Posted on 10/22/2006 2:30:56 AM PDT by Tom D.
Fear of Too Many Babies is Hard to Bear
October 22, 2006 BY MARK STEYN Sun-Times Columnist
Last Tuesday morning, in a maternity ward somewhere in the United States, the 300 millionth American arrived. He or she got a marginally warmer welcome than Mark Foley turning up to hand out the prizes at junior high. One could have predicted the appalled editorials from European newspapers aghast at yet another addition to the swollen cohort of excess Americans consuming ever more of the planet's dwindling resources. And, when Canada's National Post announced "'Frightening' Surge Brings US To 300m People," you can appreciate their terror: the millions of Democrats who declared they were moving north after Bush's re-election must have placed incredible strain on Canada's highways, schools, trauma counselors, etc.
But the wee bairn might have expected a warmer welcome from his or her compatriots. Alas not. "Three hundred million seems to be greeted more with hand-wringing ambivalence than chest-thumping pride," observed the Washington Post, which inclines toward the former even on the best of days. No chest-thumping up in Vermont, either. "Organizations such as the Shelburne-based Population Media Center are marking the 300 million milestone with renewed warnings that world population growth is unsustainable," reported the Burlington Free Press. Across the country, the grim milestone prompted this reaction from a somber Dowell Myers. "At 300 million," noted the professor of urban planning and demography at the University of Southern California, "we are beginning to be crushed under the weight of our own quality-of-life degradation."
I, on the other hand, was feeling pretty chipper about the birth of the cute l'il quality-of-life degrader. The previous day, my new book was published. You'll find it in all good bookstores -- it's propping up the slightly wonky rear left leg of the front table groaning under the weight of unsold copies of Peace Mom by Cindy Sheehan. Anyway, the book -- mine, not Cindy's -- deals in part with the geopolitical implications of demography -- i.e., birth rates. That's an easy subject to get all dry and statistical about, so I gotta hand it to my publicist: arranging for the birth of the 300 millionth American is about as good a promotional tie-in as you could get and well worth the 75 bucks he bribed the guy at the Census Bureau. But, even if you haven't got a book to plug, the arrival of Junior 300 Mil is something everyone should celebrate.
So why don't we? The answer is that too many people who should know better are still peddling the same old 40-year-old guff about "overpopulation." What does Professor Myers mean by "quality-of-life degradation"? America is the 172nd least densely populated country on Earth. If you think it's crowded here, try living in the Netherlands or Belgium, which have, respectively, 1,015 and 883 inhabitants per square mile compared with 80 folks per square mile in the United States. To be sure, somewhere such as, say, Newark, N.J., is a lot less bucolic than it was in 1798. But why is that? No doubt Myers would say it's urban sprawl. But that's the point: you can only sprawl if you've got plenty of space. As the British writer Adam Nicholson once wrote of America, "There is too much room in the vast continental spaces of the country for a great deal of care to be taken with the immediate details." Nothing sprawls in Belgium: It's a phenomenon that arises not from population pressures but the lack thereof.
As for other degradations the weight of which is so crushing to Myers, name some. America is one of the most affordable property markets in the Western world. I was amazed to discover, back in the first summer of the Bush presidency, that a three-bedroom air-conditioned house in Crawford, Texas, could be yours for 30,000 bucks and, if that sounds a bit steep, a double-wide on a couple of acres would set you back about $6,000. And not just because Bush lives next door and serves as a kind of one-man psychological gated community keeping the NPR latte-sippers from moving in and ruining the neighborhood. The United States is about the cheapest developed country in which to get a nice home with a big yard and raise a family. That's one of the reasons why America, almost alone among Western nations, has a healthy fertility rate.
Everywhere else, for the most part, they've taken the advice of Myers and that think tank in Vermont. In America, there are 2.1 live births per woman. In 17 European countries, it's 1.3 or below -- that's what demographers call "lowest-low" fertility, a rate from which no society has ever recovered. Spain's population is halving with every generation. These nations are doing what Myers and the Vermont "sustainability" junkies would regard as the socially responsible thing, and having fewer babies. And as a result their countries are dying demographically and (more immediately) economically: They don't have enough young people to pay for the generous social programs the ever more geriatric Europeans have come to expect.
By the way, I wonder if any helpful reader would care to provide a working definition of "unsustainable." We hear it all the time these days. You can hardly go to an international conference on this or that global crisis without Natalie Cole serenading the opening-night gala banquet of G-7 finance ministers with a couple of choruses of "Unsustainable, that's what you are." Two centuries back, when Malthus warned of overpopulation, he was contemplating the prospects of a man "born into a world already possessed" -- that's to say, with no land left for him, no job, no food. "At Nature's mighty feast," wrote Malthus, "there is no vacant cover for him." But that's not what Myers and Co. mean. No one seriously thinks 400 or 500 million Americans will lead to mass starvation. By "unsustainable," they mean that we might encroach ever so slightly onto the West Nile mosquito's traditional breeding grounds in northern Maine. Which is sad if you think this or that insect is more important than the developed world's most critically endangered species: people. If you have a more scrupulous care for language, you'll note that population-wise it's low birth rates that are "unsustainable": Spain, Germany, Italy and most other European peoples literally cannot sustain themselves -- which is why, in one of the fastest demographic transformations in human history, their continent is becoming Muslim.
