Food Price Riots Popping Up Around The World

[vern_humphrey]

Can you read? I just said I do not favor coercive measures! I favor education.

You said, and I quote:

Ribozyme, if we put our minds to it we can reduce population through education and voluntary family size limitation (Thailand did it).

In other words in the government schools, children would be taught that having too many children is wrong. Children of “non-compliant” parents would be subject to redicule, bullying, and low status. (And don’t pretend this wouldn’t happen – we’ve all been in school and know how these things work.)

Laws might be coercive, such as taxing a third child at a higher rate. Dropping tax incentives for having more than two children might be a good idea.

(My emphasis.)

So a third child would be taxed at a higher rate, or parents might not get a tax deduction to raise and educate a third child. That’s governmental pressure – otherwise known as coersion.

And if all that doesn’t work, what’s next?

 

[drpmjhess]

So a third child would be taxed at a higher rate, or parents might not get a tax deduction to raise and educate a third child. That’s governmental pressure – otherwise known as coersion.

You misread: By saying “laws might be coercive” I was suggesting that I don’t agree with Ribozyme on penalizing parents for having a third child. Removing financial incentives for having more than two would not be coercive, any more than the state’s not giving me vouchers to pay for my sons’ Catholic school tuition is coercive.

 

[vern_humphrey]

You misread: By saying “laws might be coercive” I was suggesting that I don’t agree with Ribozyme on penalizing parents for having a third child. Removing financial incentives for having more than two would not be coercive, any more than the state’s not giving me vouchers to pay for my sons’ Catholic school tuition is coercive.

Pull the other one – it’s got bells on it!

In point of fact,** every** child is entitled to a publicly-financed education (even if they are Catholic). The government is depriving you of what other parents get – a violation of your 14th Amendment rights.

And if the public school to which your children are assigned is measurably inferior,** their **14th Amendment rights are also being violated. The fact that you choose not to stand up for your rights and those of your children doesn’t make the government right.

 

[drpmjhess]

Pull the other one – it’s got bells on it!

In point of fact,** every** child is entitled to a publicly-financed education (even if they are Catholic). The government is depriving you of what other parents get – a violation of your 14th Amendment rights.

It’s my wife’s and my choice to send them to a Catholic school, even though our state doesn’t give vouchers like Wisconsin does.

 

[vern_humphrey]

It’s my wife’s and my choice to send them to a Catholic school, even though our state doesn’t give vouchers like Wisconsin does.

Since when does exercising your civil rights automatically make you a non-citizen, not entitled to equal protection under the law?

The government gives you Hobson’s Choice – either give up your rights to a publicly-funded education for your child, or give up your child’s rights to a quality education. That’s both unsatisfactory and unconstitutional.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ribozyme, if we put our minds to it we can reduce population through education and voluntary family size limitation (Thailand did it). Laws might be coercive, such as taxing a third child at a higher rate. Dropping tax incentives for having more than two children might be a good idea.

Then I think, just in the interests of fairness, that you and your wife should have your social security reduced because you have not contributed sufficient workers to support you in the economy. Clearly, you intend to live off the labor of the children of multi-child families. I think at least a one-third reduction would be fair, since someone has to have three children in order to make up for your shortfall and keep the population at replacement rate.

And since the Catholics in your neighborhood seem to think the way you do, and doubtless influence the thinking in the school, it really seems to me that it’s pointless for your children to go to Catholic school at all. That’s $22,000/year you could contribute to your 401K in order to make up for your reduced social security.

Since you want to return the world to 1850, maybe it would be better still if we simply did away with social security. Your two children can support you and somebody else’s five children can support him. Okay with you?

 

[Doug50]

Doug50;3716294:

I realize there is a theoretical limit out there somewhere on the number of cattle a given amount of land will support. But since the assumptions about that are proved wrong with some frequency, and since many do not follow the best practices even if they know what they are, I’m puzzled as to why we should assume a particular number of cattle is the maximum. That’s particularly true if we assume the present number is the maximum, because it very clearly isn’t.

I realize we’re really not talking about cattle, exactly. But I am also puzzled as to why we should assume a given number of people on the earth is the maximum, particularly when we well know a great deal, and perhaps most, of the nutritional problems people face in the world are not caused by a lack of the earth’s carrying capacity, but by other things.

The point is, Ridgerunner, at some population level the world will reach a sustainable number. Now, it the petorluem has allowed the population to exceed the earth’s carrying capacity then as petroleum declines then someone will have to go hungry.

