I’ve been meaning to write about this piece (summarized in the video above) about the ways the right has woven together an agenda of racism, specifically anti-Muslim hysteria, anti-immigration hysteria, and anti-feminism to create this myth that there’s an imminent destruction of the white, Christian race due to insufficient sperm worship. In America, we hear cute little stories about how European governments are bribing women to have babies, and we may just keep moving, but as Joyce notes, this is part of a larger racist agenda with genocidal overtones, a particularly troubling thing, considering the widespread belief that Europeans learned a valuable lesson about the possible consequences of demonizing a religious minority in their midst. Maybe it didn’t stick as hard as it should have.
What was a conservative drumbeat about Europe’s death has become mainstream media shorthand, complementing ominous news items about Muslim riots in France; Muslim boycotts in London; Muslim “veil” debates in Denmark; and empty European churches transformed into mosques, with calls to prayer replacing church bells. Evangelical luminary Chuck Colson, head of the vast Prison Fellowship ministry and a close ally of George W. Bush, espoused a conspiracy theory in which he construed an Islamic Council of Europe handbook for Muslims trying to keep the faith abroad as a “soft terrorism” plot for takeover. The late Oriana Fallaci lambasted Europe’s transformation into a Muslim colony, “Eurabia.” And in a recent political match in Switzerland, a campaign poster depicted a flock of white sheep kicking a black sheep out of their pasture, “For Greater Security.” The refrain is that the good-faith multicultural tolerance approach of the Netherlands has been tried and has failed, which is arguably a few polite steps from Mosher’s summary of the problem: that Muslim immigrants are simply “too many and too culturally different from their new countries’ populations to assimilate quickly…. They are contributing to the cultural suicide of these nations as they commit demographic suicide.” Or, as he declared while rallying a gathering of profamily activists last spring in Poland, “I want to see more Poles!”
How weird is it that Chuck Colson is bandying around what sounds like a 21st century version of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”? As a nationally noted critic of Catholic dogma and authority figures, I have to admit I chuckled to find out that John Paul II, who is held up as this modicum of generosity and tolerance compared to Pope Ratz, was just as willing to resort to screeching racism in order to bully women into submission (assumed to be the result of passing a minimum number of babies out of one’s nethers).
The last two popes have involved themselves in the debate, with John Paul II pronouncing a “crisis of births” in 2002 in an anomalous papal address to Italy’s Parliament and Benedict XVI remarking on the “tragedy” of childless European couples and beatifying an Italian peasant woman for raising twelve children.
To repeat Dave Neiwert’s refrain: If conservatives really, really hate being called fascists, then maybe they should quit talking like them.
We feminists love to talk in gibberish, academic terms like “intersection of oppressions”, but nowhere is it more clear how this functions than the way that racism is being used to justify sexism and vice versa in these discussions. The motivations of so-called “pro-lifers” are really laid bare here. The comments from “pro-lifers” at RH Reality Check are just awesome, too. The “sanctity of life” arguments don’t extend to the sanctity of Muslim life, it turns out. Like this winner, who I recognize from a former discussion, and who doesn’t understand to slink away in shame after I called him out for lying about Margaret Sanger’s supposed genocidal motivations.
All the effort put forth by feminists and others in Europe to limit population has led to the massive influx of Muslim who are not only uninterested in being “assimilated”, but are working actively to transform their host countries. When you’re sitting in a suburban cafe in the US, it’s easy to dismiss the efforts by people overseas to preserve their cultures. It’s easu to say they are always motivated by a malign intolerance of “otherness”, but the assassination of film director Theo van Gogh for daring to work on a film about domestic violence against Muslim women, honor killings of young women who have shamed their families by dating, women who go to specialist doctors to have their labia resewn after childbirth–these are reality in Europe, and a foreshadowing of what’s ahead for the women of Europe. The irony is that the feminist movement is enabling a more severe “patriarchy” than the one it was trying to escape.
Turns out the hand-wringing concerns about the secret racist motivations of pro-choicers were paper-thin. Open racism suddenly becomes entirely excusable if it’s about denying women the right to control their own fertility. The “have more white babies or we’ll have to make you live under a veil” threat is the patriarchal version of “quit your crying or we’ll really give you something to cry about”.
It’s interesting to look at this during a contentious primary season where the mainstream media continually creates this false dichotomy of racism vs. sexism. The “demographic winter” panic shows that racism and sexism are far from being discrete categories that can even be pitted against each other in some sort of Oppression Olympics. Really, it’s all tightly woven together.
