Okay, my previous post has inspired me to talk about population control, something I think this country lacks. My views are based on the premise that all of the wrong people are reproducing in this country. For instance, poor people have more children, criminal people have more children, and uneducated people have more children.

This is one of the United States' most serious long-term problems IMO.

I have a few suggestions:

First, which I've addressed in another thread, is to have government-funded abortions to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

The second not-so-novel suggestion is to teach contraception in schools, along with the benefits of abstinence. For instance, I know there are some districts in Texas that absolutely insist on not teaching anything about contraception, due to concerns of promoting teen sex, but those districts tend to have the highest teen pregency rates and STD transmission rates.

Third and finally, I would suggest sterilization under certain circumstances. For instance, I would recommend sterilzation as a possible punishment for repeat criminal offenders. Also, I would suggest sterilzation as a prerequisite for people requesting welfare of any sort. I know it's a radical idea, but I thought I would throw it out there to see how you all respond.

Forced sterilization would be a nightmare scenario.

First off, it wouldn't prevent any crime. The death penalty still hasn't been conclusively proven to prevent much crime.

Second, it may actually increase criminal activity. Having children is one of those things that really gets people, criminals included, to shape up and come up with some real dough to support children on. It's about as hard to make a lot of money doing illegal activities as it is doing legal activities, and many times, the dangers of living outside of the law make even those jobs impossible to raise children on.

Third, it's a human rights nightmare, particularly as a welfare prerequisite.

Social engineering is one of those areas where radical solutions like this one are particularly dangerous, because it's virtually impossible to determine what's going to happen as a result.

In post-bloc Romania, the Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu made abortion, which had until then had one of the most liberal abortion policies extant, illegal. The resulting wave of new people born into grotesque situations eventually deposed and executed him, by firing squad. History is full of stories of social experiments gone horribly wrong. Messing with people's reproductive freedom seems to be particularly messy, with examples running for millenia.

It's just a bad idea.

Well cut my legs off and call me shorty... I agree with Nappy about this.

I'm sure your intentions are good, Leper, but the American people would never stand for that much govt in our bedrooms.

Besides, teen pregnancies are actually down from what they've been in the past.

Seeing as how you're in Texas, what did you think of Gov Rick's plan for the vaccine for 6th grade girls?

SMW

The only thing you said that I can really agree with, Leper, is better sex education. When I was in middle school in West Virginia, my Home Ec. teacher taught the girls sex ed once a week while the male health teacher taught the guys. She told us that she had been instructed to tell us only about abstinence, and not to mention birth control except to say that "Failure rates of all forms of birth control are practically equal with having unprotected sex." This is the law in all of West Virginia and I think several other states. They think that lying to us about contraception will stop us from having sex. Well it didn't, obviously, and the town I lived in has had one of the top three teen pregnancy rates in the state for the past decade. WV is pretty high up there on the list of states too.

As far as forced sterilization... Too extreme. I do think that maybe the option should be more publicized so people who never want to have kids (and I'm going to say especially men here since they're more likely to say they don't want kids) will actually do something to prevent it.

Government funded abortions? Sounds like a good idea but I don't think the government should have yet another thing to pay for with our tax money.

Ok, I guess the sterilization idea is unpopular. But how would you handle the single mother who has 6 children with 3 fathers, and the only way she keeps going is by subsisting on welfare and child support?

Shouldn't we, as a society, be doing something to prevent such a scenario from being commonplace? I mean, as things stand now, it seems like the U.S. is suffering from a serious case of reverse evolution.

Seeing as how you're in Texas, what did you think of Gov Rick's plan for the vaccine for 6th grade girls?



Honestly, I'm not real passionate about the issue either way. I think he jumped the gun a bit, but the question I would want answered is whether the benefits outweigh the costs. If so, then I support the State-mandated vaccination.

Since I suspect that is the case, I mildly support the law.

Honestly, I'm not real passionate about the issue either way. I think he jumped the gun a bit, but the question I would want answered is whether the benefits outweigh the costs. If so, then I support the State-mandated vaccination.

Since I suspect that is the case, I mildly support the law.
Agreed, Lep... I'm rather ambiguous to the issue as well. My only concern is that everytime they come out with a new 'miracle' drug, it usually takes a year or two before people start growing third heads or something and they take it off the market... then come the lawyer-ads. I was a little surprised Perry jumped on that bandwagon so quick.

Re the woman with 6 kids from 3 different fathers and living on welfare and child support... I'm tempted to say raise the child support and stop the welfare. After all, it takes TWO to tango, right?

:)
SMW

Shouldn't we, as a society, be doing something to prevent such a scenario from being commonplace?

As much as I'd like to say yes, having children is such a fundamental right I don't think we really can, or should. I think the best solution is good sex education and paying for poor people's birth control, if they want it.

As much as I'd like to say yes, having children is such a fundamental right I don't think we really can, or should. I think the best solution is good sex education and paying for poor people's birth control, if they want it.

