Showing posts with label population. Show all posts
Showing posts with label population. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Who are the Real White Supremacists?


Picture this: A classic line-up, like in the old crime movies. The witnesses: A motley assortment of cultural “agents of change”, including one representative each from Hollywood, the mainstream media, TV, Broadway, the Democratic Party, and of course the SPLC. The accusation: The “hate crime” of being a “white supremacist”. And the line-up includes one each from the following: (1) Neo-Nazis/skinheads/officially-white-supremacist groups; (2) a representative of the “alt-right” (might or might not be a Breitbart staffer); (3) a member of the Republican Party; (4) a member of the Trump administration; (5) a representative of the high-tech Valhalla called Silicon Valley; and (6) a representative of the international financial cartel (banks, brokers, and various and assorted money changers).

Obviously, with no further information, the witnesses will unanimously declare the members of groups 1 and 2 to be, unambiguously, white supremacists. And, after a bit of hesitation and perhaps with some qualifications, they won't fail to declare members of groups 3 and 4 likewise. As for groups 5 and 6, some good-natured chuckling will be heard – surely those groups are just fillers, just brought in to make the proceedings seem fair and impartial. It would be the most ridiculous thing in the world for anyone to seriously suspect our moguls of the digital and Internet age, or members of the international financial cartel (who are, after all, globalists by definition, and hence to be counted among the anointed elite before whom we should all bow at every opportunity), of anything as nasty, atavistic, and primitive (not to mention testosterone-laden) as white supremacy.

And yet those last two groups are, in fact, the supreme white supremacists on the planet; no one else even comes close.

Here is my argument. While the Neo-Nazis/skinheads/officially-white-supremacist groups may talk the the talk... and while the “alt-right” may say the same thing on occasion, but in a more gentlemanly manner, the ones walking the walk are those with global reach – politically and economically (and therefore militarily as well). And they, in turn, have the resources to pressure the very groups that whine endlessly about “white supremacism”, and bend them to their will. In other words, the “progressives” are doing the white supremacists' work for them.

How does this happen? Well, first we have to think about what white supremacism is and what it is not. It is, basically, the notion that the white race is superior, period – not based on history or current marks of achievement, but “just because”. And this -- let's say primitive -- point of view is little more than simple cohesion that can be found in any racial group – or, let's say, any racial group that has a will to survive. It's the ancient paradigm of Us vs. Them – of my group (race, ethnic group, tribe) vs. The Other. And as such it's human nature – or at least human nature before it is reshaped by the “agents of change” (such reshaping being, of course, notoriously ineffectual, and serving mainly to drive formerly normal and acceptable attitudes underground).

But more than one outcome can come from this basic attitude. One is the feeling that “we're the best”, but along with it comes a benign, even paternalistic (or condescending, if you like) attitude toward other races – thus the nearly-forgotten memes like “the noble savage” (referring to Native Americans) and “our little black brothers”. The point is that those other races, although considered inferior, are not only tolerated and wished no harm, but may actually be the object of charity (as they, in fact, are). But they are objects of charity precisely because they are considered inferior – and hopelessly so. But – and so the implicit logic goes – because they are perennial objects of charity, that constitutes further evidence of their inferiority. (If this rings a faint bell it's no accident.)

But then there is the other main branch of the white supremacy tree, which is more like a zero-sum premise. In order for us (the white race) to prosper, the other races have to be subdued, and there are many ways this can be expressed – political discrimination, economic exploitation, devaluing in general, unequal application of laws, and, in the extreme, slavery or even outright genocide. And history is replete with examples of all of these, and more besides. And the decision, by the dominant race, as to which of these options to elect – or which combinations to elect – varies according to economic circumstances, above all. The root of what is called “racism” is fear, certainly – but the paramount fear is nearly always the fear of The Other – the alien -- “taking over” in some way, the expected result being that “I” will wind up having less of what I have, and “They” will have some, if not all, of what I should have had. In other words, in boils down, more often than not, to issues of property, resources, income, and wealth, with other factors like skin color, cultural habits, language, religion, etc. being secondary, or reduced to mere window dressing. (Another way of putting it, in the case of African-Americans, is that skin color is a simple, easily-detected surrogate for other factors which are less visible and more complex.) (And if white people are so innately afraid of dark skin, why do they spend so much time and money getting deep tans each summer, hmmm?)