86 Responses to “Demographic baby racers take your marks”
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I was under the impression that Paying People to Have Babies was simply social supports for Citizens (of any ethnic background) during the time their children are young.
For a while - maybe even now - Quebec was offering support assistance to Francophone families to bear and raise their children. A fair amount of this assistance went to immigrant Hatians and Moroccans and other non-white Francophones with existing or growing large families.
In either case, the emphasis is on supporting families (socialism which would not be considered acceptable to the bigoted wretches unless it has eugenic overtones), or maintaining populations of native-born citizens or cultural/linguistic groups preferentially over future immigrants. So long as the policies do not racially or ethnically discriminate (treat all citizens or residents equally), one could argue that maintaining a native born population is in the interest of stability.
I think a lot of conservatives are as afraid, or more so, of Latinos “outbreeding” Anglos in the U.S. as they are of Muslim bogeymen (bogeywomen?) in Europe. Most of them don’t quite have the nerve to come out and say so, but that’s probably what motivates a lot of the fulmination about “illegal immigrants.”
I always want to ask women like the one in the video home come they’re not at home, squeezing out a baby every spring, if they’re so worried about the lack of white babies.
Kinda like how I always wanted to ask Phyllis Schlafly why she wasn’t at home taking care of her husband/family instead of being out in public telling other women how scummy they are for not staying home and taking care of their husbands/families ….
Wouldn’t that be something to see on TV?
I am continually astounded at how often and how quickly conservatives retreat to racist isolation with the birthrate thing. I think you’re right that it gets some weird pass because it’s about birthrates.
The Minutemen-style immigration panickers, for instance, like to bandy around statistics about how by 2030, there will be more Latinos in California than whites. They do this in public, like it’s perfectly normal to freak out about how many people of what race are around you…and for some reason, the racism of that statement is completely ignored. I’ve found the best response to that is to say, “So what?”, then stare at them while they try to come up with a reason that’s not nakedly racist.
Down with specialist doctors who resew labia after childbirth! Put the OB-GYNs out of business!
This Ethiopian Orthodox guy I know at work told me how horrible it is that Muslims are outbreeding Christians. This phenomenon is apparently not limited to white people from Europe and America.
There were more latinos in California in 1630 than whites.
The right wing fantasies of Eurabia under sharia are laughable. The situation stand as this: in 30-40 years the muslim immigrant will be
a)integrated and secularized just another religiously apathetic group
b)if the trend of increasing self-segregation and rapid birth rates continues it’s only a matter of time before the Europeans go serbian on them.
Anyhow the problem is solved amicably or not
Ms Kate, Quebec does have such a policy, but I don’t think it was ever restricted to Francophone families, and it certainly isn’t now. The province does require that immigrants know or learn French, and it does have French as its only official language (so there’s no English version of the link above), and yes this does lead to discrimination in some domains. Just not this one.
Ok, can we start comparing this rhetoric to that against Jews in prewar Germany now? I mean fer chrissake, how much closer does it have to get before anyone other than Neiwart starts taking it seriously?
Okay, but she’s just describing the phenomenon, not advocating for it.
And I can’t believe how those men in the intro clip talk as if the human race is on the verge of extinction. Seems like a science fiction movie.
This sort of crap is why I always get *really* nervous whenever the zero population growth advocates start pushing their rhetoric.
It just ain’t ever going to be enacted without genocidal racist’s help.
TJ,
Exactly. If someone rattles off the birthrate discrepancy, I say, “…and?”
A roll of the eyes and some comment on how liberals don’t “get it” generally follows. Racism in the 21st century is something unspoken. It needs no explanation among those who adhere to it, it simply is, and it is Right. If you don’t understand it intuitively, something’s wrong with you.
This sort of crap is why I always get *really* nervous whenever the zero population growth advocates start pushing their rhetoric.
It just ain’t ever going to be enacted without genocidal racist’s help.
How does that track? As I understand it, Zero population growth is about contraception use and planned pregnancies, all of which are standard pro-choice issues with no racial connotations.
It’s just as likely that a mixed racial couple (like my wife and I) will choose to have one or two beautiful mixed race babies rather than what these wackos are advocating, which is essentially that, for the good of the master race, I find some Aryan woman with wide hips and have a dozen mulling lily white brats.
I’m curious how this plays out with the “mothers on welfare or foodstamps should have to take depo provera (or some other long-term birth control) while they are on it” that I sometimes hear.
