What’s Wrong with the World

The men signed of the cross of Christ go gaily in the dark.

About

What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Population control Nazis in the news again

This story came out a couple of weeks ago, and it was so bad that I couldn't think of anything to say about it. (That does happen sometimes.)

Of course, anyone with sense knows that the "global warming" spin is just the latest excuse. In the 1970's, before anyone had ever heard of the global warming scare, the population controllers were preaching the same gospel: Having babies is "irresponsible," and government must do something or other about it.

And in third-world countries, they have. Western aid groups have aggressively pushed population control, with the cooperation of foreign governments. (I recommend the Population Research Institute for much documentation.) China's one-child policy is only the most infamous of these initiatives. PRI has documented aggressive and coercive population control in South America and Africa as well.

What is noticeable about Jonathan Porritt's evil screed (with its specific lament about women whose pregnancies are "brought to birth" and its explicit call for abortion as a means of population control) is that he's a government functionary in a Western country and appears to be calling for some sort of government-pushed population control in Britain itself.

So I finally thought of something to say. More specifically, to ask. How successful is he going to be?

Porritt expressly calls for the government to "improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion." In a country with a socialized medical system, this has coercive overtones. What could happen is that the government would decide that a number of children beyond X is not "cost effective" and/or is "environmentally irresponsible." Women who become pregnant more than X times could be told that they can get an abortion through the National Health System but will not be given pre-natal care. I have little doubt that such a plan would warm Porritt's green little heart.

In America, there are already rumors of women on welfare being told that they need to be on long-term contraception in order to receive benefits. I am sorry to say that Jared Taylor calls for exactly this requirement in his book Paved With Good Intentions. When the government is in charge, the government calls the tune. And given that the Democrats have slipped medical rationing provisions into the recent so-called "stimulus" bill, those of us who happen not to be dependent directly on government for our excellent American healthcare shouldn't be too sure that expansion of government control over maternity care will never happen here.

I have little doubt that poor women in England who are living directly on England's version of welfare come under tremendous pressure to abort. The only question is whether Porritt's charming priorities will come to the middle classes. What do you think, readers? Is there a future for coercive population control in the population at large? In England? In the United States?

Comments (17)

Is there a future for coercive population control in the population at large?

You mean beyond the subtle economic and social coercion that says to live the good life you have to keep your family small? The demands of Mammon - career advancement, nice house in the burbs, the SUV, paying for tutors, personal trainers and coaches for your kids, your employee contributions towards the health plan and the costs of college send a clear message;
to keep your material dreams big, limit the size of your family. In case you don't get the message, property, state, federal and sales taxes will drive it home.

This model of course in the process of melting down any maybe the end result will see the broad middle class turn, like the poorer classes have always done, towards the consolation of larger families. Yet, it's hard to see how the strain on medical, health and educational resources can do anything but additional incentive to keep new life at a minimum.

The transnational Establishment of state and corporate interests can direct more blunt tools of control at the poor because; a) they have no voice and b) it does so with the silent assent of Westerners who place greater primacy in lifeboat ethics than the Gospels.

As discussed in previous threads, late Liberalism prefers to achieve its goals incrementally and through subtle forms of suasion. I'm not sure there is any need for it to get more muscular in its methods. Which is not to say it won't.

Edit;
This model of course is in the process of melting down. Maybe the end result will see the broad middle class turn, like the poorer classes have always done, towards the consolation of having larger families. Yet, it's hard to see how the strain on medical, health and educational resources can do anything but enhance the incentives to keep new life at a minimum.

Also; the population controllers at the I.M.F. and U.N. do not themselves as Nazi's, since their mission is to end the suffering of poverty by reducing the number of people living in it, while not infringing on the lifestyles of the developed world. They can quote from the Sermon of the Mount without any hint of irony.

Well, apparently Mr. Porritt doesn't consider that the sheer pressures of modern society are doing enough to prevent child-bearing. The birth rate in England is not low enough to be pleasing to Gaia, and her prophet is telling us all off. The question is whether he will continue to be thought of as an extremist even by his own side of the political aisle or whether his views and plans will become mainstream within our lifetime.

I'll go with extremist going mainstream, because if that's not a modernist trend, with near historical influences, nothing is.
The day of large families in hard times is past, SUV's, flat screens, and materialist contraptions yet to be invented have & will capture the remnants of mind and familial cohesion still surviving in what is recognizable as our slow, rear guard demise.

I suspect that the size of families in America is already in decline. There is nothing in current political policy, the current faith, nor in that homogenizing monolith mass culture that so much as hints at a healthy reversal.
We live in the present only,"I've got mine" therefore takes on a more ominous note, and still more people turn their attention to Mother Government.

The appeal of a world with fewer people, doesn't that tickle all our paradisial fantasies? Isn't it our dream to return to Eden or The Golden Age when wonderful things were in abundance and we had freedom to move without being fined for walking on the grass?

Add to that what others have said about a culture that despises large families and offers easy means of preventing them. With birth control, you can have your cake and eat it, too.

The trade off -- an adult life based on sterility -- is no obstacle to desire. Not even many Catholics can heed the call of holiness and chastity in marriage.

There is no answer to the onslaught of paganism in our culture other than a rear guard action by a saving remnant.

That's not to say the Christianity isn't making powerful inroads in Africa, Asia, and South America. But will it be enough to create free and dynamic societies based on strong, positive goods?

I believe that history is a spiral and that natural selection applies to societies and cultures and operates just as the human animal continues to evolve; that this is the process of life as God has made it. Does it tend towards apotheosis of a sort? I don't know, but I know that consciousness is a project.