One can see this very clearly when it comes to the issue of immigration, which is styled a “racism” issue by the open-borders crowd, but which is, more than anything else, a matter of economics – although crime and lifestyle issues have some relevance as well, as does the “changing the face of America” notion, although I would be willing to bet that that is, again, more window dressing than anything else. (For, after all, America has, and has always had, more than one face, which is easy enough to discover if one is willing to venture more than a few miles from one's birthplace.)

I'll go further than that. I've always felt that slavery (of blacks by whites in the American South) was not an example of racism, although it was certainly the essence of white supremacy. The whites didn't hate the slaves for being black; in fact, I doubt they hated them at all. Blacks were a commodity and a resource; they were bought and sold, not unlike livestock or land or farm equipment or real estate. The fact that they also happened to be human beings was briefly noted by some, ignored by others, and made into a political movement by Northern activists. And here was, of course, a great political divide, but it was more subtle than the current wisdom would recognize. Among Southerners who considered blacks to be an inferior species, there were no regrets about slavery (other than, perhaps, the same kind of regret one might feel about mistreatment of horses or other livestock). Among those who recognized the humanity of the slaves, but also recognized that they were essential to the Southern economy, there was considerable ambivalence and regret – and this has been extensively documented. And I'm sure there were Southerners who refused to own slaves on principle (and not because they were too expensive), but who more or less kept their opinions to themselves. In the North, on the other hand, I can't believe that all was lily-white (so to speak). For one thing, it was Northern merchants who had a vital role to play in the slave trade; they may not have owned slaves (although many did in colonial times) but they were perfectly happy to ship them between Africa and the South. And I imagine there were Northerners who would have been perfectly happy to own slaves if the opportunity was there. As always down through history, the activists – the anti-slavery movement – were a minority, at least at the start, and possibly right up to the Civil War. If the citizens of the North were anything like citizens these days, the most common attitude was probably along the lines of “I don't want to get involved”, “It's none of my business”, “It's a Southern thing”, “I don't know any black people”, or even “They're probably better off than they would have been if they'd stayed in Africa” -- that last being a notion that persists to this day when it comes to the descendants of the slaves.

Now, having said all that, I also imagine that there was a more or less instantaneous attitude change among Southern whites after the war was lost (the Emancipation Proclamation only having made the end of slavery official). Suddenly, blacks were a threat – politically, economically, and in many other ways – so if “racism” didn't exist prior to that date, that would be when it began in the South. (Some insight into this phenomenon can be gained from viewing the D. W. Griffith classic, “Birth of a Nation” -- assuming one can even find it these days.)

The point I'm trying to make is that racism is not only about skin color. In fact, it may not even be primarily about skin color; there is always more to it. But skin color does, obviously, have symbolic significance and is an easy marker – a bit of perceptual shorthand, if you will. In any case, any form or degree of racism, since it represents fear of The Other, also represents a preference for one's own group, and an at least implied feeling of the superiority of one's own group – in short, white supremacy, even if it's not called that or if that is not a major theme in the debate. It could even take the form of believing that blacks are equal in pretty much every way – beyond mere legal equality – but that they're still alien in some sense, and therefore deserving of no more than second-class citizenship. There are as many nuances to this issue as there are people concerned with it, I suppose – since of all the political and social issues of our time, this is the one that permeates all areas of society the most, and about which it is the most impossible to be neutral, apathetic, or ignorant. (The announcement that the election of Barack Obama in 2008 reflected that we had become a “post-racial” society was a masterpiece of propaganda, or naiveté, or both. If anything, positions have hardened since then.)

Let us now shift gears and talk about that erstwhile progressive movement called eugenics, of which the sainted heroine and leader in this country was none other than Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood and still held in the highest esteem by liberals, progressives, environmentalists, Utopians, and all right-thinking citizens. This concept and movement was based on the premise that, contrary to the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg address, all men are not created equal – that there are many points of superiority of the white race over other races, and of the healthy over the handicapped, and of the dim-witted over the clever. And no one, please note, objected to this premise in strident tones, or in any tones at all as far as I'm aware, with the possible exception of the Catholic Church.

