Classical Values :: "Mom and Dad, how could you have been so selfish?"

November 23, 2007

"Mom and Dad, how could you have been so selfish?"

I've never had children, but I have never regarded people who had them as selfish.

However, there's an emerging form of new morality which not only regards having children as selfish, but considers them a threat to the planet.

The Daily Mail discusses people and couples who have therefore had themselves sterilized in order to save the planet. One of them is Toni Vernelli:

At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to "protect the planet".

Incredibly, instead of mourning the loss of a family that never was, her boyfriend (now husband) presented her with a congratulations card.

While some might think it strange to celebrate the reversal of nature and denial of motherhood, Toni relishes her decision with an almost religious zeal.

"Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni, 35.

"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."

This is not a new issue for this blog, and I think what I'll call the "misanthropic left" (for lack of a better term) has been softening people up systematically. First they acclimated people to sterilizing their animals. As I put it in "First, they came for my dog's ovaries":

they'd most likely want to reorient human thinking in such a manner that human childbirth would be phased out gradually. At first the idea would be spread through peer pressure, i.e., having kids would become politically incorrect (as in certain Berkeley circles), then immoral, until finally, when the non-breeders became a fed-up majority. Tired of putting up with the irresponsible and selfish breeders who endangered the planet, eventually they would demand mandatory spay and neuter laws for humans.

This was done with dogs, the breeding (or even buying) of which is now considered to be immoral -- despite the existence of a puppy shortage -- and I don't think it would be all that difficult with a pliant population willing to do as they're told. It might even be easier.

I think it is getting easier, and I don't think it's any coincidence that the people who are having themselves rendered reproductively non-functional are often quite evangelical about animal rights. Back to the Daily Mail:

"When I was a child, I loved bird-watching, and in my teens that developed into a passion for the environment as well as the welfare of animals - I became a vegetarian when I was 15.

"Even my parents used to smile and say: 'You'll change your mind one day about babies.'

"The only person who understood how I felt was my first husband, who didn't want children either.

"We both passionately wanted to save the planet - not produce a new life which would only add to the problem."

So, instead of mapping out plans for a family, Toni and her husband began discussing medical options to ensure they would never reproduce.

My suspicion is that sterilization would further encourage the messianic activism which possess these people. Not only because it derives from misplaced spirituality, but because they don't have to devote time, energy, or money to raising children.

Regular readers may remember the voluminous number of posts I wrote in opposition to California AB1634 -- the mandatory spay and neuter measure. I sounded off about this in post after post (such as here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). The measure was barely defeated, but it is by no means dead.

While it seemed of little relevance at the time, the bill was the brainchild of an animal rights activist named Judie Mancuso. Perhaps because the details of people's personal lives don't interest me much, I paid little attention to Mancuso, and barely noticed this tidbit about her:

[Mancuso's husband] Wicklund, 39, has a software development company. The couple had already decided they would not have children so they could devote their life to animals. Now they decided that Mancuso, who had just turned 40, would quit her job and become a full-time volunteer.

Boy did she ever! Her efforts came within an inch of criminalizing Californians who refuse to cut their dogs nuts off!

There's an older, longer writeup of Mancuso's and Wicklund's no-children decision I found linked at Childfree by Choice, with much discussion of the effect it would have on their politics. From the archived full story:

Growing up in upstate New York, Rolf Wicklund thought everybody had kids, everybody owned their home and everybody got Time magazine. "You didn't order it, it just came to your home," he recalls believing as a child. Times have changed. These days, Wicklund, 31, and his wife, Judie Mancuso, 36, own a home in Laguna Beach, Calif., subscribe to The Nation magazine, and they don't intend to have children. Ever. "I like kids. I like listening to what they say, and I think they're really fun," Wicklund says. "But I don't feel strongly enough that I want to bring another person into the world. And that's the only way that I think anybody should have a baby." Wicklund and Mancuso, who've been married for three years, are part of a growing number of couples who are choosing for a variety of reasons to remain childless or "child-free," as they refer to themselves. "'Childless' means lacking. We're 'free from', " explains Katie Andrews, 31, a middle-school teacher who is married and has no children. "Free from a burden, a responsibility. We're free from the drain on our time and money and resources. We're not `less' anything." These couples - along with singles who don't intend to have kids - are forming social organizations such as No Kidding!, with 32 chapters in the United States and Canada. Some are taking leadership roles and denouncing what they see as inequities in employee-benefits packages and in tax-code provisions favoring parents with dependent children. Advocates of the child-free lifestyle say they are not out to convince other people not to have children. Instead, they're promoting the idea that not having children is a valid reproductive choice, and that the child-free lifestyle should be accepted and respected. In shunning parenthood, they are helping to redefine conventions about family and gender roles, and they're doing so in a climate that is generally considered family-friendly and socially conservative. Judie Mancuso, a vivacious woman with an easy laugh, dark curly hair and clunky black shoes, says she has known she didn't want to have children since she was a kid herself. "I always thought that my feeling about it would change because it was supposed to. You're supposed to have a kid one day," says Mancuso, a project manager for a computer company. It never did, not even when she met Wicklund, a fellow animal lover and a vegetarian, at a computer convention several years ago and began a long-distance relationship - he lived in San Francisco and she was in Beverly Hills, Calif. Nor did it change when they got married when she was 33. "I was still open to the idea that my mind is going change, and then all of a sudden it was like, you know what, it's not going to change," she says. "And I was OK with it. And he's OK." But not everyone else is OK with it. "There's been tons of pressure," she says. "The friends are the ones who've shocked me. Especially when they're having a baby. Their emotions, their hormones are raging with baby, baby, baby. I had one friend tell me, 'Judie, you have to have a baby. It's so amazing.'..." Mancuso and Wicklund live in an airy, spacious home that's decorated with photos of their pet cats and an ebony sculpture in the shape of a curled cat. Sugar, a white Persian cat they found abandoned, rests in a sunny spot in the living room. They both volunteer time to animal-welfare groups. They also like spending time with each other, riding bikes and going out to dinner. "We have put a whole lot of effort to getting to this point in our lives with each other," Wicklund says. "We're at the point where we don't argue, and we have a full schedule," Mancuso says. "Not having kids gives us more time to do things in the community and to further our education." According to the National Center for Health Statistics, there has been a steady increase in the number of voluntarily childless women between 14 and 44 who are married or have been married, from 2.4 percent in 1982 to 4.1 in 1988 to 4.3 in 1990. Other statistics show a more dramatic increase: In 1990 one-quarter of women age 30 to 34 were childless, compared with 16 percent in 1976. Fully 22 percent of all women born between 1956 and 1972 are expected never to bear children. These days, nearly everyone knows adult women who have not had children and don't intend to.

That was in 1999.

Before Global Warming caught on full swing.

Nearly a decade later, it's abnormal for pet animals to have reproductive organs -- in the name of their "rights."

Don't we owe our children the same?

It will take leadership to achieve this goal, and leadership starts in the colleges and universities. In a piece I linked yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer discussed the phenomenon of college kids returning home for Thanksgiving and announcing their newfound veganism. It's almost like being gay:

Often, college is where young people first hear from vegetarians and vegans who believe that meat is unhealthy and that animals are exploited for their flesh, as well as for their milk and eggs. Consuming meat and its byproducts are seen, by this minority, as immoral.

College is also a time young people are establishing their own identities, trying to separate from mom and dad, says Temple University psychologist and vegetarian Frank Farley. And food can be a major point of departure.

As it happens, Thanksgiving is often the first big family gathering a student attends after starting college.

"A common result," says George, "is kids going home on Thanksgiving eve and saying, 'Mom, I'm a vegan and no longer eat meat.' " It's akin, some vegetarians say, to coming out as a gay person.

Hey kids, announcing you've had yourself sterilized is almost as cool as announcing you're a vegan, and while it might not be quite the same as "coming out," the benefits are similar.

And even if you haven't actually had your tubes done yet, talking about it certainly ought to be a good Thanksgiving dinner conversation starter.

(Hmmm.... I have to say, my dark side has a slightly different take on this emerging, "sterilization is unselfish" movement. I ruled out committing suicide in the early 90s, but I never really thought about how selfish I would become by continuing to live.)

Of course, that last remark was intended only as deep dark satire, because the idea of young people sterilizing themselves on the advice of a professor or in order to be cool is just too absurd to be taken seriously.

I'm glad this is just another silly idea that's not going anywhere, because I'd hate to think that the people who "voluntarily" complied with this new moral code might get sick of putting up with those who haven't.

UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, and a warm welcome to all! Comments appreciated.

MORE: Rand Simberg's post about the Cattle Decapitation band make me wonder whether my use of the term "anthropomorphic left" might be understatement. A few words from the band's leader:

The end result of our love of nature is the downfall of humanity.....