Porritt's proposed state-imposed, compulsory 2 child policy will not gain traction in the West for the following reasons;

*This economic crash will consume the time and energy of our elites. Their confidence is shaken and they will now attempt a semi-orderly retreat from Empire before enforcing any new projects.

** Good luck trying to get immigrants from the Moslem Middle East and Christians from the Southern Hemisphere to comply with such mandates.

*** The death of homo economicus. The extremely painful travails of the coming years will awaken many to the adventure of Being, over the artificial substitute of Having. Expect more Love and bassinettes!

I agree with Kevin's analysis, but it seems that demographic changes provide a corrective mechanism. In the short run, some of these pop control measures may become at least discussed in polite society (if not already), but by the time anything can be acted upon the population bust will have hit, and either an about face (with no apologies or even hint of responsibility or remorse for past actions) will occur, or a replacement population will take over.

or a replacement population will take over.

That's what I expect. In fact, without any admission of inconsistency, I expect (for I've seen it before) the same people who have been talking about "irresponsibility" in having babies to start saying that immigration is necessary to provide younger workers to pay the benefits for the greying population of such-and-such a country.

In America, there are already rumors of women on welfare being told that they need to be on long-term contraception in order to receive benefits.

People on welfare are wards of the state. As such, they have no moral right to make their own reproductive choices because they sacrificed their liberties the moment they signed over responsibility for their well-being to the state. We may debate about how this goes into effect, but the fundamental idea that the state can stop wards of the state from having children is morally sound, since any child they choose to create will be a ward of the state and that fact makes it inherently irresponsible.

Personally, I would implement it on the basis that any child a woman has while a ward of the state must be put up for adoption unless the odds that it can be adopted out are low (such as the child is born with a disease). The only way to get women to stop supporting socialism is to hit at the very heart of the things that they care about.

I don't know if you are deliberately exaggerating, but it is not literally, legally the case that any adult woman receiving welfare is a ward of the state--as, for example, a minor child who has been taken from his parents or a legally incompetent adult without relatives can be made a ward of the state. It is true that welfare workers often _treat_ women on welfare as if they are wards of the state, but as far as I know it is not literally, legally the case. Being a ward of the state is a real and specific legal category.

People on welfare are wards of the state

Don't stop there. Include anyone whose income is derived as the result of governmental programs;
retirees, members of the military, civil service employees, professors, nurses,defense contractors, teachers and first responders. I'm sure any lunatic with a Von Mises logo on her clipboard can draw up a more comprehensive list of those unworthy of personal freedom due to their dependence on public funding. Right?

It's interesting you should bring that up about a "von Mises logo" Kevin. I've always felt that a true libertarian shd. be absolutely horrified at the treatment of women on welfare as completely vulnerable to the whims of the state and, rather than encouraging more or more consistent use of such draconian behavior, should simply use what already exists as a cautionary tale about where welfare leads. Many such women, by the way, do have their children taken away simply because they are poor, so I suppose Mike T shd. be happy.

I've always felt that a true libertarian shd. be absolutely horrified at the treatment of women on welfare

I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away,
and she's gone to get a hit
She hates her life,
and what she's done to it
There's one more kid
that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love,
never get to be cool.

Keep on rockin' in the free world

It's interesting you should bring that up about a "von Mises logo" Kevin. I've always felt that a true libertarian shd. be absolutely horrified at the treatment of women on welfare as completely vulnerable to the whims of the state and, rather than encouraging more or more consistent use of such draconian behavior, should simply use what already exists as a cautionary tale about where welfare leads. Many such women, by the way, do have their children taken away simply because they are poor, so I suppose Mike T shd. be happy.

Kevin's comment is a pure strawman. There is a fundamental difference between government employees, most of whom have perfectly complementary positions in the private sector, and someone who is a freeloader on the socialist state (ie a welfare recipient). It does not tug at my heart in the least to see capable adults abused as part of their receipt of welfare. In fact, I think the state should become more cruel and abusive toward such people to make receiving the dole so painful most people who are on it would gladly work 3 jobs to avoid it.

There is a fundamental difference between government employees, most of whom have perfectly complementary positions in the private sector

What does that mean? Weren't you decrying the current configuration of our military in another thread? When

It does not tug at my heart in the least to see capable adults abused as part of their receipt of welfare

You believe the Welfare Mother voluntarily chooses a state of servile squalor and it only rational that her condition be formalized by the corrective shackles you place upon her. It is your freedom, freedom from any social obligations that you value the most. Yet, in operating under an ideology of self-interest, you have forged the fetters of your own mental and spiritual enslavement.

It does not tug at my heart in the least to see capable adults abused as part of their receipt of welfare.

And the heck with the babies taken from their mothers--whose only crime may have been poverty and signing up to receive welfare--and sent off into the impersonal horror of the foster care system. All necessary in the name of punishing welfare recipients enough to force them off.

What a truly disgusting attitude.

some this foctors might not work.

Post a comment


Bold Italic Underline Quote

Note: In order to limit duplicate comments, please submit a comment only once. A comment may take a few minutes to appear beneath the article.

Although this site does not actively hold comments for moderation, some comments are automatically held by the blog system. For best results, limit the number of links (including links in your signature line to your own website) to under 3 per comment as all comments with a large number of links will be automatically held. If your comment is held for any reason, please be patient and an author or administrator will approve it. Do not resubmit the same comment as subsequent submissions of the same comment will be held as well.