From this basic premise flow a number of possible consequences. One – the most benign – would be to provide adequate prenatal care and nutrition, and procedures to maximize the chances of a healthy birth, combined with enlightened infant care (including, most obviously, breast feeding – and we forget that in former times that was considered nasty, primitive, and unsanitary – and a habit of the lower classes). These measures might (and have been proven to) reduce the incidence of handicaps both physical and mental. And this may very well have been part of the eugenics movement, at least at the beginning.

But this, sadly, was not good enough to insure a happy, healthy society on the road to Utopia – so sterner measures had to be adopted, starting, of course, with “family planning”, which is another word for birth control, which is the same as contraception (again, at first). And this was all presented as “education” -- i.e. of the racially, ethnically, and economically inferior classes – and as a way to free women from the tyranny of men and their unbridled lusts, and from the burden of bearing and raising children – at least more children than someone in polite society should have, which is generally considered two, i.e. “replacement level” (but not quite). (And, please note, there was plenty of implicit and not-so-implicit religious bigotry at work here, which was a natural extension of the anxiety – already nearly a century old – about various ethnic immigrant groups, most of which were Catholic, invading our shores. Catholics – then as now (mistakenly) – were notorious for having “all those children” because the Pope ordered them to. And once again, it's the fear of The Other on the surface, but really the fear of aliens flooding in and “taking over”.) So all across the land, bourgeois (and Protestant, if that) women in big flowered hats were getting together of an afternoon over tea, and regretting how the populations of various alien elements (starting with the Irish, I guess) had gotten out of control, and pledging both time and money to rescue their less fortunate sisters from squalor. One of the pillars of “Americanization” was to get these new arrivals to “control themselves” and have smaller families – again, to deal the the threat of them “taking over”.

And on the professional medical side, the campaign took other forms, including mass sterilization of black women and of the “feeble-minded”, among others. Science saves the day! But of course it didn't end there. Eventually, crude methods of contraception were replaced (but not entirely) by “the Pill” -- and we can debate far into the night as to the overall impact of the Pill on women's health. But there were plenty of other techniques as well, all receiving the seal of approval from medical and public health entities, which were almost unanimously "progressive" in their orientation.  

And, as we all know, the culmination of all of this was the legalization of abortion, which was commonly presented as a last resort -- “when all else fails”, including abstinence (always a dead letter), non-pharmaceutical methods like spacing or “rhythm”, and contraception. So in a sense, legalized (and often free) abortion is the end game, or the reductio ad absurdum, of progressivism; the road to Utopia, it turns out, must run through a vast graveyard.

At this point it bears mentioning that abortion has now gone beyond alleged economic necessity or convenience, and morphed into a hard-core eugenicist agenda, namely the elimination of the handicapped (and those deemed likely to be handicapped). And what is presented as “merciful” for the parents (mainly the mothers) is, clearly, nothing more than an economic consideration for those in charge; why should anyone who will inevitably be handicapped, and thus a burden to society, be allowed to live, i.e. be born?

Please note that this argument is made by the very same people who campaigned for the Americans with Disabilities Act, and who are unwavering in their support for “accommodations” for every sort of physical, mental, and emotional disability, regardless of the economic and social cost. What it boils down to is that the progressives have claimed for themselves the right to determine who is, and who is not, a human being and thus deserving of life. The unborn have no rights because they are not human, but the born have rights no one ever dreamed of up until recently.

Except! There is also a quiet but growing movement in favor of, let's call it, retroactive abortion, another word for infanticide. Simply being born is no longer enough; now there has to be a kind of trial period during which the individual's fitness is determined by “experts” -- which is another way of saying how well they will fit into society with the minimum expense and inconvenience. (Whoever is afraid of “death panels” as an inevitable facet of socialized medicine has to start here.)

To give credit where credit is due, these progressives are more consistent than those for whom the mere technicality of birth is the great divide. If the powers that be can declare that the unborn are not (yet) human, they should certainly be able, and entitled, to declare born children not yet human, until certain factors are checked off on a list. In other words, if the definition of life is political rather than medical, then let us make the most of it – and this includes, by the way, the “brain dead” and other hopeless cases resulting from injury or disease, and of course the elderly. Value to society becomes paramount, and anyone deemed of no, or negative, value can be justifiably eliminated. If this sounds like a page out of the basic text for Nazism, it is, and not coincidentally because the Nazis were great fans of Margaret Sanger (as were others of like mind in Europe as well as the U.S.).

