From time to time, there are people who state that country X is doomed because it has a low birth rate. Country X is generally a fairly wealthy and affluent country that many people want to immigrate to. Yet the birthists invariably say, "country X is *doomed* because their birth rate is lower than the 2.0 replacement rate!", where country X is Japan, the EU, the USA or Canada or Australia, etc.
Folks, there are nine BILLION people on this planet. There's no (zero) shortage of people on this planet. Any of the affluent countries in question have their choice of which of those nine billion people they want to import to take the place of babies not being born. Some of the affluent countries in question indeed are taking advantage of that opportunity -- for example, Canada, faced with a plummeting birth rate, has opened up a major operation to cherry-pick the best and the brightest from the rest of the world, and has had no trouble finding all the people they want/need to keep the country going when the baby boomers retire (yes, Canada has baby boomers too!). And other countries (hint: USA) are somewhat taking advantage of that just by having porous borders... the babies born to illegal immigrants become citizens, and take the place of babies not being born to "native-born citizens" (who are... past immigrants. Doh!).
What the birthist bigots typically mean, though, is not that country X is doomed because they won't have the population available to keep necessary services going in the future due to declining birth rates. Rather, birthist bigots typically say that country X is doomed because the imported people ARE NOT WHITE (or Japanese, or fill in the blank with dominant ethnicity). I.e., the imported people are brown, and thus not really people. In short, the birthist argument is by nature a racist argument, and should be countered as such, by saying, "gosh, forgot your white sheet, did you?" or "you forgot to 'heil!' with that racist argument!". In the end, people are people, and if a culture refuses to accept immigrants as really being people, such that immigrants into a dominant culture do not adopt the dominant culture, then the dominant culture deserves to die. 'Nuff said.
-- Badtux the "Better racists, please!" Penguin
These monkey's are just plain stupid.
ReplyDeleteThe challenge for the 21st Century will be how humanity manages the transition to LOWER populations. This could be a good thing -- everyone still left gets a BIGGER slice of the pie! It's especially vital because we'd need, what, nine planet Earths if everyone was to live the way Americans do? We could do it the easy way, by cutting back on our birthing intelligently. Unfortunately, I think we're doomed to do it the hard way, through blood and fire...
ReplyDelete"....if a culture refuses to accept immigrants as really being people, such that immigrants into a dominant culture do not adopt the dominant culture, then the dominant culture deserves to die."
ReplyDeleteThank you, Badtux, I needed that wake-up call.
Thanks again.
You forgot to mention that a few years back Quebec was giving baby bonuses to people willing to breed. It worked! We have lots of little Quebecois babies. :)
ReplyDeleteCall me a pessimist, but I'm going to have to agree with Bukko.
ReplyDeleteWhere did you get your 9 billion number? I thought we hadn't reached 7 billion yet, although the more people there are breeding, the faster that number moves upward.
Then there are of course those religious leaders whose first obligation is to make sure that their brand of religious followers are not outbred by "others."
And religious texts that were written thousands of years ago when the population was much smaller are still paid attention to....Why?
Because most humans are stupid and don't want to think for themselves.
One figure on the wikipedia entry for world population estimated a density of 9 billion by 2050. Currently its 6.-something or other billion
ReplyDelete6 billion, 9 billion, what's a few billion, it's still a lot of people and we have no shortage of people on this planet. Much the contrary. This penguin can't waddle a hundred yards without stumbling over people....
ReplyDeleteWhen the birthist bigots whine about low birthrates, they aren't whining that there's not enough people on the planet. They're whining that there's not enough people like them on the planet -- white bigots, generally (or Asian bigots in the case of Japanese who make such whines).
- Badtux the Overpopulated Penguin