Babies: Bundles of Joy or Planet-Destroyers?
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the women (and the men who love them) who utterly disdain the idea of having children because–
Well, best to let them explain it in their own words:
“Having children is selfish. It’s all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet.”
“I realized then that a baby would pollute the planet and that never having a child was the most environmentally friendly thing I could do.”
“In short, we do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. But all this would be undone if we had a child. That’s why I had a vasectomy. It would be morally wrong for me to add to climate change and the destruction of Earth.”
“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 over-population.”
“Sarah and I don’t need children to feel complete. What makes us happy is knowing that we are doing our bit to save our precious planet.”
What we are witnessing here is the tragic human cost of the mainstreaming of environmental extremist propaganda and global warming doomsday scenarios. There is in some people, quite literally, a melt-down of the human ability to reason.
The eyeball-popping quotes from above were made by women and men who were featured in an article in Britain’s Daily Mail. They are, apparently, deliriously happy with the decisions they’ve made about not bringing more disgusting human life into this world and they talk about it with an almost condescending superiority.
Okay, you’re thinking, sure, the Daily Mail was able to dig up a tiny handful of environmental screwballs with addleheaded views about the scourge of humanity and an impossibly fragile planet. But there can’t be very many people like this out there, right?
I honestly don’t know, but there were enough sympathetic comments at the end of the Daily Mail article to make a sane person very nervous. And how hard is it to imagine that places like San Francisco and Seattle, which are teeming with ultra-liberal fringies, are full of people who think that way?
It is interesting to note that most advanced Western countries have falling, if not actually plummeting, birth rates. It seems to be a natural consequence of modernity and the most common reasons heard for having few or no children are “they’re too expensive” or “I’m too busy with my all-important career.”
In other words, unlike the baby-eschewing people in the Daily Mail article who see having children as selfish, most of the people who are having few or no children would appear to be doing that for selfish reasons.
Be that as it may, if the day ever comes when more than a few wack jobs see babies as nothing more than greedy and insatiable little bundles of flesh who do nothing but gobble up precious resources and spew out pollution and greenhouse gases, then the end of Western civilization will most certainly be near–and perhaps deservedly so.
Greg Strange provides conservative commentary with plenty of acerbic wit on the people, politics, events and absurdities of our time. See more at his website: http://www.greg-strange.com/.
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November 26th, 2007 at 11:16 am
“Communists eat babies.”
There’s a short sci-fi story from the 1950’s entitled “The Marching Morons” that hypothesizes in far off future that the world ultimately would become one big third world with only a few smart elites keeping things barely going because all the middle and upper classes bred themselves out of existance.
“Moog! I’ll buy THAT for a quarter!”
In the end, a time-traveled nobody shows up and suggests that the best way to solve the problem is through mass murder. He winds up also being eliminated in “phase two” of the elite’s plan.
Why don’t leftists like children? I’m reminded of a line from “El Postino: The Postman”, an Italian film about a postman for a communist, where a priest comments: “Communists eat babies”. The postman questions this and the priest replies: “Well, you don’t see too many with children, do you?”
Communists love preaching and spreading their message to the adolescents of other people, but they don’t enjoy doing the dirty work of raising children of their own. In addition, just as they encourage children to betray and reject their parents’ quaint values, they are terrified that their own spawn might do the same to them.
I’m not afraid of the leftists making themselves into the shaker cult or “Heavens Gate”. If they like, I’ll put up up money for their vasectomies. Maybe we should start a charity…
November 26th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Pregnancy is a lifestyle choice, at least for women.
While the environmentalists may be making the right choice for some rather dubious reasons, I support their choice.
NOT bringing babies that one does NOT want to care for into this world is a far, far better outcome than bringing babies that one or both parents (assuming that there’s even two!) do NOT want to care for.
I’m hardly a hard-core environmentalism, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that with the world population above 6 billion and still climbing, with the forests, the ocean’s fish, potable water, and other natural resources disappearing, if people don’t want to procreate at least they are part of a solution, rather than simply contributing to the problem, as it were.
Even whack-jobs can do the right thing, albeit through bizarre rationalization.
Those men joining the marriage boycott are effectively also boycotting procreation, Greg.
Don’t worry about the planet becoming depopulated. We should be so lucky!
November 26th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Fourthwire said: “Don’t worry about the planet becoming depopulated.”
It’s not simply that I’m worried about the planet becoming depopulated. What I’m worried about is that it could become depopulated of its most advanced people (the West) because of irrational idiocy such as this, leaving it to the tender mercies of its more primitive members (like Islamists, for instance) who have no qualms about reproducing.
November 26th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
And interesting thought about population growth….
Caucasians in Europe, North America and elsewhere are choosing to have fewer children for various reasons such as te ones cited in the article. But the same cannot be said about India, China, and almost all Muslim countries. These coutnries continue to have children at abou the same rates as they always have.
One school of thought is that the dominant countries in future generations are going to be the ones where most of the people reside.
November 27th, 2007 at 3:05 am
It is not just saddening but horrifying that people express such anti-human views. As you point out, Greg, it says a lot also about people’s ability to reason. An idea or slogan (usually from some media AgitProp) grabs a mind and the person subjects the concept to no real thought at all. Some people seem to get by in life with hardly a brain cell working.