....I moved to a more anti-human approach as there's a lot more avenues to explore. We kind of nailed the pro-veg message on our first three to four releases and have since started to investigate humanity and its destruction of nature.....

....I pretty much look at everyone out there like, "If I only had a hand grenade, (expletive) "

Now I know why Jim Jones was such a hit with the "Kool Aid and Cyanide" anarcho punk nihilists back in the 80s.

Might be time to reconsider Pol Pot as a planet healer?

(Via Glenn Reynolds.)

posted by Eric on 11.23.07 at 12:07 PM

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://classicalvalues.com/cgi-bin/pings.cgi/5818

Comments

In my view, these people are being selfish by not having kids. "It's all about me".

Joe Lammers · November 23, 2007 01:16 PM

Being a multiple breeder myself - anyone who thinks raising kids is selfish is pretty effed up - sacrificing all your time, energy and money to provide for your kids would seem to be the opposite of that - but I'm sure Mama Moonbat knows better

bandit · November 23, 2007 01:39 PM

Amazing how gullible people are. I mean, not only is this woman totally brainwashed by feminism, but she's also utterly brainwashed by the environment BS. There's nothing you can do. You cannot de-program these people. Since 95% of American Women are brainwashed with Feminism, and since misandry has been legalized in the USA family court system, the future doesn't look very promising for the old United States of Feminism. Shrugs. I say good riddance. This is what we deserve for not appreciating our men who've done so much for us. And every aspect of our society supports Feminism!

jen · November 23, 2007 02:52 PM

Conversely: you have this bloody twit --

http://www.chicagoboyz.net/archives/003976.html

...rattling on about childless "parasites".

Me? I just wish everybody could mind their own goddamned business.

Billy Beck · November 23, 2007 03:17 PM

I'd have to agree with Joe. My motto is, "No wife, no kids, no pets, no girlfriends"... not because I think having children is selfish, but because I'M selfish. I just don't think relationships are worth the effort, and I don't want any of that family stuff cluttering up my life and taking up all of my time, which I much prefer to spend working on music.

And then there's Jen's point: I love women... until they start talking. If I ever met one with her head screwed on straight, I might change my tune.

Hucbald · November 23, 2007 03:20 PM

Animal rights, vegetarianism, cats - the leftist triangle. Thank God they haven't reproduced. Let's hope they convince all their similarly-minded friends to do likewise. Darwin Akhbar!

Jay Guevara · November 23, 2007 03:23 PM

In my view, these people are considerate. They clear the gene pool so that there are more resources for the rest of us and our children. Frankly, we don't need these self loathing people on earth, do we? It's better they eliminate themselves than for them to eliminate us. I wish the eco-terrorists are as considerate as them.

ic · November 23, 2007 03:27 PM

Your post makes several important points but I can't help thinking it's a good thing these people aren't parents. They would be horrible.

DRJ · November 23, 2007 03:32 PM

In Japan and Western Europe, at least, women are following this and having fewer than replacement level children. The place where this sort of exhortation is really needed is the Arab world, among others.

If anyone wants to take up a collection to send these folks to, say, Cairo or Damascus where they can get up in public and urge people not to have children, count me in for a contribution.

Alex Bensky · November 23, 2007 03:35 PM

People who don't breed tend to "breed" themselves out of existence. If we can survive long enough for the anti-breeders to die out, the problem is solved.

Zero · November 23, 2007 03:39 PM

Those people like Toni REALLY ARE helping the environment.... by cleaning the gene pool. This is survival of the fittest in action. She would be a good candidate for the Darwin Awards this year.

Paul W · November 23, 2007 03:42 PM

We should be thanking these people for cleansing the gene pool. They are volunteering to self limit within one generation. I wish more people like this would consider sterilization. There will then be more resources available for my kids and grandkids!

Doug Leins · November 23, 2007 03:42 PM

If people choose not to have children, fine. Realize, though, that our children will be supporting the old age (Social Security, Medicare etc) of those who remain 'child-free'. Fewer children, fewer future adult workers, fewer resources to care for seniors.

Maisy · November 23, 2007 03:43 PM

I applaud her willingness to take a stand. Now, perhaps it's time for her to go all the way and terminate her own life, to protect the planet...after all, without reproducing she is filling absolutely no useful function for the planet or society at all.

hbowmand · November 23, 2007 03:47 PM

I find it comforting to know that someone as moronic as Toni won't be reproducing.

swassociates · November 23, 2007 03:51 PM

Boy, am I ever glad they're having themselves sterilized. That means future generations won't have to deal with idiots like them ever again.

