Anything happen while I was gone?
Oh, yeah. The collapse of the global economy. Armageddon outta here. The ecopalypse is upon us. Down south, President Obama has abandoned the gaseous uplift of “the audacity of hope” and warns we’re on the brink of the abyss. In the old New Deal, FDR warned that “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.” For the new New Deal, President Hopeychangey says we have nothing but fear itself. Get used to it. In Russia, the nation’s wealthiest oligarchs have seen their net worth decline by two-thirds. They can’t steal it as fast as it depreciates. Even yard sales of Soviet nukes to chaps with Waziristani business cards won’t make it up.
The only thing booming is declinism. In Britain, the Baby Boomers are now “Baby Gloomers,” according to the Daily Telegraph’s Elizabeth Grice, who gives the impression she’s working it up into a book proposal for one of those slim volumes of contemporary manners one keeps in the guest “loo,” amusingly illustrated with line drawings of once prosperous middle-class couples reduced to trawling the supermarket shelves for bargain “wine boxes” and microwaveable “Italian-style” focaccia. In the U.S., Steven Kotler thinks this is no time to get hung up on details. The planet is going to hell. So what’s the big picture? The rooty-tootiest root cause of all?
Answer: motherhood and apple pie. If we didn’t have so much motherhood, we wouldn’t have all these people eating apple pies, manufactured in a plant in Guangdong and then shipped on some massive floating carbon footprint all the way to Price Chopper in Cedar Rapids. Motherhood is the root cause. As Mr. Kotler says:
“You don’t need to ask what you need to do for the world. You already know.
“Stop having children. It’s that easy.”
It really is! So he’s calling for a five-year moratorium on having children, planet-wide. The Soviets had five-year plans but Mr. Kotler wants a five-year ban—“because a billion less people is a great place to start.” Key word: “start.” Experts agree that the carrying capacity for the planet is about two billion people. Actually, they don’t agree: some of the earthier-than-thou eco-types say it’s only 300 million. But Mr. Kotler doesn’t want to sound like an extremist or anything, so he’s starting with that best-case scenario. If the planet’s carrying capacity is two billion tops, we need to unload a good 4½ billion. And, while no one outside of Dutch hospitals is arguing for compulsory euthanasia (yet), not adding to the total would be “a great place to start.”
By now, you may be saying: is he nuts? Not at all. He writes for Psychology Today. And I don’t think their handy “Find A Therapist” guide is intended for their writers. Besides, there’s a lot of it about. Sir Jonathon Porritt, the British government’s “sustainable development chair,” opposes “environmentally irresponsible” breeding. The Daily Mail found a group of Englishwomen, at the peak of their reproductive years, who decided to have themselves sterilized to “protect the planet.” As a formerly fecund femme named Toni explained, “Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of overpopulation.” The best way to save the planet for the next generation is not to have a next generation.
Rather less high-mindedly, the French author Corinne Maier has a huge bestseller with her book No Kid, and even planted a new word in the language, abbreviating “mère de famille” (i.e., homemaker or “full-time mom”) to merd’euf—or “egg-shitter.”
Mr. Kotler accepts that not everyone will sign on to his plan. But “a grassroots movement of responsible adults” in developed nations will still make a big difference, even if the average Somali, Yemeni and Afghan woman goes on having seven kids each. What he doesn’t seem to have noticed is that, to all intents and purposes, “responsible adults”—i.e., liberal progressive Germans, Italians, Belgians, Japanese and, yes, Canadians—have already all but formally adopted his plans. Even Frenchwomen—who have the least worst birth rates in Continental Europe outside (Muslim) Albania—aren’t shitting that many eggs. Without immigration, the Western world would be in steep population decline. Even with immigration, Germany and Italy are in population decline.
Like so many environmentalists, Mr. Kotler is acting locally and thinking globally. It’s necessary to throw out the babies to save the bathwater. As he says, “The water coming out of the tap doesn’t care if it’s a Persian or a Nigerian who’s drinking it.” So why worry if the net result of his policy is fewer eco-progressives in his part of New Mexico but business as usual in the Somali and Afghan maternity wards?
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Welcome back. You never left our hearts.
Stopped at moonbat, says it all really.
I should start running if i were you. The boys in the white coats are on he way!
I asked Steyn to answer a question or two. Never for one minute did i expect him to answer. Guess i was wrong!
Who new moonbats came out in the day too!
Mr. Wheatley, Respectfully, Since you do not dispute any of Mr. Steyn’s demographic number, what effects do you expect in Western Europe in 50 years with each native population’s generation being half the numbers of the previous?
…and were never anywhere near our brains!