Ah, but they would be voluntarily relinquishing that right in exchange for welfare benefits! Coersive perhaps, but there are similar situations in the law....first example I can think of is when Federal funding is used to pull State strings to navigate around State police power.

And the State can infringe on fundamental rights when it comes to criminal conduct!

This is one of the United States' most serious long-term problems IMO.
It's a group of problems not exclusive to this country, but your suggestion of publicly funded abortions and birth control would be a great way to stem the problems.

Also, better sex education is a must. I happen to be in one of the districts where the programs are abstinence only, and I must say that watching slideshows of genitals covered in STD-caused growths was not an effective deterrent for kids.

As for sterilization, courts already make use of that on sex offenders. And disagree with the welfare idea because it is welfare of any sort. A man or woman is in between jobs, and decides to get some checks from the government to help him through the time for a few months, and that merits sterilization? It is radical, but also too radical.

As much as I'd like to say yes, having children is such a fundamental right I don't think we really can, or should. I think the best solution is good sex education and paying for poor people's birth control, if they want it.

Yeah, I really think that's the only thing that can be done. Perhaps encourage adoption and give tax breaks to people who do adopt. The world's population is growing quickly and overpopulation could really become a serious issue; resources aren't going to grow with the population.

I'm with ya on the first 2. The last one is just wrong. What you could propose is that if a woman gets pregnant while on welfare then she will ose her benefits unless she puts the child up for adoption. That still seems kind of cruel though.

The world is already over populated.

You will never see or hear of the American or other interest based economies speak of such. They are rigged on a system that only works on constant growth. It is an artificial and self-destructive system. Only if our interest based economy is changed will the government even think about over population.

I'm with ya on the first 2. The last one is just wrong. What you could propose is that if a woman gets pregnant while on welfare then she will ose her benefits unless she puts the child up for adoption. That still seems kind of cruel though.

The world is already over populated.

You will never see or hear of the American or other interest based economies speak of such. They are rigged on a system that only works on constant growth. It is an artificial and self-destructive system. Only if our interest based economy is changed will the government even think about over population.
Whether the world is "overpopulated" or not can be debated--it all depends on definitions. It is nowhere near the planet's theoretical carrying capacity (which is several orders of magnitude larger).

The one thing the U.S. could do to help alleviate world poverty would be to liberalize its immigration laws and live up to its original promise. This is unlikely: people are selfish and fearful of change, even though objectively in the long run America would be much greater for it.

Population growth rates are slowing dramatically everywhere; this is mainly because once people have a good hope that their children will survive to adulthood, they naturally have fewer. The most primitive Vietnamese farmer out in the hills knows how to keep from having babies (it's called anal intercourse), and he doesn't need more if his children are healthy, so the rural birth rate in Vietnam has plummeted.

This is not achieved by the miracles of modern medicine, but by simple public health measures, vaccinations, and elementary pre-natal care.

The world is already over populated.

What's problem?
Too many people are on the earth, but we're doing well.

Whether the world is "overpopulated" or not can be debated--it all depends on definitions. It is nowhere near the planet's theoretical carrying capacity (which is several orders of magnitude larger). The world has destroyed over 1/3 of all arable lands and continues to destroy them through the use od petrochemical based fertilizers and herbicides. The world is not limitless.

You are entitled to your opinion but not to your facts. Are you saying that a third of the world's arable land is now destroyed or is that your opinon?

The world is finite, but it may be a good deal larger than we imagine. Obviously the supply of oil will run out--the sooner the better in my opinion--and probably substitutes that are just as bad (such as Canadian oil sands or oil shale) will replace them. There is, however, a glimmer that maybe a sustainable energy regime based on agricultural waste will evolve.

It's just on agricultural technology.

Ethanol...

I guess both of you would think on old philosophy about technology.

Within 20th century, technology was for productivity too much and overlooking on environment. There were a couple of reasons. First, we didn't know about environment disruption. Second, we hadn't had enough productivity, and we had to proceed productivity.

But now isn't past time.
We have enough productivity from technology, and we can use technology not only for productivity but also for environment. Though we don't know the technique for environment well, we'll able to restore environment by technology within our knowledge.

If our ancestor on 19th century knew global warming by CO2, maybe our ancestor tried to decrease CO2.
But nobody had known. We can't blame them.

Though we don't have enough technology for decreasing CO2, we have the knowledge about global warming and energy crisis. Therefore we can launch for decreasing CO2 and resolving energy crisis.

Ah, but they would be voluntarily relinquishing that right in exchange for welfare benefits!

Oh, well that I can live with.

As an aside, my daughter seemed to be one of the few babies in the hospital that had a father present. And all of the forms they gave us made some sort of reference to welfare programs. Like the Social Security number application. "Be sure to provide your caseworker with your child's Social Security number after it is issued."

Both oil and Ethanol are constructed by carbon.
How could take just carbon for fuel from them?