Lola LB · November 23, 2007 03:54 PM

I joked a few times in law school that I felt good about the future because liberals were aborting themselves into extinction. Wish I had this story to throw in their faces back then.

Brian G. · November 23, 2007 03:56 PM

Shouldn't we support and encourage the self-centered, self-rightious leftists to sterilize themselves?

They probably should not be armed or have driving privileges either...I'm just sayin'.

Thor's Screwdriver · November 23, 2007 03:57 PM

I think Toni and her husband are being selfish for living and having a carbon footprint. If they really want to help the environment, they should just nip off and kill themselves. By staying alive, they are contributing to the problem.

Nothing but a hypocrite.

: )

JLP · November 23, 2007 04:00 PM

This is a slippery slope. How long before some Columbine/Vtech-style mass shooting is justified as 'culling the herd before their reproductive years, to save the planet'? How long before some radical left-wing judge exonerates a mass murderer under these 'environmentalist' grounds?

Normally, this would be insane to suggest. But you know as well as I that this is quite possible in the present state of things.

We are just 1 step away from those who justify the killing of other people's children.

Tood · November 23, 2007 04:04 PM

Normally, this would be insane to suggest. But you know as well as I that this is quite possible in the present state of things.

We are just 1 step away from a world where people justify the killing of other people's children.

Tood · November 23, 2007 04:04 PM

Nothing I love like a self-defeating strategy: I can just sit on the couch while my brood of future voters brings me more beer. I don't even have to do anything to win!

nanonymous · November 23, 2007 04:08 PM

Eric wrote, "what I'll call the 'misanthropic left' (for lack of a better term)"

"Compassionate Misanthropy."

Looking Glass · November 23, 2007 04:16 PM

Thor's Screwdriver

Exactly. If these carbon nutprints were logically consistent, there wouldn't be any of them left after a short term, large spike in suicides.

Usful Ijit · November 23, 2007 04:19 PM

In all serious and with no attempt at humor, I'm not sure if there actually is a sensible line to draw between this and suicide. She pre-judges her own potential children as wastes of carbon, children which presumably she'd raise and thus would have a maximal chance of responsible living, but she gets to go on living until she presumably dies a natural death?

If she is excused by being Vegan, and even judges herself holy enough to take out-of-country trips on airplanes, why can't she extend that excuse to her own potential children?

I truly don't see how her own children-in-potentia can be pre-judged as insufficiently holy to live without condemning her on exactly the same basis.

Therefore, the logical conclusion is that either she sterilized herself because of a logical inconsistency, which hardly makes me want to emulate her, or that the stated reason for sterilization is not the true one, in which case "fundamentally selfishness gussied up in enviro-holiness" really is a pretty reasonable hypothesis, no joke intended. Her stated logic really does compel her to kill herself to be consistent; that's not an obvious joke, it is exactly where the logic inexorably leads.

Jeremy Bowers · November 23, 2007 04:50 PM

People like these have been around all along but are kept in check by the Roe Effect. Those who believe in offspring have them and therefore remain in the vast majority. There are more than there used to be because pre-industrial revolution large families were more valuable: It meant extra hands to run the farm. We still need an average of 2.1 children per couple to ensure the survival of Western civilization from one generation to the next.

Orion · November 23, 2007 05:01 PM

Too bad Toni's mom and dad didn't feel this way,heh.

lummox · November 23, 2007 05:15 PM

Of course, things going the way they do, they'll have no moral issue with living off the productive ability of everyone else's children when they pull state backed pensions and medical care in their elder years. Or are they going to save resources by offing themselves when their bodies demand more substance than their own productivity can support?

Don · November 23, 2007 05:44 PM

May I presume that both of these Lefty twits (and their ilk) will commit suicide the moment they've received more Social Security benefits than they paid in? After all, surely they wouldn't want to live off the output of other people's little carbon footprint producers, would they?

Personally, idiots like this can't cease their CO2 spewing soon enough for me.

JorgXMcKie · November 23, 2007 06:01 PM

This reminds me of the movie "Idiocracy."

Ben · November 23, 2007 06:05 PM

These people can preach their high-minded motives all they want, but the simple fact is, they don't want to have to sacrifice even the smallest bit of self-absorption in order to raise a child. And even if they won't admit it, the day will come that they realize, when they're facing old age and not so vigorous health, if they become incapacitated, there's no one there to care.

RebeccaH · November 23, 2007 06:21 PM

"Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni, 35.

You're goddamn right it is. And it's not worth taking chances--I plan to have at least a half dozen little buggers to carry my line on.