All of the above points could be expanded on at greater length, but I want to get back to the main theme, which is “white supremacism”, real or alleged. Surely, if one is the more vicious sort of white supremacist, they will have absolutely no problem with birth control/abortion programs that always seem to be aimed at minorities. (Whether there is conscious racism involved can be debated, but what is called in other contexts “adverse impact” cannot. The numbers are there, and they are striking.) In fact, if I were a white supremacist I would donate every spare dime I had to Planned Parenthood. And for all I know, that is what some skinheads/Neo-Nazis do with money they don't spend on beer, junk food, and motorcycles.

And what about the “Alt-Right”? Are they in favor of eugenics? Because there is, after all, a considerable overlap between the alt-right and conservatism, and conservatives are reliably opposed to any progressive/liberal programs, including free abortion on demand for any reason. What I suspect is that some members of the “Alt-Right” are secretly not all that upset about the abortion industry's focus on people who are likely to become wards of the state and/or troublemakers. Others are willing to accept those costs in order to adhere to pro-life principles. I would not want to be the one calling for a “show of hands” on this question at an Alt-Right gathering – not that there would be any guarantee of honest answers.

Charity is where you find it – and it's an odd thing when charity is selectively directed at certain categories of the powerless but not at others. The same can be said of “humanism”; which humans are deserving and which ones are not? What I will call “radical” or “heroic” charity can be found – or so it appears – primarily among seriously religious people, with Catholics leading the way more often than not. It's a mindset that is also found among traditional missionaries – to honor all life, regardless of physical or mental status or potential – and regardless of religious convictions, for that matter. Do the good works of missionaries stop at the church door? Not that I'm aware. I doubt very much if St. Teresa of Calcutta quizzed the sick and destitute as to their belief systems prior to accepting them for care.

But moving right along, we now come to Republicans and “Trumpists”, and here I suspect that many, if not most, are pretty much convinced that the white race is superior – or that, at the very least, it has contributed more on the plus side to humanity and to world history than other races. The more intellectual among them will defend the “Western tradition”, and point to Europe (historic, not current) as the exemplar. But at the same time, I don't think that premise keeps them from maintaining a basically charitable attitude toward other races... and I certainly don't think it has convinced any of them to give up the pro-life vs. pro-choice fight. If you want to say, well, it's all just politics and cynicism, I will point to cases where political futures have been threatened, or terminated, because a politician was insufficiently “pro-choice”. They were willing to pay the price for their inconvenient beliefs.

I'll go further than that. I suspect that many of our conservative (of whatever variety) politicians, being believers in God, fear that the triumph of abortion has put our (presumed) privileged status as a nation and as a society at risk. In other words, if America is, in any sense, “God's country”, how much longer can it remain so if abortion is not only legal but, by and large, tolerated? One can find testimonies to this effect in many speeches and writings by conservative politicians... and again, I think there's more going on there than base politics. Personally, I'm willing to accept what they say as their actual beliefs until proven otherwise. So if they are, nonetheless, white supremacists, it's white supremacism of the softest, most benign sort.

Now we come to the true villains of the piece – the titans of American industry and their colleagues across the water. If you like to follow the money, then by all means let's do so. American high-tech moguls may not be unanimous in this respect, but they are nearly so – they provide tremendous financial as well as political support for... well, you pick the term. “Family planning”... “reproductive rights”... “population control”... and so many other bloodless terms for what is, in actuality, a very bloody business. And what is the focus of all their support? Why, the “third world”, of course, which, oddly enough, seems populated (or over-populated) almost exclusively by persons of a non-white persuasion.

So what is their motive? Granted, they are all Utopians to some degree or other – and they dream of a perfect world... not the “next world”, which I suspect never crosses their minds, but making this world perfect... in their own image, if you will. The whole world ought to be like Silicon Valley. But there are things standing in the way. One is, of course, religion, which they like to call “superstition”. Others are nasty old things like traditions, customs, ethnic identity, and of course the great mantra of our time, “racism/sexism/homophobia”. “Why can't these people just... I don't know... get their act together? What's wrong with them? But we can help!” (Do I hear echoes of colonialism, and of the “white man's burden”? Freakin' right I do!)

And thus begins the next long march. First it was humanism (with the French Revolution as the key energizing event), then “Manifest Destiny” (a polite term for genocide against the American Indians), then international communism, then the long march through American institutions (which has resulted in, among other things, the nice library lady now being an “agent of (radical social) change”), and now the eugenics/population control continuum, which is championed and enforced by allegedly benign entities like the United Nations.