I’ve mostly assumed it was just a racist assumption that the people on welfare are mostly non-white, but I could be wrong. (I could see it more a libertarian-style, “if I am bailing you our with taxpayer money, I get to control you” thing.
“How does that track? As I understand it, Zero population growth is about contraception use and planned pregnancies, all of which are standard pro-choice issues with no racial connotations.”
…because there’s a long history of using these arguments to justify things like forced sterilization, etc.
It’s the American version of Lebensunwertes Leben.
Unless the race crazies are held in check, that way lies madness…
So we should really just shut up and take it from the more friendly “patriarchy” (don’tcha just love the scare quotes around it?)I mean, it’s not like feminists have ever had anything negative to say about sharia or genital mutilation or the Taliban before 9/11. So why don’t we all just get back in the kitchen and bake some pies between squirting out more pasty white offspring.
I guess the hysterical morons led by a certain third-rate Canadian proto-fascist don’t understand that birth rates in most Muslim countries are falling rapidly as well.
Actually, Fluxisrad, the Quebec baby bonus program Ms. Kate is(may be) referring to, which was definitely an attempt to promote an increase in the birthrate, was canceled in 1997. The program you link to is the child care allowance, which is to offset the cost of, well, caring for children. The amount of money given to each family is calculated based on both family income and number of children, while the old baby bonus program distributed set amounts of money for each child that was born. The current program is more about income redistribution than making more baybees.
Biter scribe, a lot of conservatives are willing to come right out an say it thus the popularity of he ‘Reconquista’ meme here in California and the Southwest generally. The fear that if Latinos become a majority in any state we will immediately have the Mexican flag flying over the state house infects a lot of otherwise sane people.
Oh, I meant to add how much I hate blaming the victim. “It’s feminism’s fault if the patriarchy fights back and becomes more abusive.”
No, patriarchy is intrinsically evil. Exposing that evil underbelly doesn’t mean that women deserve MORE abuse.
RE: Keith above–Neil Steinberg in the Chicago Sun-Times had an essay along the same lines–the trouble we’re having in passing illegal immigration reform will be seen as ridiculous by our mixed-race children and grandchildren. They’ll pass reasonable reforms easily and look at today’s politicians as if they were fighting over “colored” drinking fountains.
Personally, I call my kids “stealth Mexicans” b/c they are so pasty white and Irish-looking that no one can tell they are “mixed”.
Matthew,
You say that racism these days is unspoken, which has been my experience as well - but that reminds me of what people say about the difference between racism in Northern (unspoken) and Southern (still spoken) states.
Here in Minnesota, unspoken racism is definitely the public rule, though I certainly heard the ol’ N-word here and there in high school (early 90s) from people I knew who either thought it was normal or maybe just okay since everybody in the car/table/whatever was white. Haven’t personally heard it in quite a while, but then I’m not in the great potpourri of public education anymore.
What I hear these days is more subtle stuff, attitudes about neighborhoods (Minneapolis/St. Paul are seriously segregated) and immigrants - Latino, Hmong, Somali.
““I want to see more Poles!””
I’m not even gonna say it . . .
What a perfect shitstorm. The New World Order people and the John Birchers and the standard-issue cracker-ass racists can have a common cause, and now they’ve got a European example that’s even connected to the War On Terra. And the gummint’s even in on it, they’ve infiltrated and given us nothing but a slate of pro-immigration candidates on both sides.
Next time somebody says Trilateral Commission, take a drink.
Yeah, because none of those things can be illegal and punishable without patriarchy…
“They’ll pass reasonable reforms easily and look at today’s politicians as if they were fighting over “colored” drinking fountains.”
It’s inevitable. And (most) people won’t even think twice about it.
The scary thing is realizing there are still people who think “colored” drinking fountains and the like were good and proper. They’re the ones who never accept any social/demographic changes unless they match their ideal racial makeup.
I don’t think they’re reachable. We’re just going to have to wait until they die off…
If these people are indeed concerned about being out-bred by muslims, and also oh-so-worried about the way muslim women may be treated, then I must assume they are spending most of their free time advocating and working for more education and rights for muslim girls/women, yes? It addresses both their concerns, since the more rights and opportunities women have in a society, the fewer children they tend to have.
Ah but that would be a “feminist” solution… can’t have that, oh no.
You know what would be really gut-deep depressing? A “Stuff White People (The Other Ones, The Ones Who Don’t Like NPR) Hate” blog.