A pature will only hold so many cattle. You might get more cattle on pature land in hawaii where they get more rain then in dry austrailia but taken in the agrergate you will reach a limit. Or if you have irrigation you might get more cattle in austrailia per acre but at some point that irrigation well will go dry and then the land’s carrying capacity will fall back to what the land will support.

all we’re doing is extrapilating that out to the whole of the earth and its carrying capacity for humans give a reduced petroleum support. It will happen. All oil wells deplent and go dry.

 

[drpmjhess]

[all we’re doing is extrapilating that out to the whole of the earth and its carrying capacity for humans give a reduced petroleum support. It will happen. All oil wells deplent and go dry.

QED: ZPG
[/quote]

 

[Al_Masetti]

Can you read? I just said I do not favor coercive measures! I favor education.

Please list the things that people would be educated about that would result in lower population. Be specific.

Thank you.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ridgerunner;3716791:

The point is, Ridgerunner, at some population level the world will reach a sustainable number. Now, it the petorluem has allowed the population to exceed the earth’s carrying capacity then as petroleum declines then someone will have to go hungry.

A pature will only hold so many cattle. You might get more cattle on pature land in hawaii where they get more rain then in dry austrailia but taken in the agrergate you will reach a limit. Or if you have irrigation you might get more cattle in austrailia per acre but at some point that irrigation well will go dry and then the land’s carrying capacity will fall back to what the land will support.

all we’re doing is extrapilating that out to the whole of the earth and its carrying capacity for humans give a reduced petroleum support. It will happen. All oil wells deplent and go dry.

The point is, Doug50, that people who declare the earth’s population unsustainable, base that conclusion on foundations that are simply assumptions.

You cannot tell me how many cattle a pasture can support precisely because it depends on so many variable factors that even if you assume what seems to be a determinative number of them, you can still be wildly wrong.

In this thread, some are declaring that the population must be reduced in order to avoid mass starvation, based on one factor alone; the assumed oil supply.

Raising cattle is a far more simple thing than is a human society. If I can greatly exceed my neighbor’s pasture carrying capacity while simultaneously reducing my petroleum consumption far below his (which I can, and do) by utilizing methodologies different from his, it is difficult to persuade me that human beings’ existence is utterly dependant on the constancy of one factor alone, particularly when that one factor is not capable of precise definition.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Once again, I point out that those who go around beating the drum for reducing the Earth’s population are never willing to set the example and take early departure.

 

[Filius99993]

Once again, I point out that those who go around beating the drum for reducing the Earth’s population are never willing to set the example and take early departure.

So does that mean that we can whack 'em? It’d make things a bit easier…

(I’m just kidding)

 

[peregrinus_WA]

So does that mean that we can whack 'em? It’d make things a bit easier…

(I’m just kidding)

No.

Lets not slither down to their level please.

Besides, this thread is way off topic and The Immorality of “Population Control” is more a subject for the Moral Theology forum.

 

[vern_humphrey]

So does that mean that we can whack 'em? It’d make things a bit easier…

(I’m just kidding)

I believe the Politically Correct term is “assist them in achieving expedited departure.”

Of course, that’s a joke. We wouldn’t do any such thing – but I think it’s a neat way to hold up a mirror to them and show how they advocate anti-life positions.

 

[peregrinus_WA]

So does that mean that we can whack 'em? It’d make things a bit easier…

(I’m just kidding)

Now lets not slither down to their level. Do wrong to correct a wrong is not right. Population Control is immoral and their methodologies are criminal. I have started a thread on this immorality in Moral Theology and also have an entry in my blog.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Now lets not slither down to their level. Do wrong to correct a wrong is not right. Population Control is immoral and their methodologies are criminal. I have started a thread on this immorality in Moral Theology and also have an entry in my blog.

You are right, of course. However, there may be some value in holding up a mirror in which they may see themselves.

 

[Ridgerunner]

So does that mean that we can whack 'em? It’d make things a bit easier…

(I’m just kidding)

Ridgerunner’s ninth grandchild tells him to duck just in time, and the “whack” sails through empty air, harmlessly over his head.

 

[drpmjhess]

Now lets not slither down to their level. Do wrong to correct a wrong is not right. Population Control is immoral and their methodologies are criminal. I have started a thread on this immorality in Moral Theology and also have an entry in my blog.

Population control is not immoral at all. In fact, as human numbers soar beyond the carrying capacity of the earth, refusing to look into controlling human numbers is as immoral as refusing to use the brakes if you are driving a school bus loaded with children.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Population control is not immoral at all. In fact, as human numbers soar beyond the carrying capacity of the earth, refusing to look into controlling human numbers is as immoral as refusing to use the brakes if you are driving a school bus loaded with children.

A better example would be throwing the children under the wheels to stop the bus.

 

[drpmjhess]

A better example would be throwing the children under the wheels to stop the bus.

You’ve got be kidding!