And of course there is an economic component to all of this; in fact it's the single biggest component. Nary does one head of a Silicon Valley titan fall upon the pillow after a hard day's work than he will be jolted awake in the dark of night by visions of numberless hordes of darker-skinned people than he forming a bridge across the ocean like army ants and surging up the California coast with nothing else in mind but invading his palatial gated estate and taking his stuff. The invading armies have already taken over great swaths of Europe (wherever not seriously resisted), but the Rio Grande is a lot closer. Military action (which they could procure if need be) is too crude and ham-handed – at least for the time being. So the problem has to be attacked at the root – namely reproduction (one blushes to think upon this, but one must press on). And so we have plane loads of contraceptives being parachuted onto dusty third world fields... and agents of change under the U.N. flag trying to convince women (and men, if need be) that this family and children thing is overrated... and, as usual – and not even as a last resort – abortion for all, and don't worry about what those silly old priests, pastors, and witch doctors say. Sterilization is the future! (When actually it's a non-future.) And this has gotten to the point where third world leaders are, basically, bribed by the U.N. and other entities to accept what amounts to the soft genocide of their own people, in exchange for a panoply of “benefits”. (Oh, wait – hasn't the same deal been worked out with the “black leadership” in this country? Or am I just imagining things?)

A further irony – why is the Third World suddenly showing not only a striking ability to reproduce, but an equally striking ability to have most of those who are born survive to adulthood, and thus to reproductive age? A lot of it has to do with advances in medicine, sanitation, and nutrition... and those are, in turn, by and large products of guess who, the Western, i.e. white, powers – America and Western Europe. So we invested heavily in the welfare of the Third World – in an act of charity, at least to some extent – and now we seem to be plagued by regret. “Oh, wait – you mean that if you provide improved medical care, sanitation, and nutrition, you wind up getting more people? More than you want, in fact? More than are “sustainable”? Well golly gosh, who'd a thunk it?” So in that sense, we created a monster – a well-nourished one – and said monster is now taking over considerable chunks of Paris (cue Mickey Mouse as “The Sorcerer's Apprentice”). Another way of putting it is that the road to Utopia has, as its goal, enhancement of “quality of life”, while at the same time suppressing quantity of life. Any Utopian vision you can name (and there are many) paints a picture of, basically, an all-middle class world ruled by an elite – or, failing that, a massive slave army ruled by an elite, with a middle class remnant populating the bureaucracy. And this vision has, in fact, been realized more than once in the 20th Century, most prominently by totalitarian regimes, but to a less extent by “soft” socialistic regimes. But their work is not yet done.

Finally we turn to the global elite, AKA The Regime (as opposed to national regimes, which come and go at an alarming rate). And actually, all that I said about the high-tech/media/entertainment/political regime in this country can be applied on a global basis as well, since our home-grown elites have become (assuming they weren't always) a subsidiary of the global entity. Their world views are the same, their goals are the same, and their techniques are, basically, the same. If there are uneasy heads among the elite in this country, then there are equally uneasy heads among the global elite – perhaps even more so since the tide of humanity they dread is already lapping at their doorstep. Utopia is on their mind, make no mistake – a perfect world with them in charge and with anything that threatens it in the cross hairs. And the Europeans are no amateurs in this matter; all we have to do is recall the vision of “The New Soviet Man” in the USSR, or “the Master Race” in Nazi Germany. They showed the way; their mistake was in being too obviously radical and ham-handed about it. They could not harness the propaganda potential of the world-wide media, “entertainment”, and the Internet because those things didn't exist up until recently. But all of these difficulties have been overcome, not in small part because of the influence of the United Nations, but also aided by the global reach of the banking and “securities” industries. Plus, the USSR and Nazi Germany still held out for their respective brands of nationalism, whereas “nationalism” has now become a dirty word, and something to be avoided and suppressed whenever and wherever found. This is why Brexit has caused such an uproar, and why resurgent nationalism in Europe is subject to perpetual criticism and indignation – and why, needless to say, the Trump phenomenon has caused the globalists to come out of the woodwork. Based on the reactions of the elite and of their unthinking robotic army of flying monkeys, it is clear that globalism is the new world religion, with all other liberal/progressive causes being subordinate. You name the liberal/progressive cause or obsession, and I'll show you its intimate connection with globalism, and thus with Utopianism on a world scale. And lest the “check engine” light labeled “conspiracy theories” on your dashboard has come on, I will merely point out that none of this is the least bit secret; it's an open agenda which is pursued openly, in broad daylight – such is the confidence that those in charge of pursing the agenda have in its success. But the Achilles heel of all of this is in that little phrase, “demographics are destiny”. As secure as the elite are in their fortresses (and yes, they do believe in walls after all) they are having as hard a time dealing with human nature as the Soviets and Nazis did. Most of the human race is still (without necessarily knowing it) obeying the command given to Noah and his sons: “Be fertile and multiply and fill the earth.”