The scary part about the people in a tizzy about increasing white people’s birth rate is that they don’t just want to have more white people, they want the political power that having more xenophobic white people brings. Those nutty Dominionists–are they making any progress? I hope not.
Personally I’ve been more worried about the fundies outbreeding rational people, then homeschooling the kids to indoctrinate them into crazy-assed beliefs.
However, I take comfort in the assumption that most progressives came from families that were more conservative that they are.
Does that make sense?
Every time this comes up I can’t help but be reminded of that classic Public Enemy Album “fear of a black planet” … except I guess now it would be fear of a brown planet, why the hell are people so damn xenophobic?
DeadMan
Ah, the oppressed minority fortress mindset — there needs to be More of Us, and we don’t care who we step on to get there. Another place you see this exact same rhetoric is in the Israeli press, representing both factions. Their term for it is “demographic warfare,” and it is, of course, waged on the bodies of women.
No matter who they are, religious right-wingers like to claim to be an oppressed minority entitled to their feeling of power by oppressing women even further.
Makes perfect sense, Uncular1.
The film “Idiocracy” is based on that very notion; that uneducated hicks will outbreed educated liberal types, thereby leading to the decline of civilization.
This has been around for a LONG time in conservative circles, btw - both the OMG Muslims outbreeding us! specific version, the wider “Foriegners Will Outbreed Us!” and the widest “Human race will go extinct!” if we don’t ban abortion & contraception & homosexuality. I first heard all of them in the 1970s usually with the same lurid examples - OMG a MOSQUE in SPAIN! What would Isabella think? as well as Aging Japan and drug-ridden Switzerland for cautionary tales of the abandonment of Traditional Moral Values.
(One of my first overt heretical acts was saying to myself circa age 14 - I don’t want to have children, and the human race isn’t going to go extinct for lack of my genetic contribution, btw. Didn’t have the nerve to say it out loud to our Heritage Foundation friends, of course, but I knew I was a terrible mortal sinner…)
You know what would be really gut-deep depressing? A “Stuff White People (The Other Ones, The Ones Who Don’t Like NPR) Hate” blog.
Orange, I hate to break it to you, but I know quite a few NPR-listening racists up here in the Greater Boston area, as well as some in California and New York and Ohio. Being “kulturny” doesn’t translate to being liberal, there are LOADS of cultured, postgrad level white collar conservatives - and vice-versa, I know more than a few never-finished-school backwoods types who are as liberal/progressive as you could ask for, because they believe in all those Norman-Rockwell ideals of fairness and equality no matter their level of schooling. Watch out for smug cultural assumptions - they often lead you false.
There is no such thing and there never was. All parents receive assistance.
The out-breed the hordes crowd seems to think that human societies are like rival ant-hills or something. You need more bodies or else the colony fails. Weirdly I remember reading in Khrushchev’s memoirs about a similar conversation he had with Mao. Mao claimed that the Communist world should attack the West immediately because they had so many more people. Khrushchev tried to explain that with machine guns and nuclear weapons, it just didn’t matter who had more people. So mass murderers like Nikita can get it but not home-grown American nutjobs.
In the history of immigration, assimilation is much more a function of the larger society’s willingness to integrate the immgrants, rather than the immigrants’ willingness to assimilate. The only exception is when the new settlers have sufficient military power to conquer the host country as in South Africa, Palestine, and the Americas. A bunch of disaffected teens in isolated slums in France or undocumented dishwashers and vegetable-pickers in the United States hardly qualify as Cortes or Winthrop.
Here in England I get child benefits and have happily salted away the investment baby bond I received from the government for my two year-old. Clearly, I didn’t realize I was being bribed to have a baby. I thought I was doing it because I bloody well wanted a family, an heir, someone to bounce on my knee and tell bedtime stories to! The government handouts seemed like a just and necessary helping hand to new parents.
Then again, my son is mixed-race, so I assume that to the frothing conservatives he doesn’t count.
MikeEss:
The scary thing is realizing there are still people who think “colored” drinking fountains and the like were good and proper. They’re the ones who never accept any social/demographic changes unless they match their ideal racial makeup.
I don’t think they’re reachable. We’re just going to have to wait until they die off…
I wish I had your optimism. As far as I can tell, this attitude is at least as common among the young as the old. and you had better believe that the economic depression we’re entering is going to make it a whole lot worse, as young white people in what used to be called the middle class find themselves increasingly desperate and marginalized and look for someone to blame for the fact that they don’t have the opportunities their parents had. Immigrants and nonwhites will be the most obvious and accessible target of their rage.
