I’m not pleased about foreign aid, but I’m not a purely Jacksonian cat… enlightened self-interest can apply at an international-relations level just as well as at an interpersonal-releations level.

Mew

Regarding the rain forest, as I indicated my concern is the oxygen. I like to breathe.

Mew

acat on July 10, 2009 at 10:10 PM

Sorry — didn’t mean to catch you in the crossfire, and you weren’t the one avoiding the question put directly to you. As I said, I’m not necessarily in favour of pillaging the rainforest either, although Cartman did make a pretty compelling case for it in the best episode of South Park ever. If there are incentives that can reasonably be provided, I think that would most likely be a sound investment, although in general I’m leery of foreign aid. Given the formulation of the other posts, though, I was interested to see what sort of coercive steps they thought should be on the table.

As for what I’m willing to do.. I rather like the idea of economic measures, not sanctions but providing financial encouragement, both domestically and for south American countries *already receiving U.S. aid* to build additional green spaces.

Yes, it’s a “greenie” thing, but it takes a number of trees, figures I’ve seen say 2 to 20 per human, to produce enough oxygen for us to function. (I’m a cat, a nice lilac bush is all I need…)

Mew

Liberals have never argued for abortion as a method of population control and have never encouraged abortions.

ckoeber on July 9, 2009 at 6:53 PM

I have to ask, who then, paid for the television commercials for planned parenthood and zero population growth that we were inundated with in the 60′s and early 70′s?

Earth has finite resources

ckoeber on July 9, 2009 at 6:53 PM

Is it possible that you would enumerate the finite resources that limit the growth of a population? Maybe three or four of them? I’m in need of mental positioning for this part of your debate.

You cannot have a successful economy without a strong government that actively promotes social justice.

ckoeber on July 10, 2009 at 8:33 AM

I’m sure that the Phoenicians, Persians, Romans, etc., would find this to be a fascinating point. Of course, the slavetrading, imperialist British of the eighteenth century would strongly agree with you . . . and then beat you senseless when you told them that they didn’t have exactly those things.

But the impact of the actions of said sovereign nations’ actions that negatively impacts other nations is our collective business.

It would the be the equivalent of either of these nations producing massive amounts of poisonous gases in the air and then letting that poison float from that nation to this country.

Or if that nation pumped massive amounts of poisons in the sea and killed all of the fish, thus affecting your economy.

ckoeber on July 10, 2009 at 8:39 AM

It would be my preference to keep “the lungs of the americas” breathing… Since the eastern U.S. forests (a squirrel can go from the atlantic to the mississippi without touching ground…) are pretty much gone, the amazon is the main carbon sink and oxygen producer for the american hemisphere, iirc.

Mew

acat on July 10, 2009 at 12:47 PM

OK, let me try this again: The formulation that I found interesting was “not let.” I wasn’t attempting to justify environmental rapine; I was making the point that to say that you will “not let” another sovereign nation do something within its own borders without specifying what that means is posing. So I’ll ask again: How far are you willing to go to “not let” other countries destroy the rainforests? Is war justified? Are you going to employ economic sanctions, thus driving them to exploit their own resources even further? Are you going to put celebrities on TV to whine at them? “Not let” is a meaningful phrase — I’m just curious as to what your definition is.

Well, in all fairness, I didn’t call Malthus a big stupid poopy-head. His work is important reading, no matter that later developments in technology and economics invalidated many of his beliefs. He’s one of the thinkers whose influence far outstrips his immediate audience. Understanding why Malthusian theories have proven wrong in the immediate term is as important for the conservatives who wish to do battle with them, as it is for the liberals who need to learn to move beyond them. Of course, in the long term, Malthus is right – eventually, even the Sun will burn down, or explode, and even solar energy will no longer be a renewable resource.

Doctor Zero on July 10, 2009 at 1:17 PM

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you were the president of the He-Man Malthus-Haters Club. I just feel it incumbent upon myself to defend dead curmudgeons that can’t defend themselves. Seriously, I know that you know what Malthus meant, but he is so often caricatured as the ultimate font of wisdom or as a buffoon that I wanted to take the opportunity to present his case fully and fairly. A lot of people believe that the classical economists (including Smith to varying degrees) were monsters; they were just fledgling scientists addressing a real problem with more compassion than they are generally credited for, but with incomplete data. Smith gets a better rap because he was more of a philosopher than an economist, but they were all important and valuable, I think.