Saturday, August 15, 2009

Our Number's Up

In a recent issue of Chronicles, Philip Jenkins sounds a somewhat discordant alarm bell for “the global decline of fertility rates”. Now... anyone who is my age, or a bit younger, remembers when “the population explosion” was the issue of the day... when it was on everyone's lips, the very same way “global warming” is now. The human race was doomed to reproduce itself out of existence (an event which, you might think, would qualify as “paradoxical” -- but no one saw it that way back then) – we were about to overtax, and stress, the world's resources to the breaking point – and once that occurred, we would be beyond the point of no return. At that point, the only answer to the population crisis would be mass starvation. Yeah – that's what they said, I'm not kidding. Now granted, there is, in fact, hunger, severe hunger, and even occasional starvation on today's world scene – but it is caused almost entirely by wars and political crises, not by an actual, objective, lack of resources (arable land, crop fertility, etc.). Even if you take the most nutrition-challenged place on earth – inevitably, in sub-Saharan Africa – and subtract war, revolution, genocide, and vicious rulers, you still wind up with, basically, enough food for everyone. If you look anywhere else on earth, everyone has enough to eat, and a lot of people have way too much – like Americans, for instance. And this, mind you, is with a global population that the doomsayers of the 1960s would have claimed was absolutely impossible – unsustainable – catastrophic – etc.

The truth is, we still don't know what the maximum “carrying capacity” of the Earth is, when it comes to human population. Because we are not, overall, anywhere near that absolute limit as yet. If you took all the “farm surplus” of the U.S., plus all the food that fat-assed Americans eat that is above and beyond their nutritional needs, you could feed the entire subpopulation of the world's “starving” or “hungry” people. So have we reached that mythical brick wall yet? Certainly not. But there are other indicators that might be of equal interest. One is that the oceans – which have always served as a kind of back-up to agriculture – are being depleted, and in some cases “fished out”. And this problem is aggravated by massive pollution of the oceans, mainly from waste dumping, which results in things like “the blob the size of the state of Texas” in the Pacific, etc. In other words, ocean-based nutrition has not only peaked, but it's on the decline. And while we're talking about water, let's remember that, in some cases, lakes and rivers have recovered to some extent from the “dark ages of pollution” -- but they will always be insufficient to feed people who live any distance from the fisheries in question.

So that puts us firmly back in the camp of agriculture, i.e. land-based nutritional sources, and let's admit that the various “green revolutions” over the past few decades have enabled millions of people to eat better than they might have otherwise. In fact, countries that suffered recurring famines in years past have now become relatively stable, food-wise; India is actually a food exporter, probably for the first time in its thousands-of-years history. And it also appears that the hybrid crops, which are the main reason for this newfound stability, are relatively resistant to the various plagues and blights that have tormented farmers down through the ages. We are not seeing anything like the Irish potato blight and famine these days, for example – but the extent to which this benign situation is attributable to chemicals and antibiotics is still enough to give one pause. Set the Third World back on its own resources, and see what happens – the result might not be at all edifying.

So what I'm saying is that the current world population – and its relative degree of nutritional sufficiency – could be an artificial phenomenon to some extent, and therefore fragile, and therefore subject to sudden catastrophe... although this has not happened as yet. The most hard-core Darwinist, if you pin them down, has to admit that any conditions that result in increased fertility, and increased birth rates, and increased numbers of individuals growing to reproductive maturity, have to be considered “good”. Which means that, as of right now, world conditions for the human race have to be pronounced “good”. But that would be to ignore the overall environmental impact of said human race, and if you adopt that point of view the scales might swing over to the “bad” side. What I'm trying to say is, it's all a matter of the criterion you adopt. If it's all about human fecundity, we are living in the best world “ever”. If it's about total environmental impact, then... well, who knows how to weigh all those different factors? Some people pretend they do... but they all start out with one premise or another, like “there are too many people on Earth” (to which my response is, “Fine – then why don't you leave?”). Others will cite quality of life – yes, the population of India continues to rise, but do you really want to live in Calcutta? (To which I say – no, but I don't want to live in New York City either.)

