I’m so happy that you posted this. I’ve just left my SO who wanted kids (that was only a small part of the reason to leave), and my conservative family who love him are all telling me that this direction I’m heading is wrong, and the happiest people are those with children and the traditional white-picket fence livestyle. I’ve been so confused lately, I didn’t know whether to trust my emotions or their advise. Here’s evidence that my emotions are on the right track and that I’m not insane.

Erika, think about what the phrase “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps” means. It’s inherently ridiculous. You can’t lift yourself higher by yanking on your own feet.

But that’s what the libertarian argument is; that everybody who rises does so from their own, magical effort, and has the exact same opportunity and ability to do so–and to the extent that they fail to rise, it’s because they simply can’t or won’t tug on their own shoes hard enough.

The libertarian view also assumes that nobody is sitting on your head and making it harder to pull yourself up (except maybe the gub’mint). Because, of course, the market would take care of such discrimination quickly.

Is there any reason why women are unable to pull ourselves up?

How about because the high heels we’re demanded to wear don’t actually come with bootstraps?

I think the argument would be that it’s not a level playing field (excuse the mixed metaphors), and that there are often additional barriers for women to overcome, therefore regardless of women’s and men’s relative abilities, achieving certain things may be more difficult for women. Not because women are inferior, but because we live in a sexist society.

Productivity miracles==doing more with fewer resources using physical, temporal (mediated by lending), and intellectual capital.

They *lower* footprint, not increase them.

No amount of increased productivity is going to turn nonarable land into arable land or magically increase the supply of fresh water. As productivity gets spread around the globe, living conditions for everyone improves, which means more people have access to food, water, medicine, and consumer goods. Per capita consumption of resources might be less than what the average American consumes now, but per capita consumption per resident of the planet will increase.

And, no, famine, disease, and natural disasters (with the assumption that the famine, pandemics, and natural disasters eventually cease) have never led to long term decreases in population.

which means women ought to be just as able to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps as men

Is there any reason why women are unable to pull ourselves up? I’m no libertarian, but your anti-libertarian argument implies that women are inherently inferior to men.

Again, you are assuming policies to limit childbirth in general would target only certain groups.

Kerlyssa, I was responding to Babs’s post, in which s/he specifically mentioned parenting tests. So we were not in any way discussing general policies to limit childbirth, but policies to prevent specific people from having children.

As to the other bit…I don’t know enough about adoption law to be able to argue it, I guess.

but at Reason, they go even further and allow a feminist libertarianism to thrive

Amanda, Reason isn’t about feminist anything. They worship faux Darwinianism, where nobody ought to need help, ever, which means women ought to be just as able to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps as men, and everything they do is a CHOICE, so sexism is a lie and maternity leave is a tool of jackbooted government-worshiping sheeple-thugs.