As a matter of fact, you don't have to cross the Atlantic to see the consequences of a loss of human capital: The Burlington Free Press would be better occupied worrying less about the 300 millionth American and more about the ever emptier schoolhouses up and down the Green Mountain State. I used to joke that Vermont was America's leading Canadian province, but in fact it's worse than that: demographically, it's an honorary member of the European Union.
The reality is that in a Western world ever more wizened and barren the 300 millionth American is the most basic example of American exceptionalism. Happy birth day, kid, and here's to many more.
©Mark Steyn 2006
More conservative babies mean more conservative voters. Let the liberals abort their future it's destined for failure anyway.
Did you see him on Gigot's FNC program this morning? He said western Europe is a mess, thanks to their policy of Muslim immigration. Muslims are the ones reproducing. He said that only the former Soviet controlled Eurpoean countries such as Poland are not allowing Muslim immigration.
As for other degradations the weight of which is so crushing to Myers, name some. America is one of the most affordable property markets in the Western world. I was amazed to discover, back in the first summer of the Bush presidency, that a three-bedroom air-conditioned house in Crawford, Texas, could be yours for 30,000 bucks and, if that sounds a bit steep, a double-wide on a couple of acres would set you back about $6,000.
If all you can afford is a mobile home, you won't be set back much. But wowza - a three bedroom air-conditioned house for $30,000 is so 70s. America is the coolest property market country on earth.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
er, that doesnt sound like a conservative saying that. Conservatives are against abortions not because they believe they could gain more votes from it, but because abortion is killing a life, so even babies liberals abort is something conservatives are concerned about
I'd like to believe that. Fertility drugs for Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham, so they can catch up with their peers?
I can hear their fertility coach now: "Hit the deck and gimme five!"
However, articles I've read in the past stated or implied that U.S. population growth was almost entirely due to immigration and immigrants, who are the ones having babies (according to the MSM, who also imply that all of America's increase is nonwhite -- and the future).
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
That's Russian and Slavic history talking. They know better.
It was Mohammedans who made the word "Slav" into "slave".
If I were the paper in a Cindy Sheehan book, I'd beg for the recycling vat.
I am a conservative. My commonsense answer to abortion is to keep your f'n legs shut and there won't be a need for abortion. But nobody wants to admit that, they just want to have unaccountable sexual relations with anybody and everybody. Roe vs. Wade will never be overturned no matter how much we want it to. I'm a realist.
Interesting. I learned something! Thanks!
Good article, as always. I was in Europe when the magic number was announced, and the Europeans were disgusted.
"Ugh, so many Americans, look at those horrible people, devouring precious natural resources, living large, it's all because of George Bush, Americans are so stupid, etc., etc..." This from a people who have to haul in the most desperate members of the third world to do their work because there simply aren't enough native Europeans to run any kind of economy, a people that boasts about their "freedom" from children and politely ignores their own parents as they die alone in inner-city apartments or huge, impersonal residences for the elderly, a group whose main objective in life is to retire early and hope that euthanasia is generally legalized by then so that they can die after a few years, should life become even remotely difficult; this is the group that is so offended by the fact that America still seems, despite all odds, full of vitality, life and children.
Democrats and republicans have been murdering their babys for decades now on a massive scale.. Americas next generation will be Mexican.. God will not punish America for that, demographics will... actually already is..
There's tons of space for more people in America.
The US census tells us that less than 4% of land in America can be classified as urban. The place may seem crowded at times because humans are sociable creatures who tend to gravitate to their own kind rather than live with rattlesnakes and scorpions.
But if you want to live alone with rattlesnakes and scorpions, it can be done. A free US map and a few hours on any Sunday afternoon will locate a hundred spots to get away and live ornery and unsociable.
Citizen number 300 million doesn't bother me at all. After all, I can go find a rock to sit on in the backcountry, with a rattlesnake as my nearest buddy, and not see another soul for weeks on end. And I'm sure that rock and some rattlesnake will be there when Mr. 300 Million drinks his first legal beer. Our spaces are fully sustainable.
The only thing of note that's unsustainable are liberals poking their nose into business not their own. Guess that's why God made fists as vehicles of learning.
We need to stop illegal immigration, probably all immigration for a short period, but Hispanics are conservative, Christian and are not so arrogant as to be unable to be patriotic.
I was talking to my cousin in Oklahoma and was stunned at the price she said she gave for the old "homestead." Stone house, 3 bedrooms & finished attic, "only" a couple of acres. Less than what I paid for my house 35 years ago.You couldn't put enough air conditioners in that house to bring the price up to $30,000. Amazing.
Not sure how you'd get broadband Internet service there, tho . . .
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
There are more Europeans in less space. That is one reason they are not concerned by declining population.
>>Anyway, when it comes right down to it, I favor an American Manifest Destiny over a world ruled by the Sharia and the burqa. <<
So do I, what is your point ?
>>Here is where American exceptionalism stands out. Unlike Europe, Russia and Japan, America is replenishing its population.<
With utterly unsympathetic, and possibly even hostile, aliens, unfortunately.
<<
Exactly ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
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