So the point is, human populations will continue to rise, and will eventually rise to the detriment of the environment. But there comes a point at which... but let me digress for a moment. It's been a long time since I studied population ecology, but, as I recall, virtually any animal (and plant, for that matter... and fungal, and bacterial, etc.) population has self-limiting capacity, i.e. there are mechanisms programmed into the genome that restrain unlimited growth. Or – there are mechanisms built into the environment that do the same thing. In either case, no population can grow indefinitely... and not only that, but no population can grow to the point where its overall health and survivability is seriously compromised. In other words, no population can grow to the point where all its members are sick and starving. Because if that were the case, then those populations would suffer a catastrophic decline and possibly extinction – and it's just possible that this has happened in the past. So unlimited growth is a “mutation”, in a sense, and limited growth the normal state. Now, the mechanisms by which this is accomplished are as varied as the species themselves. For “lower” organisms, it's simply a matter of limited resources – the healthy members occupy all the territory, or use up all the resources, and no new members can thrive, or even survive (except if they are replacing deceased members). But note – it's never the case that all the members of the species, or group, become weak and sick. Most of them remain strong, and it's only the prospective “new” members that are thwarted. It is, in other words, population control that is imposed by the environment but responded to, in a certain way, by the species. If they all became weak and sick, they would all die – and that would be the end of the species. And again, some may have suffered this fate in the past, but the ones that didn't – that developed a mechanism with which to cope with limited resources – survived.

So – let's get back to the human species. We have not yet exhausted the Earth's resources, despite what the doomsayers say. And no theoretical proof is needed for this – all that is needed is a demonstration that the human race is, still and despite all, increasing in numbers. Case closed! We haven't yet reached the Earth's carrying capacity -- because if we had, by definition our numbers would instantly level off. But we are, nonetheless, straining various resources, and that, it can be argued, is a “quality of life” factor – if only that American liberals like to think that the oceans are clean and unpolluted... that makes their day, even if most people in India couldn't care less. And as I've said, most of what people point to as “evidence” of overpopulation is highly localized, and based on all sorts of non-environmental factors.

So – after this highly-circuitous route, let's get back to the alleged “global decline of fertility rates”. Well, first of all, someone has to demonstrate that the world population is actually on the decline – which it most assuredly is not. It's estimated at 6.778 billion as of today – you know, give or take a few score million. And I remember when it was 2.5 billion for years! So what happened? Again, the “green revolution”, and vaccinations, and sanitation, and health care, and a million other things. So by improving the quality of life for those already living, we also gave rise to the advent of a whole lot more people. Duh! I guess this comes under the heading of “unanticipated consequences”. Most of the world, in fact, has not yet bought into our gentlemanly concept of not even replacing one's own numbers – they are still all about having big families, and “conquering through demographics” (hey – don't laugh, it works).

In fact, according to the Wiki entry, “world population will continue to grow until around 2050”. So what's with this Jenkins guy and “the global decline of fertility rates”? I mean... we're talking about another 41 years of population growth, that's two generations in developed countries and three everywhere else. So what's his deal? Well... it's been my observation that whenever someone starts complaining about “declining fertility rates” they are referring to the white, non-Hispanic populace... and, by extension, to “Western Civilization” and “Christendom” (although someone has to explain to me how Hispanics don't qualify as members of “Christendom” -- unless the speaker is a Protestant, which would, of course, explain everything). And yes, it is demonstrably true that Western European and North American white Christians are failing to replace their numbers. And this includes Catholics, who drank great draughts of population-control Kool-Aid back in the 60s and have yet to realize that they were duped. Who is it that still believes in large families in non-Hispanic North America in this day and age? The Mormons, traditionalist Catholics, Amish, Hassidic Jews, and the occasional rural French Canadians. That's about it. (And note the contribution of religious faith to this phenomenon.) Everyone else is voluntarily consigning themselves to extinction. But hey – according to Darwin, anything that contributes to survival is good, and anything that does not is bad. So by that criterion, religion is good. Ha! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, all you faithful and fanatical “Darwinists”!