As if such a thing ever did or ever will exist. Ridiculous.

Doctor Zero on July 10, 2009 at 1:17 PM
—–
Peak Oil, for some reason, comes to mind.

Mew

We cannot have a successful economy *for most people* without a strong *culture* that promotes social justice.

We can have a perfectly successful economy benefiting some variety of overlords, be they oligarchs, feudal lords, etc. while completely ignoring social justice – in fact, this appears to be the default setting for human culture.

Government is a product of culture, not the other way ’round, and history shows a distinct tendency, should culture allow it, of government reverting to the default setting.

Mew

acat on July 10, 2009 at 12:44 PM

Well said!

Margaret Sanger, mother of Planned Parenthood, and a clear proponent of eugenics – specifically of African-Americans.

Mew

acat on July 10, 2009 at 12:49 PM

I just caught up on the thread and was about to mention Sanger, but I see you beat me to it. Frankly, that was a rather puzzling challenge for ckoeber to issue… the history of the Progressive movement’s romance with eugenics is well known.

Or, for another prominent example of a prominent person in this country who has “argued that abortion should be used for population control,” how about… Ruth Bader Ginsburg? That was the entire point of the comment she made in the New York Times interview. She doesn’t feel that way any more, as she went on to say, but she obviously thought so in her younger days.

Personally, I’ve never gotten through a discussion on abortion without someone remarking that it’s cruel to bring a child into this terrible world, and you might be doing a favor by sparing them the miserable life they stand to inherit. The motivation may be a species of compassion, rather than a sinister and arrogant desire to keep the population of certain races down, but the net result is the same.

In fairness to Malthus, who was pretty much the father of economics, it has to be said that his model fit his data; as technology decreased the mortality rate in western Europe, the population did skyrocket, to the point that his famous formulation that resources expand arithmetically as human population expands geometrically may very well have been an accurate description at his time. What Malthus’s data could not have shown, and what would have seemed counterintuitive to him, David Ricardo, etc., at the turn of the eighteenth century, was that at a certain level of technologically-engendered prosperity, people stop having kids.

loneloc on July 10, 2009 at 6:53 AM

Well, in all fairness, I didn’t call Malthus a big stupid poopy-head. His work is important reading, no matter that later developments in technology and economics invalidated many of his beliefs. He’s one of the thinkers whose influence far outstrips his immediate audience. Understanding why Malthusian theories have proven wrong in the immediate term is as important for the conservatives who wish to do battle with them, as it is for the liberals who need to learn to move beyond them. Of course, in the long term, Malthus is right – eventually, even the Sun will burn down, or explode, and even solar energy will no longer be a renewable resource.

Provide concrete examples when people in this country have argued that abortion should be used for population control.

ckoeber on July 10, 2009 at 8:01 AM
—–
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger

Margaret Sanger, mother of Planned Parenthood, and a clear proponent of eugenics – specifically of African-Americans.

Mew

loneloc on July 10, 2009 at 6:53 AM
—–
It would be my preference to keep “the lungs of the americas” breathing… Since the eastern U.S. forests (a squirrel can go from the atlantic to the mississippi without touching ground…) are pretty much gone, the amazon is the main carbon sink and oxygen producer for the american hemisphere, iirc.

Mew

ckoeber on July 10, 2009 at 8:33 AM
—–
This is subtly and dangerously erroneous.

We cannot have a successful economy *for most people* without a strong *culture* that promotes social justice.

We can have a perfectly successful economy benefiting some variety of overlords, be they oligarchs, feudal lords, etc. while completely ignoring social justice – in fact, this appears to be the default setting for human culture.

Government is a product of culture, not the other way ’round, and history shows a distinct tendency, should culture allow it, of government reverting to the default setting.

Mew

“Not letting” a sovereign nation do something within its own borders is serious business. How far would either of you be willing to go to stop this?

loneloc on July 10, 2009 at 6:53 AM

But the impact of the actions of said sovereign nations’ actions that negatively impacts other nations is our collective business.

It would the be the equivalent of either of these nations producing massive amounts of poisonous gases in the air and then letting that poison float from that nation to this country.

Or if that nation pumped massive amounts of poisons in the sea and killed all of the fish, thus affecting your economy.