“Immigrants and nonwhites will be the most obvious and accessible target of their rage.”
I guess I just hope some sense of the wrongness of racism will have snuck in.
The presidential election this year will probably be a big test of that theory.
If McCain pulls it out, we probably haven’t evolved enough. If Obama succeeds, it will be a nice indication that there might be some hope for us yet…
MikeEss,
Agreed. 2008 will tell us how far we’ve come, and it ain’t over yet by a longshot.
Never understood the logic of that myself. According to the same groups of people, the US of A is Teh Greatest and Everyone Wants to Be Like US, Mexico is a shithole that everyone wants to leave…and the Mexicans going to the US have a secret plan to rejoin the shithole.
Yeah, okay. And these people want to be in charge?
It’s funny how they worry about whities being ‘outbred’ by people in the third countries, but support Bush, who cut fundings to any world org that provides family planning. Global gag rule.
It’s like the hate women, destroy but refuse to let women escape from their lives thing.
It makes a lot more sense if you remember that “mothers on welfare” in conservaspeak is codeword for “black mothers”.
“Israeli … ‘demographic warfare’”
I had a philosophy professor in college who postulated that all of the attitudes found in ancient Hebrew society (and, hence, in the Old Testament or Torah) regarding sexual morality — “go forth and multiply” and restrictions on various sexual acts, etc — were a cultural adaptation brought about by military necessity: namely, a small, nomadic tribe finds itself in hostile territory, and wants to lay claim to some of that territory, and must therefore create new, little Hebrews as quickly as possible …
Not exactly relevant, but there ya go …
The thread IMHO is kind of academic/theoretical.
I pulled out some old pictures of the neighborhood I grew up in in the 50’s, and compared it with pictures I took in the late 90’s. The neighborhood in the 50’s was in Southern California. On my side of the tracks the demographics were about 50% white, 50% Hispanic. The other side of the tracks was 100% white. Typical post war 2 bedroom/1 bath on 50x100 ft lots. No or one car per house. Nice neighbors, quiet, clean. Working class, little shopping district to walk to, soda fountain, hardware store. Nice to grow up in. Today, the other side of the tracks is 100% Asian, my side is 100% Hispanic. Six cars per house, grafiti, abandoned/trashed shopping district, gangs.
Still a few nice neighbors. Multiply by many cities in the county. No fear of the “other”. Just don’t like rusting cars blocking driveway, patching bullet holes in the masonry. What’s going to improve this?
Somehow I don’t think the answer is “white babies”
“Somehow I don’t think the answer is “white babies””
…it is if the question is “what goes well with chardonnay?”…
:)
Thanks for the correction, Ugirl. That track much better with my recollection of the program. I was mostly trying to make the point Sirkowski made a bit later on.
“Today, the other side of the tracks is 100% Asian, my side is 100% Hispanic. Six cars per house, grafiti, abandoned/trashed shopping district, gangs.
Still a few nice neighbors. Multiply by many cities in the county. No fear of the “other”. Just don’t like rusting cars blocking driveway, patching bullet holes in the masonry. What’s going to improve this?”
…because you just can’t live with those damn Asians and Hispanics, ‘cause they all have six rusting cars on each driveway, graffiti, a trashed shopping district, gangs, and shoot bullets into your masonry…WTF?
It’s so much better when it’s white people’s rusting cars, graffiti, gangs, etc., right?
Isopluvial, how are you going to feel when you’re forced to learn Mandarin in order to speak with our Chinese overlords?…
Amazing how US conservatives and fundies are more concerned about Europe’s whiteness than most of us Europeans are.
I suppose we should be glad and everso thankful that Papa America is looking after us since we apparently can’t do so ourselves.
I won’t have to learn Mandarin, because Global Warming will have caused me to move to a place where I will have to worry about rusting snowmobiles and whether or not walrus sashimi is available!
Just to counterpoint Isopluvial, I recently read an article about illegals in Ohio (I think it was the youngstown/warren area) in which all the locals agreed the influx of hispanic workers actually improved the neighborhoods. You know, they kept the local stores afloat and had nice gardens and whatnot, and were fixing up the previously abandoned/foreclosed homes left behind when the steel went away. Most of them weren’t illegal, of course, which is why they were buying property.
