14 Comments

Trend? Make Women Property Again...

Handmaid's Tale on steroids.

PS: Depopulation is/will be ugly. Recommend Peter Zeijan's "The End of the World is only the Beginning"

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author

Thanks for the recommendation! Will add it to my (ever-growing) list. Might be good fodder for a future dispatch...

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Aug 2Liked by Justin Ling

Can't engage with these guys, having been through Buchanan. I just skipped all the JDV quotes and read JL's summaries...well, skimmed. Such old stuff.

The real reason couples of every colour and culture stop having kids is actually MORE money. When a society gets richer, it has fewer kids - every society.

We are not having children because they are not valued as much as money is. We regard a family with 1 kid and a big house and car as "richer" than a family with four kids and a three bedroom townhouse, two kids per bedroom. Are the extra three kids regarded as "riches" and the parents envied? No, the big house is regarded as riches; children simply are not envied, they do not confer societal status.

Just ask yourself this about status, and regard, and "what's valued" - can you even imagine that telling your boss you planned to have at least 3 kids would cause your boss to think "What a responsible and patriotic and giving person this employee is: I'll have to mark him for early promotion - and gladly give raises to be sure those kids are well!"

No. That would confer exactly zero, going on negative, status at work. Status at work would come from a declaration that you wanted, because you believed in the mission, to spend 90 hours a week, and didn't have time for dating.

This will all just go on until the world population peaks, and several features of the global economy that depend on endless growth begin to fail.

Right now, our economy is structured to make reproduction not rewarded, not worth the trouble. Which strikes me as fine, really, the planet being way overcrowded. Ask one of the non-meat animals that now comprise only 3% of all animals.

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Yeah. Implicit in these arguments for more native kids is that immigration is a dangerous and high-cost solution.

Which certainly *can* be true. But whether it's immigration or birth, government policies can make them more sustainable, practice, possible, and acceptable to the public. (It wasn't so long ago that White American was irate that Black America was having so many kids, and pointing to all the consequences of their racist economic policies as justification.) "What do we value?" is always the best way to phrase it. "We value the liberty to have kids if you want, we value a fair and generous immigration system, we value the idea that if you come here and work hard you can have a great future" — these used to be the value statements that governed America. (And, at least in the minds of most Americans, still do!)

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I believe the emancipation of women (education and careers) is also directly tied to lower birth rates. I suspect India isn’t far behind, and if African nations move in that that direction, we may see the same phenomenon. Sometimes I wish I could live another 100 years just to see how it all turns out.

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A lot to ponder with little time on either side of the border.

At a recent baseball game my friend and I were discussing this though with much less eloquence.

I simply do not know that type of Christianity ~ at all. What is it.

An idea? I have ideas ..

What is this religion that makes people fear each other, must and greed, fear of woman fear of being different.

It’s so tiring and sad.

I read a excerpt long ago where the author wrote, when the world becomes too much one should make their garden smaller to make it easier to tend.

That may be so but I am going to fling all sorts of seeds far and wide and in peoples faces in *hope* they take root. Seeds of kindness, empathy, patience understanding, generosity and as I wrote in a poem once- seeds love the reckless sound of laughter.

I’m tired of this dark heavy worn cloak upon the world.

The planet deserves better.

It’s humid as heck here as well.

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I was raised Catholic: I find Vance's version of the religion totally inscrutable.

The pentecostals? The baptists? The seventh-day adventists? I think I understand why their beliefs get them to where they are. But the Catholics? I don't understand how you can look at a nationalist movement like this — the ideological successor to a movement that once tried to mass deport Catholics, accusing them of being Papal-worshipping subhumans — and think it comports with Christian morals.

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Yep, I don ‘t understand.

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Aug 2Liked by Justin Ling

Regarding the restrictions on birth control, I wonder if that would include condoms? Maybe the “ladies of the night” should be included to repopulate the country as well. With a dna test on babies to ensure their birth fathers assume at least half the responsibility for care and financing for life.

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Heh. Judging by Vance's comments about banning birth control (In effect: We know people don't want that, we're not going there) I suspect prophylactics are safe. But I think we'll see a general restriction of general female reproductive health. (Albeit mostly at the state level.)

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By the way and sorry for the interruption, but I was able to access your article for the Walrus. I know this isn’t the platform for comments on it but I didn’t see a way of commenting on the Walrus. So I’ll leave it at thanks for posting the link.

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Oh, by all means, use this comment section to talk about *whatever you want.* I absolute love the freewheeling discussion that goes on down here. (And thanks for reading!)

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So much weirdness! Quebec tried funding to get more children and it didn't work China, of course tried one child with horrible impacts. The global trend of fewer children is good for the planet and sustainability if you care about the future. And then there is the impact of climate change on migration in our future.

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That's it. Politicians like Vance play up the carrots (child payments) as though they're panacea — when, we know, it's really the stick (abortion bans, forced pregnancy) that will make the most significant difference.

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