April 15, 2003
DON'T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU ON THE WAY OUT (via Ed Driscoll):
Dear Mr. Vonnegut (Kurt Vonnegut, 3.24.03, In These Times)I’d love to know your thoughts for a woman of 43 who is finally ready to have children but is wary of bringing new lives into such a frightening world.Elizabeth Gratch
Ypsilanti, MichiganDear Elizabeth,
Don’t do it! It could be another George W. Bush or Lucrezia Borgia.
The kid would be lucky to be born into a society where even the poor people are overweight, but unlucky to be in one without a national health plan or decent public education for most, where lethal injection and warfare are forms of entertainment, and where it costs an arm and a leg to go to college. This would not be the case if the kid were a Canuck or Swede or Limey or Frog or Kraut. So either go on practicing safe sex or emigrate.
Kurt
Have you ever noticed how people on the Left are fond of saying things like this, but you can never get them to act on their own words? If America is so bad, why doesn't Mr. Vonnegut leave himself? Posted by Orrin Judd at April 15, 2003 4:03 PM
If everyone on the left follows his advice, we'll be able to overturn Roe v. Wade in a generation, two at most.
Posted by: pj at April 15, 2003 6:14 PM’ what a beautiful mor—i—g!
’ what a beautiful day!
’ He—ry;
I have plans for OJ’s funky little characters. Just you watch and see. Bwahahahaha!
it takes this to see the full circle. I read and adored Vonnegut at one point, and now I finally have capitulated to his total grossness.
Posted by: neil at April 16, 2003 12:50 AMpj--
The theory that they are aborting their progeny, and hence future liberals, has been knocked around quite a bit. So maybe they won't have to actually leave, but just breed (or rather not breed) themselves out of existence.
My husband, however, says like the poor, liberals will always be with us. He thinks our children, in rebellion, will turn to liberalism just to tick us off.
Also, some acquaintances that do not want children have floated this argument before, i.e. the world's not perfect, therefore it is better to not have children. Seems like an awfully anti-human outlook on life.
Yes, Buttercup, the abortion theory was in my mind, but it seems an awfully slow way to change the culture. In fact, between 1990 and 2000 the African-American population grew six times faster than the non-Latino white population. The higher rate of African-American abortions isn't reducing their birth rates below that of non-Latino whites. It's plausible therefore that if you could get data on Democratic vs Republican birth rates, the Democrats would still have higher birth rates despite their higher abortion rates.
However, Vonnegut's proposal is far more sweeping.
Speaking of anti-human outlook on life, check out this story on Europe
that I found with a Google search.
pj--
That story is frightening and a lot of the quotes are profoundly anti-human.