So really – we see that the alleged reversal of the conventional wisdom from the “population bomb” to “global decline of fertility” has not actually occurred – and that the only people concerned with the decline in fertility are those who are worried about the decline and eventually extinction of Western Civilization, Christendom, democracy, Shakespeare revivals, and the like. All of which are real concerns, I admit – but hey, when a culture ceases to be, how can one realistically expect its artifacts to live on, except in museums and scholarly journals? And what, after all, explains the decline of the West, population-wise? Nothing more – as Jenkins points out – than secular humanism, with its ultimate emphasis on the individual, the here and now, and self-actualization, to the detriment of succeeding generations. Closely tied to all of this is feminism and “women's rights” -- paramount of which is the “right” not to have children. Well, fair enough – I'm not into coercing women to have, or _not_ have, any number of children. But let's face it, women world-wide have been sold a bill of goods, by which their self-esteem is now based directly on the extent to which they imitate (no matter how badly or ludicrously) men. In other words, real feminism... real womanhood... is sadly out of style. And when this happens, shazam, the birth rate falls. So the planetary landscape is full of self-actualizing but sterile females. Is this any way to be a good Darwinian? I don't think so. (The fact that the planetary landscape is full of sexually hyperactive but childless males is equally dreary.)

So if the news of the decline of the human race is “premature”, is there, in fact, a problem? Well, if one is radically equivocal as to the relative value of various traditions, cultures, creeds (or lacks thereof), value systems, etc. world-wide, then no, there is no problem. The white race could disappear tomorrow and the world would be no worse off – in fact, it seems downright parochial, not to mention “racist”, to even be concerned about such a thing. Plus, let's face it, the white race has had a good run of it... it's had plenty of chances... and now it's time for someone else to take over for a while. “It's Our Turn”, as the Obama campaign propaganda trumpeted. Hey, I've got no problem with this – I'm one of the few people I know who really doesn't mind living in “history”, as opposed to some fantasy world where history has come to an end. (How crushingly boring that would be!)

But let's not leave this topic without speculating as to what's in store for the human race overall – which is to say, if we haven't reached the planet's carrying capacity yet, when will that happen and how will we know? Well, going back to population ecology – in those cases where the environment itself doesn't impose limits, the species itself seems to be capable of doing this, in many cases – in other words, fertility rates will decline way ahead of the point at which all of the members of the species would wind up weak and sick, and hence unable to reproduce at all. In other words, there is a species-based (as opposed to individual-based) mechanism that seems to insure survival overall (and, once again, species that did not develop this ability are no longer with us). So the decline begins when most members of the species are still strong and healthy, and able to reproduce – but for some mysterious reason they “choose” to reproduce at a slower rate, because there is some way in which they sense that environmental limits are about to be reached. This is not fantasy – it happens all the time, especially in species faced with environmental crises (pestilence, climate change, change in nutritional sources, etc.)
or faced with the consequences of their own fertility (running out of territory, food, water, etc.). In other words, things don't have to reach rock bottom before they start to get better – in fact, they can't! So “smart” species know when to cool it on the reproduction thing... and the question is, do humans have that same instinctive capability or do they have to be forcibly sterilized by governments or killed off in war, or by famine or pestilence? Is nature going to do a “tough love” job on the human race, or will the process be relatively benign? The point is – if there is anything left of our survival instincts as a species, I think you're going to see a “voluntary” decline of fertility – if not the one Jenkins describes, then one that has an actual impact – long before mass starvation and illness set in. But not all voluntary declines in fertility will reflect this phenomenon, either – like the non-replacement rates he cites for Europe. There it is a more conscious, self-centered process – like the low birthrates among liberals in this country. I'm talking about something less conscious and more instinctive – and I don't see any evidence of that happening as yet. If anything, the fertility rate in the more stressed parts of the world (like Congo) seem as high as ever, if not higher. But again, that is a local phenomenon. Will we ever get to the point where the human race, in a kind of mass unconscious self-mandate, “agrees” to start having fewer children? Or, again, is it going to have to be a case of “tough love” imposed by Nature? I honestly don't know. All I know for certain is that we're nowhere near that point as yet.