No fear of the “other”. Just don’t like rusting cars blocking driveway, patching bullet holes in the masonry. What’s going to improve this?
A functional economy, zoning system and adequate policing.
There was some fear that my brother’s neighborhood was going to end up like this because an influx of people from various places resulted in some, uh, nonstandard land use. The police and city workers went around explaining to the new homeowners and new-arrival renters that you cannot pave your lawn and put six cars on the property when city ordinances have forbidden it for decades. There are minimum standardards for the upkeep of your property and a maximum number of vehicles based on lot size. You will be fined until you fix it if you violate those laws.
Amazing how quickly it all stopped when there was some communication of responsibility (and enforcement). Many places turn into shitholes because poverty levels mean the existing laws are never enforced, reinforcing the spiral.
Isopluvial,
“What’s going to improve this?”
Getting the economy out of the shitter.
S’true. Your problem isn’t race, it’s poverty. And as to what’s to be done about that? Well, it’s liberal economic policies. Or genocide I guess.
Cake or death?!?
Singapore, Japan and China natural growth are now far below replacement rate. (Korea, Taiwan are entering that zone very quickly too)
I think Japan is about as low as Italy. (so much for western civilization is collapsing)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4065647.stm
The Japanese government says urgent policy changes are needed to persuade women to have more children.
Japan currently has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. Discrimination in the workplace and poor government policies have been blamed for deterring many Japanese women from having children.
=========
incidentally, speaking of massive population implosion, during the AIDS epidemic central africa lost some 10-20% of it’s productive population. Nobody is crying there.
What the matthew show and Ms. Kate said…
The economy is much worse than the CEO-servants in the government will acknowledge. The actual “real life” unemployment rate has got to be much closer to 8%+ than the bogus 4% figures that get thrown around.
And when you DO have a job, there’s no guarantee you make enough to do much more than just survive…
But I guess as long as we all have TVs, VCRs, DVD players, cell phones, and a car, there must not be any poor people in the US…
List of birth rate. (in fact, the top… these women are not breeding fast enough are actually advance asian countries.)
amusing note: China has lower birth rate than US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_birth_rate
I love the guy who says,
“For those of us who were raised to believe the teachings of Thomas Malthus, or Charles Darwin…”
People are “raised to believe the teachings of Thomas Malthus”? Really? I guess I need to check amazon.com for the board-book version of An Essay on the Principle of Population.
And Isopluvial, people have made the same attacks against pretty much every immigrant group to this country — the Irish/Italians/Russians/Jews are dirty, and smell funny, there are too many of them, and when they moved in they ruined my old neighborhood.
Irish! Damn dirty drinking Irish!
Same shit, different era. We used to worry about the Irish outbreeding us and now the nativist party is about to nominate a McCain for president.
Cake or death?!?
Cake, please.
…a particularly troubling thing, considering the widespread belief that Europeans learned a valuable lesson about the possible consequences of demonizing a religious minority in their midst. Maybe it didn’t stick as hard as it should have.
Actually something that’s still very unclear to me is exactly how much traction all this has within Europe itself. It seems like every time this comes up, the bulk of the people I hear getting freaked out about Europe’s supposed “decline” aren’t in fact European themselves, but Americans getting freaked out on behalf of Europe? Of course, it’s not like I have a good perspective on what is or isn’t happening in European media and culture…
I had a philosophy professor in college who postulated that all of the attitudes found in ancient Hebrew society (and, hence, in the Old Testament or Torah) regarding sexual morality — “go forth and multiply” and restrictions on various sexual acts, etc — were a cultural adaptation brought about by military necessity: namely, a small, nomadic tribe finds itself in hostile territory, and wants to lay claim to some of that territory, and must therefore create new, little Hebrews as quickly as possible …
Not exactly relevant, but there ya go …
On the contrary, it’s a very salient point, Stephen. “Victory Through Superior Number of Babies” is one of the more pernicious memes to come form the Bible.
And yet, come November, most people will probably choose death. It’s a funny ole’ world.
mcc,
I think there’s a certain amount of traction. Le Pen has had some success with this kind of rhetoric — in fact, his fenêtre d’Overton moves probably encouraged Sarkozy to go all law-n-order on the banlieus during the riots. There are periodic reports of hate crimes against immigrants in former East Germany or in England. In fact, one of the more depressing discoveries I’ve made recently on Youtube was a video someone made of the Kinks song Living on a Thin Line — with visuals that try to change it from a cry against Thatcherism into some kind of National Front-friendly “keep Britain British” screed. Really disgusting.