E Conan McClelland · November 23, 2007 07:03 PM

Speaking as a childless-by-choice woman who does a lot of animal volunteer work...people like this just make me cringe. I hate, hate, hate it when people make such a big political to-do about the decision not to have kids. It's not a political statement. It doesn't make you better than all those "breeders". Animal care is not morally better than rearing a child. And you aren't "saving the world" by refusing to have kids.

It's a personal choice, pure and simple. But some people, like the women quoted in this article, are so narcissistic and hateful about the whole thing that they have to create this bogus philosophy around not having kids that ties into the green, holistic, "left-wing" agenda. It's yet another way for to convince themselves that they are better than the right-wing yahoos with big, loving families. Can you say, "insecure"?

Kimberly · November 23, 2007 07:12 PM

Logically, these people should not be content with merely pre-emptively killing the future generation. As others have noted, they need to take themselves out. And I surely hope that is as far as they take their logic - because the next step would be to start culling the herd and taking out the selfish bastards who, unlike themselves, are not guilt ridden by existence.

Fortunately I do not know any of these people, because I would not enjoy having to keep a close eye on my acquaintances, looking for the telltale signs that they have made the decision to start killing.

Steve Skubinna · November 23, 2007 07:34 PM

I worked with Rolf in 1996 at a little media development company-- a really nice guy but he didn't much like people voicing opposing viewpoints. Hey Rolf, if you read this, hiya! Talked to any of the other AMI people lately?

Ken H · November 23, 2007 08:06 PM

When I was fifteen years old, my church issued a statement that said (in part,) "the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children," and "[w]e declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force." I thought it was the most mind-numbingly obvious statement in the history of the universe (in part because I was fifteen.) Funny how subcultures can experience such a huge shift in philosophy so quickly.

Sarah · November 23, 2007 08:56 PM

"Logically, these people should not be content with merely pre-emptively killing the future generation. As others have noted, they need to take themselves out."

Precisely. But, like reformed alcoholics or smokers, it won't be enough just for them to quit. These people won't be satisfied with anything less than culling the herd. And of course, THEY will be needed to make the difficult decisions about who gets to live and who gets to make the glorious sacrifice for the sta---er, I mean, the planet.

Sound like hyperbole? Just watch.

Chris Wren · November 23, 2007 09:54 PM

Call them the Human Extinctiionists.

John Costello · November 23, 2007 09:57 PM

You may be on to something there about the link between neutering pets and hating the idea of more people. Obsession with animals and supposed animal rights is definitely a feature of greens and postmodernists.

Thanks to our lazy prejudiced media, many people still don't know that world population is peaking and will soon begin to decrease. This is not some fringe idea I'm pushing, but rather the consensus or pretty much all serious demographers. Many otherwise well-informed people are either unaware that plunging birth rates mean big changes soon, or else have heard about western birth rates falling but aren't aware how widespread the phenomenon is around the world. Here are few easy reading links for anybody who wants to get up to speed on the subject.

The Global Baby Bust

Sub-replacement fertility

Four Surprises in Global Demography

Anonymous · November 23, 2007 10:02 PM

Tip o' the hat to Hucbald. This is perfectly Darwinistic. In a mere generation they will have successfully eliminated their own threat to the species.

RealToast · November 23, 2007 10:31 PM

This is nothing new. My wife and I made the same decision 35 years ago. While we weren't so self-righteous about it, the basic motivation was the same, both the surface one (save the planet) and the underlying one (personal selfishness). At 53, this decision is probably my biggest single regret about my life.

I RESENT the eco-freaks and pseudo-scientific hucksters of the late 60s who filled the airwaves and my impressionable young head with gloom 'n doom propaganda. ZPG is just, like, facts, man! The planet is dying and we're killing it! Faugh. Liars, idiots, and scoundrels, the lot. While I take responsibility for my life, I truly believe I very likely would have made different choices if I hadn't been so convincingly lied to.

I feel sorry for the many young people today who are being similarly taken in.

DSmith · November 23, 2007 10:58 PM

Geez, if only there was some way of cutting these social parasites out of intergenerational wealth-transfer schemes like Social Security. Bloody annoying that my children would (if they lived in the US) be forking over 20% of the salary to pay their medical expenses once they're over 65, while they won't have any little ones to return the favor for me.

Carl Pham · November 23, 2007 10:59 PM

The radical left are a modern incarnation of the Skoptsy, a Russian sect that practiced castration: http://etor.h1.ru/castrati.html

Interestingly, such groups can survive indefinitely. However, the modern left wants to choose not only for themselves, but for all others, too. Be warned!