In fairness to Malthus, who was pretty much the father of economics, it has to be said that his model fit his data; as technology decreased the mortality rate in western Europe, the population did skyrocket, to the point that his famous formulation that resources expand arithmetically as human population expands geometrically may very well have been an accurate description at his time. What Malthus’s data could not have shown, and what would have seemed counterintuitive to him, David Ricardo, etc., at the turn of the eighteenth century, was that at a certain level of technologically-engendered prosperity, people stop having kids. As technology develops labor-saving devices and tactics, children turn from an economic asset to a liability. This is what is referred to in human geography as the “S-curve,” as opposed to the Malthusian “J-curve.” It is Mark Steyn’s life’s mission to demonstrate the consequences of the West following the “S-curve” to the point that it starts to bend back to zero while the Third World is still on the ascendant “J-curve.” If progressives were truly serious about overpopulation, they’d be bending over backwards to force capitalist reforms into every nook and cranny of the Third World. If the West is any indication, if they would do so, there might not be any people left in a couple of hundred years.

You cannot have a successful economy without a strong government that actively promotes social justice.

Let me guess now – with your mindset, you have a pronounced affinity for strawmen.

HalJordan on July 10, 2009 at 2:26 AM

Doctor Zero responded to my comments with a simple sarcastic remark. I replied as such.

Anything useful to contribute to the conversation?

Your arguments are absurd on their face. You seem to have no idea what “never” and “whole” even mean.

HalJordan on July 10, 2009 at 2:21 AM

The burden of proof is on you.

Provide concrete examples when people in this country have argued that abortion should be used for population control.

I am curious about something mentioned by both ckoeber and DrZ:

This is why we cannot have Brazil and Chile start clear-cutting vast swathes of the Amazon rain forest; that section of the planet alone produces about 20% of the world’s oxygen.
ckoeber on July 9, 2009 at 6:53 PM

I’m not in favor of letting Brazil, Chile, or anybody else start merrily clear-cutting the rainforests.
Doctor Zero on July 9, 2009 at 7:41 PM

“Not letting” a sovereign nation do something within its own borders is serious business. How far would either of you be willing to go to stop this?

Let me guess – with your mindset, they are communists.

ckoeber on July 9, 2009 at 7:38 PM

Let me guess now – with your mindset, you have a pronounced affinity for strawmen.

Liberals have never argued for abortion as a method of population control and have never encouraged abortions. The whole point of Roe Vs. Wade was to argue for a woman’s sovereign right over her own body and whether the State can intrude on that.

ckoeber on July 9, 2009 at 6:53 PM

Your arguments are absurd on their face. You seem to have no idea what “never” and “whole” even mean.

I’m not in favor of letting Brazil, Chile, or anybody else start merrily clear-cutting the rainforests. Responsible behavior toward the environment is not an ideological trait, no matter how much the Left tries to pretend otherwise. The kind of prosperity that Malthus thought should be deliberately kneecapped, to prevent the overpopulation that would lead to famine, is exactly what is needed to maintain a clean and healthy environment. If you want to see horrific environmental devastation, head for a socialist or communist country.

It sounds to me like you have no idea what a “progressive” is.

Doctor Zero on July 9, 2009 at 7:21 PM

Let me guess – with your mindset, they are communists.

Eugenics is an entirely different subject that progressives don’t even get into. Earth has finite resources, which I suspect that you are not refuting, which requires some control in order for people to survive. This is why we cannot have Brazil and Chile start clear-cutting vast swathes of the Amazon rain forest; that section of the planet alone produces about 20% of the world’s oxygen.

Sounds to me like you are twisting a position of the Justice to present your worldview.

ckoeber on July 9, 2009 at 6:53 PM

It sounds to me like you have no idea what a “progressive” is.

I have said this before; you are an excellent writer that presents poor ideas. Essentially Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg was pointing to a viewpoint held by some at the time, not the overarching position felt by ‘liberals’ and the Justices at the time.

Liberals have never argued for abortion as a method of population control and have never encouraged abortions. The whole point of Roe Vs. Wade was to argue for a woman’s sovereign right over her own body and whether the State can intrude on that.

Eugenics is an entirely different subject that progressives don’t even get into. Earth has finite resources, which I suspect that you are not refuting, which requires some control in order for people to survive. This is why we cannot have Brazil and Chile start clear-cutting vast swathes of the Amazon rain forest; that section of the planet alone produces about 20% of the world’s oxygen.

Sounds to me like you are twisting a position of the Justice to present your worldview.