Not just sexual acts: the rules regarding diet, clothing and so on also served this purpose by creating a distinction between “us” and “them” with the goal of preventing cultural mixing. Well, sort of: it was okay if they follow our rules and become one of us, but one of us should never become one of them. It’s easier to stop groups from mixing the longer the list you can create of differences between them, but if you can’t make a long list, being very picky on the differences you do have becomes necessary.
Cake, please.
Well, you can’t have any. We’re out of cake.
So the choice is, “or death?!”
Well, we only had three bits, and I didn’t expect such a run.
I tell this story a lot. When my mother was dying, I rode the train with my wife and my sister to spend the weekend with her. It was s grim ride, and we recited Izzard’s “Dressed to Kill” over and over again to each other to keep our spirits up. I can still do whole segments from memory.
Me, I’m all for zero or negative population growth. Too many real issues have been hijacked by the racists. It’s time to take those issues back with egalitarian ideals.
Want to reduce immigration? Enact policies to improve the quality of living in the originating countries to eliminate the economic incentive for illegal immigration.
Want to reduce population growth? Improve the quality of life, access to education, birth control and health care for all.
Want immigrants to integrate? Welcome them into the community. Eliminate the standoff mentality that drives people to stick with people of their own background.
I think there’s plenty of evidence that these policies actually work. The problem is that the solutions require overriding the racist and sexist policies of inequality that got us into these problems in the first place.
There is a bit of a backlash in many places now, but overwhelmingly the rhetoric you tend to hear against immigration & ‘multiculturalism’ is about the culture, not “OMG white babies!” (there could still be hidden racist motivations to some arguments, of course, but such rhetoric in the open is considered silly)
kyso–do you have a link to that article?
Honestly, the only direction that some parts of Youngstown, Warren, and Cleveland can go is up, for reasons that have nothing to do with race and everything to do with bleeding manufacturing jobs/irresponsible tax policies by Republicans like Bob Taft/etc.
I think population growth within the cities is also a good thing for the most part, since their infrastructures were designed to hold many MORE people a few decades ago (not only is the overall state population pretty stagnant, but Cuyahoga County is losing people, and Cleveland proper is especially losing people.)
Actually, I thought the Hispanic immigration was especially heavy in the rural areas (I live near Hartville which is near Akron and Canton, and there are a lot of migrant farmers there.)
Actually, it’s been hysterical watching the Japanese LDP geezers get up on their hind legs and fulminate about how Japanese women aren’t doing their duty and should toddle home to be good wives and mothers. And the average Japanese woman says “yeah, yeah, whatever you want, pops” and goes on living her sweet life.
There’s a good reason why a lot of the more highly educated Japanese women don’t even bother to try for jobs at Japanese corporations, choosing to either move abroad or look for positions as foreign corporations in Japan.
Speaking of Japan, and relevant to this thread:
“The Dilemma Posed by Japan’s Population Decline”
by Julian Chapple, Lecturer Kyoto Sangyo University
A fascinating article covering the issues Japan faces
as a result of declining birth rates, no significant immigration, an ageing population, and a historical distaste of diversity.
Yeah, Japan seems like a perfect example of what happens when you give rational actors incredibly strong incentives to act in ways that — to your great subsequent surprise — you don’t like the consequences of.
I remember from my youth, when it was just that the blacks and the hispanics would outbreed us, that one of the big talking points was the notion that catholicism’s strictures against birth control was a crucial reason that the Wrong Sort were reproducing so much. So there’s more than a little irony in the fact that the wingnuts have essentially become what they hated in others. Once again.
…wait. Although I can definitely see the economic problems with having a population predominantly weighted toward the very elderly, in objective terms isn’t Japan massively overpopulated? Like, that paper you mention says:
…which, if that holds correct, means that by 2050 Japan will only contain three times the present population of California, rather than four at the present time, in a space about the size of California. Is that… by itself really a bad thing? Other than the question of who pays for care for the elderly, at first glance it seems like the only reason this is a “problem” is the use of an economic system that doesn’t know how to function except in the presence of endless, boundaryless growth.
There’ve been mosques in Spain since 711 AD. Tourists love them, too.
It’s funny and sad at the same time, because people rage when muslims try to open a mosque in the downtown… while you can find three or four churches in the same neighborhood, separated by just a few meters.