And forthwire – Sir, I admire a lot of what you usually say, but really – “NOT bringing babies that one does NOT want to care for into this world is a far, far better outcome than bringing babies that one or both parents (assuming that there’s even two!) do NOT want to care for.” You are pulling my leg, shirley?
I am glad our early forebears and ancestors didn’t think that way. Back whenever, they didn’t even have a clue how babies came about and sure as hell it was a struggle feeding all those small, useless, unwanted and totally unexpected mouths when there were ice mountains to climb over in their search for a spare friggin’ mammoth.
If it were down to **wanting** a baby or three, we wouldn’t be here at all.
November 27th, 2007 at 7:51 am
Western civilization’s population has been on the decline for some time. It is important to remember that when a couple gets married and has two or three children they are not increasing the worlds population, but just replacing themselves with their children after they pass away. Only couples that have four or more children are actually increasing the world population. However, if those four children don’t have children themselves then again, no increase. In some strange divine form of justice, the societies (and people) that don’t respect life are losing life.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Greg, you’re correct – The Euro stock will eventually disappear for all the moronic reasons, and will be replaced by the people smart enough to procreate.
As for the environmentalist above – natural resources are not disappearing. You can replace a forest by…umm… planting some trees. Fish can be commercially grown and harvested like any other crop. Water can be purified or desalinated… and considering all the global warming alarmism, in the next hundred years I guess we’re going to get a couple more inches of water.
I’m pretty happy these morons kill their children, castrate or euthanize themselves. It cleans out the genepool. Evolution stops when stupidity quits being fatal.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Hi Amfortas,
Regarding your post (#5): “And forthwire – Sir, I admire a lot of what you usually say, but really – “NOT bringing babies that one does NOT want to care for into this world is a far, far better outcome than bringing babies that one or both parents (assuming that there’s even two!) do NOT want to care for.” You are pulling my leg, shirley?”
First of all, thanks for your admiration, but my posts don’t hold a candle to yours, Denis’, DreadPir8Roberts,and Zev’s (when they post, which is rarely in the case of the last two gentlemen, unfortunately!).
I invite you to carefully re-read the sentence in question.
I admit that I probably could have done better with respect to the clarity of the message, but essentially I’m writing that it’s better not to have children than to have children that the parent(s) do not want, and therefore are more likely to abuse, neglect, or otherwise short-change.
And since I know that you’re a reasonable, intelligent individual, I can imagine that you simply didn’t read my original sentence carefully enough to follow the double negative expression.
Only adults who really and truly WANT to raise children should create them, period. Our prisons are full of individuals who weren’t raised properly, and one of the reasons that many of them weren’t raised properly is that they did not have TWO parents who wanted to raise them, and could afford to do so.
I invite your commentary and further discussion, sir.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Greg, with respect to your point “It’s not simply that I’m worried about the planet becoming depopulated. What I’m worried about is that it could become depopulated of its most advanced people (the West) because of irrational idiocy such as this, leaving it to the tender mercies of its more primitive members (like Islamists, for instance) who have no qualms about reproducing.”……..
…… I am not unsympathetic.
Yet the advanced West has also embraced feminism, making work far more attractive to women than raising children, not to mention imposing significant risks on men for marrying and fathering children.
I’m certain that you read enough about the latter through MND blogs and posts.
It may already be too late for Western societies to avoid decay and collapse.
No doubt, as the birth rate issue becomes increasingly critical for Western nations, governments will offer tax advantages, including cash payouts to mothers (as Australia did a few years back), or the absurdly sexist “advice” from a previous German chancellor for German men to “work harder” at having intercourse with their wives (completely ignoring the point that no matter how hard the husbands “work”, no pregnancies will occur unless their wives stop using birth control and stop having abortions!).
Singapore has tried to deal with their population growth problems through what amounts to government-sponsored pro-marriage, pro-children advertising campaigns.
In order to complete the replacement of fathers in the nuclear family, our governments will likely succumb to the calls for widespread state-sponsored day-care centers so that women can remain in the workplace after procreating, providing potential for state indoctrination of children to those values that we increasingly see in public schools today……..
….. such as suspension for “sexual harassment” by a four-year old boy, or suspension for drawing a picture of a gun………..
….. or birth control for eleven-year-old girls, without the notification and consent of the parent(s).
I could go on, but I’m certain that you understand my line of thought.
Other nations will open up the immigration floodgates wide, effectively diluting, changing, and perhaps eventually diminishing Western culture as we know it.
When you take a look at:
- how little our government has done to make marriage and procreation as risk-free as possible for BOTH men and women,
- how little it has done to prevent overwhelming entitlements and special privileges for women in the workforce, and
- how little it has done to prevent the marginalization of fathers, among other things,……….
……….what makes you believe that our society DESERVES better than a gradual depopulation and eventual replacement by SANER societies whose laws and policies reflect a willingness to grow and endure?
For all of its technological, cultural, and other advancements, Western civilization has demonstrated that it’s susceptible to sowing the seeds of its own self-destruction.
Seventy-five years from now, the dominant societies will speak, Chinese, Spanish, or Arabic.
Me, I’m not going to waste too many tears on a society that imposed fourth-class citizenship but first-class responsibilities on me.