On the one hand, we are apparently breeding like rats and many people (who make national policy) believe strongly we should be worried about what the spike in human population is going to do to our planet–but on the other hand, according to an analysis called “Baby Bust” in Reason Magazine, we are apparently also going through severe population decline-at least, the white race is, and that’s worrying our (xenophobic) politicians who, from Australia to Great Britain, are creating cash incentives to encourage white folks to make white babies.
Wow, that’s the first time I’ve seen the claim that those countries are actually aiming their baby subsidies at white people! I mean, I could see how it could be done, just by making sure that the paperwork pretty much required a sort of socioeconomic status that was largely cornered by whites, but so far this is the first suggestion I’ve seen that those countries have actually done so. All of the natalist worriers I’ve read were equally concerned about diving birth rates among asians as caucasians, and pointed out that the birth rates of minority immigrants to the west generally fall pretty quickly after arrival. Admittedly I haven’t read all that many of such folks and never really paid that much attention, but I have run into natalist worriers here and there. So far none of them have been xenophobic, as far as I could tell. I can’t get the article online, so I can’t evaluate what Reason might have uncovered. Has it really gotten that crazy?
Well, not in the U.S., but apparently Great Britain and Australia’s concerns are racially based. But the article also did spend quite a bit of time on Singapore and the Singaporian government’s concerns about depopulation. The article on Reason will probably be available in a few weeks–I think they try to give their subscribers time to enjoy it first before they make it available to everybody. And I’ll probably re-read the article and have more to say another time.
Did Reason mention television as a birth control mechanism? That might generate some amusing discussion. (HT Instapundit.)