I recognise demographic shift, but I certainly do dispute his numbers. The ‘native’ birthrate is in fact increasing in some of the EU countries he likes to caricature as national suicide cults. Steyn is an alarmist. His figures don’t stack up. Facts are not his strong suit. He is a step above Ann Coulter, I’ll grant him that, but I’d pay good many to hear him in a public debate with someone with an actual expertise in the field of demographics. As opposed to an amateur fantasist, which is what Steyn is.
What a surprise, a liberal who disagrees but doesn’t provide any basis for it aside from insults and “facts” with no citations or actual reference.
If you have an opinion and wish it to be valid, even to yourself, you should back it up. It’s hard to be smart and informed. It’s easy to be a liberal.
~draconianmeasures.
liberals don’t read. just a fact.
have you noticed that people with no interest in politics, history and the world in general are invariably charmed by the sweet sounds of “sharing”, “spreading the wealth”, “giving something back”, and the free stuff?
you’ll hear it in every lunchroom at every workplace until some magnificient bastard pops their bubbles with facts and critical thinking.
these are the people who are, without knowing it, attached to the few social liberals who read and dream. what an acolyte for a social liberal. says alot.
just a fact.
Hmmm don’t member seeing any of those citations or references in Steyn’s article. Just another liberal i guess. Yr right, it is easy!
Uh, I hate to pop your bubble with facts and critical thinking, but, on average the left is better educated than the right (and much more represented among those that study history and politics). That is despite the fact that conservative economic policies tend to benefit wealthier people (who are often better educated).
For instance, the exit polls from the 2008 election provide an example of that.
Voters with post-graduate degrees (Obama won that group by 18 points, versus 7 points overall)
Obama; 58%
McCain: 40%
Or in 2004 (Kerry won postgrads by 11 points, while losing the election by 3).
Bush: 44%
Kerry: 55%
Those numbers would be even more dramatic if your distinction was between social conservatives and social liberals.
We already did, bud. It’s called high school. You should try it.
Now that I have your attention, Bud: Are Steyn’s fans, when they’re not being maudlin, just naturally bilious and insufferable or does Steyn bring that out in otherwise normal people?
Apropos of nothing, it’s always fun to remark that there is a far larger body of prose dedicated to correcting Steyn compared with his own oeuvre.
Ti-Guy,
Qu’est-ce qui te fait penser que tu es particulièrement sympathique et “supportable” ?
La vanité des disciples du correctivisme politique “holier-than-thou”… !
Qu’est-ce qui te fait penser que tu es particulièrement sympathique et “supportable” ?
Tout le monde m’adore. M’a…dore.. Le vrai monde, je devrais préciser; pas les bizarres caricatures comme M. Steyn et ses admirateurs grossiers.
La vanité des disciples du correctivisme politique “holier-than-thou”… !
…meu, meu meu, meu, meu…
Brave man H to H. Better take care or you’ll get labelled an apostate, or worse!
There is a huge difference between being educated and actually being intelligent. Believe me, some of the stupidest people I know also possess the most education. (And I say this as someone who has spent about half my adult life in academia.)
Thank-you for proving the point made by shel
I don’t put much stock in educational demographics, since it is not in my view a good measure of how intelligent or informed a person is. For all we know those post-graduate degrees on the Obama and Kerry side were in Philosophy, Environmental Studies, Gender Studies or some such, all of which are the educational equivalent of basket weaving. I’d venture that one Bachelor level chemical engineer is worth 20 Ph.D.s in Political Science.
kc : “Hmmm don’t member seeing any of those citations or references in Steyn’s article. Just another liberal i guess. Yr right, it is easy!”
You are funny, as if newspapers had a lot of footnotes and a full bibliography at the end of each article.
Well there were a few here until we introduced them to the benefits of smallpox and a few other maladies – although i can see how you could look at that as cleaning this place up. Still not too late , no reason to feel left out, i think there’s still a few left over for you jon.
Well Mr Steyn, is this an example of why we should be concerned at all about our cultural survival?
They should. The absence of any proof of credibility is one of the reasons smart people don’t read newspapers anymore.
But in any case, as I pointed out earlier somewhere in this useless thread that accompanies a useless article, entire vocations have arisen from the unavoidable necessity of fact checking and correcting the unlettered Mark Steyn. If only there were wingnut welfare agencies like Regnery to give these people book deals, eh?
For all we know those post-graduate degrees on the Obama and Kerry side were in Philosophy, Environmental Studies,
The scholarly rigour manifest in this statement is awe-inspiring. You must have a BSc. in Chemical Engineering.
kc
Are you insinuating that we can just go out and join a band of NA natives?
If you are why haven’t all these socialist gone and done just that?
-
Native reserves should be the socialist’s utopia.