabundance of humans straining Earth's resources, is the real threat humanity faces.
Russia, writes Dr. Herbert London, president of Hudson Institute and the John M. Olin Professor of Humanities at New York University, is providing a lesson for the world of the dangers of depopulation.
And the problem of depopulation isn't merely Russia's - the whole Western world is facing a crisis of declining populations. Canada's National Post columnist Mark Steyn recently wrote that Italy's population decline matches Russia's.
"Because the state needs a birth rate of 2.1 children to maintain a stable population," Steyn revealed. "In Italy, it's now 1.2. Twenty years ago, a million babies were born there each year. Now it's half a million. And the fewer babies you have today, the fewer babies are around to have babies in 20 years.
"Once you're as far down the death spiral as Italy is, it's hard to reverse. Most European races are going to be out of business in a couple more generations."
Noting the Wall Street Journal's prediction Jan. 24 that "The world's population could decline by nearly 500 million people by 2075," London wrote in the Hudson Institute’s American Outlook, "As notable as this statistic is, it pales in comparison to the demographic condition in Russia at the moment.
"The most recent predictions indicate a decline in the Russian population of twenty million people in the next decade due to an excessively low birthrate of 1.2 children per family (well below replacement level) and a rise in the death rate because of widespread alcoholism and the spread of disease.
"According to one Professor Antonov, 'Two thirds of Russian territory is settled now as sparsely as it was in the Neolithic Age: less than one person per square kilometer. In other words, east of the Urals, a demographic wasteland is superimposed on the geographic wasteland.'"
London blames "a dramatic decline in the desire for reproduction among the younger generation," explaining that "the prevalence of one-child families, the decline in the number of recorded marriages, the increase in cohabitation, and the rise in divorce are all symptoms of this condition."
London ascribes much of the problem to "the virtual breakdown of the traditional family." Another source, he warns, is an emerging belief "virtually unchallenged in social science that divorce and 'only-children families' are actually desirable conditions that must be protected. An undeclared war is being conducted against those who identify a crisis in the family and a resulting demographic implosion."
As a result of all of this, "if nothing dramatic occurs in Russia, to encourage larger families, the retreat from childbearing will continue and accelerate. Two children in a family will certainly no longer be the norm and, as a consequence, Russia could become a nation of only one hundred million in thirty years (it is about 149 million today)."
This sharp decline, London predicts, "could decide Russia's geopolitical fate. A decline of fifty million people could undermine the territorial integrity of that vast nation." The decline could also "undermine any effort to create industrial market capitalism, which depends on mass production and mass markets."
Accompanying the collapse of the family, London said, is a social atmosphere that produces "a revision in cultural perspectives has led to an unprecedented level of prestige bestowed on homosexual behavior as well as evidence of an increased rate of suicide."
Such conditions, he warned "not only threaten the familial foundation of civilization, but human self-preservation itself."
Russia, along with much of the West, "is in the midst of an historic revolution that is weakening the family, devaluing the role of children, and threatening depopulation ... It is no exaggeration to contend that Russia's future, and perhaps the fate of other nations, depends on the restoration of family- and child- centered lives. A relentless drive for consumer gratification and self-fulfillment have taken us down a path that threatens societal well being," he wrote.
Steyn's outlook is even gloomier, and he blames abortion as on of the prime causes of depopulation. "A society whose political class elevates 'a woman's right to choose' above 'go forth and multiply' is a society with a death wish," he wrote. And "today we're the endangered species, not the spotted owl. We're the dwindling resource, not the oil."
Steyn recommends: "Next time you're in a rundown diner and the 17-year-old waitress is eight months pregnant, don't tut "What a tragedy" and point her to the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic. Leave her a large tip instead. She's doing the right thing, not just for her, but for all of us."
"May the afflictions of ebola or any other fatal disease fall upon you and yours first and most painfully. -swarthyguy "
It'll seek out its own level, and there are already signs of that happening - the birthrate in Mexico, for example, has dropped significantly in recent years. But it's demented to wish painful death of five billion people because the poster in questions wants more lebensraum.
I really, REALLY don't think you want to go there.
Oh cr^p! I did didn't I? Sorry.
Jawohl.
It's called a retort, a response tailored to the initial post. So9's comment was of the worst sort, that the world is too crowded, so billions should die so that they don't get in his way and irritate him. Millions have died over the years because of such tyrannical attitudes. So quit trying to play the moral equivalence game, dearie...
Have the government apply chastity belts, which can only be unlocked upon DPF (Department of Procreational Fitness) approval of the suitability to breed.
And the "right kind of people" are?
No-one with Lou Gherig's disease? (Stephen Hawking)
No-one with deafness? (Beethoven)
No-one with deformities? (Charles Steinmetz)
No gays? (Turing, half of the Hollywood entertainers)
No Møøse limbs? (who kept learning alive during Christian europe's dark ages)
No drug addicts? (Poe)
Straight hair? Almond eyes? Dark skin?
Swell, let the government pick who's suitable for bleeding, and who's suitable for breeding.
Just like any other domestic animal...
Funny how they always want someone else to go first. Just as many celebrities in the anti-SUV crowd are among the biggest individual energy consumers in the country. It's called hypocrisy, except that with So9 he wants people to die so he won't be irritated, which is far worse. I think the appropriate response is to irritate the jerk as much as possible, he deserves it.
Might I suggest a different way of looking at the situation? Perhaps the problem isn't the fact that people want to have sex (and get pregnant) as teenagers. Especially since nature seems to have designed human beings to do just that, and since medical research into the subject indicates that people who delay childbearing experience more problems with childbearing the longer they delay it.
Perhaps the real problem is that we have created a society where people have to work so hard for so little that they feel they cannot responsibly afford children until they are almost too old to have them, and their fertility has fallen almost completely off the charts? Perhaps the real problem is that the average guy cannot make enough money to afford to provide for a wife and children until he is well into his thirties, if then?
To summarize, I submit that this problem is really a problem of government policy and economics rather than one of "values" or "responsibility", and is because our society has agreed to lock itself into a suicidal paradigm.
I can assure you I'm not playing. I'm trying to determine how one person can be smacked down for expressing his opinion while another odious comment is found acceptable. IMHO it must have been a matter of volume.
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