@tzs:
Considering the moment they get married they’re given the pink slip, it’s no wonder, really. Japan is an eden for all those MRA followers; I’d encourage them to move there if it weren’t such a big burden for the japanese (at least the sane ones).
I read the post and most of the comments.. but I just don’t catch where race enters the picture. Aren’t there Muslim neighborhoods in the Netherlands and France that’ve started practicing Sharia law? If so, Muslim immigration into Europe is a genuine problem. Period.
I’m not naive - I’m absolutely certain that some people are racists and/or traditionalists and have profoundly bad reasons for being anti-immigration. But here’s my thing: I don’t care if French culture gradually disappears. But I certainly don’t want it replaced with Muslim culture.
If Mexicans happened to be Muslims, and setting up inhumane Sharia communities in Phoenix, I’d be with fucking Tancredo on immigration. Of course, the religion of most Mexicans happens to be largely defanged, and the people of Phoenix don’t have to worry about the same things that the Dutch do. Like honor killings or the butchering of blasphemous filmmakers.
We have to be sure to discern between ideas and biology - one is legitimate prejudice, and one is not. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of gray here, since most Muslims are dark-skinned people. :/
When I hear people talk about the “birth-rate disparity,” my question to them is, are you offended that the “wrong” humans are reproducing? Is it because of their “skin color,” or their “religion?” I tell them that I’m worried in an “Idiocracy” way that I too am worried that rational people are being outbred as well, but that of course doesn’t exactly fly in the formation of thought they are espousing so they look at me funny.
Hey, if white women aren’t having enough white babies…
…obviously the solution is, white men need to start having their share in being pregnant with white babies! Fetuses have grew outside the uterus before, so the possibility is there. Of course, many men will died of childbirth, but they will sacrifice their lives for the noble cause of white babies! Let’s head into surgery and get those white men pregnant now! There are millions of left-over fetuses waiting for a host!
NO. There.Aren’t. Unless you’re thinking about the UK and its Canterbury Archbishop, who’s in favor of introducing some aspects of the Sharia in the british laws .
Got Mutterkreuz?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Honor_of_the_German_Mother
Well, that’s an interesting one. It’s one of those subjects where if you do a survey, a lot of people will say they are concerned about immigration in general, but the number of people who think it’s a problem in their area is surprisingly small.
It’s a bit like school standards in that respect - everyone’s convinced that all the other schools are going to the dogs, but theirs is fine.
Now, in the UK there certainly are some problems with public service provision in certain areas - but personally I feel that’s more as a result of (a) decades of underinvestment, and (b) a deliberate policy of ghettoization.
Okay.
Just for the record, I don’t mean legislation, like legally establishing Sharia. I mean is it done in practice, illegally.
Elsie–well, the Japanese companies HAVE advanced a bit….now it’s not when women get married that they’re given the pink slip, it’s when they have babies.
And then Japanese politicians yowl about their lack of birth rate. Hee. It’s the purest example I’ve seen of (rational decision making) + (economic and financial disincentives) coming back to bite them in the ass. Squawking about tradition in order to keep a section of the populace making sacrifices only gets you so far.
Stephen February 20, 2008 at 3:23 pm
a cultural adaptation brought about by military necessity: namely, a small, nomadic tribe finds itself in hostile territory, and wants to lay claim to some of that territory, and must therefore create new, little Hebrews as quickly as possible …
Not exactly relevant, but there ya go …
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In that case they should have invented titty bar and pornography instead.
For what is worth, I AGREE WITH KYLE. I cannot turn a blind eye at the atrocities being comitted against muslim girls within muslim comunities in countries like the UK. And no one seems to care because, you know, it’s their “culture” and we have to respect that.
Mary Tracy, you’re an ass.
Back when the Taliban first took over, feminists were railing against the atrocities committed against women. I remember signing petitions and writing my representatives.
But, no, we couldn’t do anything about the Taliban then, not even for humanitarian reasons. They just kicked women out of their jobs and schools. It wasn’t like they were torturing them or killing them outright.
For the most part men and the international community didn’t really care what the Taliban did till they blew up the giant Buddha statues. While that was also a crime, statues aren’t people, women are.
Feminists, regardless of how progressive/liberal, have never respected a culture that treats women as trash. That is precisely the type of culture that feminism opposes–you know, a misogynist one?
People care. They just don’t see how being racist helps the feminist movement. B/c, as is stated above, if you give women rights and control over their reproductive organs, the number of children they have goes down. That’s the feminist answer to “overbreeding” by the brown folk.