Herb Sorensen · November 23, 2007 11:34 PM

Of course I'm handicapped by having known all my life that I wanted to have kids, and by the shocking ease with which my wish was granted, but I can't see how explicating the free-rider problem makes Shannon Love of ChicagoBoyz a "bloody twit." Free-riderism is what it is: if everyone chose this path, there'd be no "ride" to take. Just as when someone tells me she (almost always she) isn't having her children vaccinated because it's so terribly dangerous to do so, I have to bite my tongue hard on the free-rider problem, wherein she relies on my apparently endangering my own children in order to protect hers. (Preemptive note re: vaccinating - if it should be the case that some children are indeed super-sensitive to the preservatives in vaccines, yadda yadda, I'm pulling for a screening test that will help to identify those children so they - and only they - can be taken out of the vaccination pool. I have no desire to see any child endangered.)

An older friend, now retired with his second wife and with both grown children from his first marriage living far away and involved to a greater extent with their mom, has decided to join a church of primarily gay and lesbian (and childless) people (not that there's anything... well, you know). The two of them give their reason for this decision as the warmth and welcome they received there. But I have to wonder if part of it is sheer self-preservation in old age: a whole bunch of ageing non-breeders might be better able to take care of one another than one effectively childless - pardon me, child-free - couple.

Me, I was lucky enough to marry a very societally productive man, such that the burden we bear is not crushing, and we were lucky enough to have no fertility issues. So I'm still campaigning for more kids because, in the free and advanced society we enjoy, we will always have a certain amount of this kind of free-riderism, and those of us who have chosen children have to overcome it for everybody's good. (Possibly this is a communist concept. Ooops.)

Jamie · November 24, 2007 04:38 AM

....I pretty much look at everyone out there like, "If I only had a hand grenade, (expletive) "

If he had a hand grenade, I wonder if the band leader would have the courage of conviction to start with himself. Most of those people seem to believe they deserve to continue to live even while they pronounce policies and measures to mete out death to others.

lrC · November 24, 2007 11:53 AM

> I can't see how explicating the free-rider problem makes Shannon Love of ChicagoBoyz a "bloody twit."

It's not "explicating" that makes SL a twit, it's her explicating.

SL is about a comma away from demanding subsidies, which is the near-universal approach to free-rider problems. In fact, subsidies are pretty much the only reason for claiming that something is a "free rider problem" and SL's explication is standard issue for such claims, missing only the demand. Instead, we get "I'm not asking for subsidies, just pointing out that there's a free rider problem here."

SL goes ballistic if you point that out.

If I'm paying for it, I'm going to insist on controlling it.

Anonymous · November 24, 2007 06:09 PM

DSmith: Geez, if only there was some way of cutting these social parasites out of intergenerational wealth-transfer schemes like Social Security....

Ah, but these people are not holding a winning hand. When they're old, their assets will consist of various sorts of paper and hot air---investments, who's conversion into consumption depends on their finding a "greater fool" to sell them to and promises from the government (including keeping the currency vaguely stable). Plus their votes.

Those who are still productive---which includes all who officially bear arms---won't have to change the political system that much to radically change the game and turn the parasites into so much virtual Soylent Green.

Those who have children will be in better shape than the parasites (if they treated them well, which these inter-generational transfer systems strongly discourage), but all in all it will have to get ugly when the older generation's consumption requirements exceed what the productive can supply to them. The only (partial) way out of this trap is finding greater fools from other countries to buy assets (their's and the government's, if we safely assume it's still in deficit spending mode), and that's rather dangerous to depend upon.

Anonymous · November 24, 2007 09:39 PM

Sekt�r · November 25, 2007 10:57 AM

AB 1634 Saves Taxpayers Millions of Dollars, Cuts the Need to Euthanize Millions of Animals, and Relieves Overcrowded Animal Shelters.

AB 1634 asks that most dogs and cats in the State of California be spayed or neutered. More than 20 common sense exemptions are provided in the bill, including for show and sporting dogs, law enforcement dogs, dogs used in search and rescue, pets that are too old or in poor health, and guide, service and signal animals.

This is the right legislation at the right time � a common-sense, humane and taxpayer-friendly solution to a real and costly problem.

Amber · December 5, 2007 02:42 PM

i'm also reminds me of the movie "Idiocracy."

Wellness Bayern · December 8, 2007 08:28 AM