Go forth and multiply, Liberals... PLEASE!

[Lisa0825]

I hate to be a downer, but this article scares me! Not enough to volunteer be a single mom, but anyway... the rest of y'all liberals need to go make more babies to compete with the "conservative baby boom." Or maybe someone can debunk it for me? Either way, I'll feel better :evilgrin: And I'll babysit for you if you volunteer for the cause. LOL

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3376

The Return of Patriarchy

By Phillip Longman


March/April 2006

Across the globe, people are choosing to have fewer children or none at all. Governments are desperate to halt the trend, but their influence seems to stop at the bedroom door. Are some societies destined to become extinct? Hardly. It’s more likely that conservatives will inherit the Earth. Like it or not, a growing proportion of the next generation will be born into families who believe that father knows best.

(snip)

This dynamic helps explain, for example, the gradual drift of American culture away from secular individualism and toward religious fundamentalism. Among states that voted for President George W. Bush in 2004, fertility rates are 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry. It may also help to explain the increasing popular resistance among rank-and-file Europeans to such crown jewels of secular liberalism as the European Union. It turns out that Europeans who are most likely to identify themselves as “world citizens” are also those least likely to have children.

Does this mean that today’s enlightened but slow-breeding societies face extinction? Probably not, but only because they face a dramatic, demographically driven transformation of their cultures. As has happened many times before in history, it is a transformation that occurs as secular and libertarian elements in society fail to reproduce, and as people adhering to more traditional, patriarchal values inherit society by default....

[RagingInMiami]

1. Hopefully, these kids will do what kids have been doing for generations

Rebel against their parents and become more liberal.

[SmokingJacket]

4. It's the way of the world...

If kids turned out just like their parents, society would never change...

[silverweb]

2. Geez....

Overpopulation is the cause of most of the world's problems and governments want people to step up the breeding? Are they nuts?

More education and less breeding is part of the solution, not visa versa, as the fundies would have us think.

:eyes:

[atreides1]

3. Well It Would Be Nice

But increasing the population through rape and incest, like the conservatives want to do just seem right to me!!!

[JudyM]

5. In addition to not being harrangued by the church re: the importance of

procreating and not using birth control, we liberals are also more likely to be concerned about overpopulation. I, for one, decided long ago that I would adopt rather than procreate, for the simple reason that I wanted to leave a light footprint on the earth.

[WestHoustonDem]

6. My womb is closed for business but I will help with

babysitting!

[Demeter]

7. In a Nuclear Age, the Number of Boots On The Ground Doesn't Matter

One or two idiots is sufficient to depopulate large swathes of territory and maybe even trigger a nuclear winter.

Patriarchy would be great if women ran it, seems to be the gist of this article. I agree!

A provocative and limited view of history.

[Lisa0825]

11. Patriarchy would be great if women ran it

LOL! Excellent!

Yes, it's a limited view, but I have to admit that the large fundie families I have known have kept their kids pretty brain-washed. I hate to think about people like that becoming a proportionately larger and larger chunk of the population, considering the damage their views do to the world.

[Lorien]

8. I'm alarmed that the planet's population will DOUBLE in 20 years

to 13 billion people (the planet can't sustain current levels of consumption as it is), so no, I won't be having children. As far as conservative families go; it might be interesting to find out how many DUers come from conservative homes. It may even be a majority :shrug:. Personally, I came from a home that was even more liberal than Kucinich.

[Warpy]

9. Childran brought up under the grey oppression of Calvinism

have a way of rebelling in some pretty astonishing ways. Consider the grey oppression of the 1950s, the conformity, the classism, the segregation (no wonder we turned to drugs) and how that was all blown apart in the 60s.

I look forward to the next mass rebellion. It will happen.

[northofdenali]

10. Agreed, Warpy, and I'll be right there with them

again, like I was in the 60's.

Up the Revolution!

[Lisa0825]

13. Good point...

I missed the last one... I was born too late. Maybe I'll get my chance yet!

[bloom]

12. Sounds like the writer wants more fodder for the guns

Didn't make a very good case for encouraging liberals to procreate....

"Patriarchy made the incentive of taking a husband and becoming a full-time mother very high because it offered women few desirable alternatives.

To be sure, a society organized on such principles may well degenerate over time into misogyny, and eventually sterility, as occurred in both ancient Greece and Rome. In more recent times, the patriarchal family has also proved vulnerable to the rise of capitalism, which profits from the diversion of female labor from the house to the workplace."


Also - while he seemed very concerned about "civilization" - he didn't seem to have a clue about global warming, etc.

[RubyDuby in GA]

14. Me and the Mr. got one in the oven right now.

Doin' our part...takin' one for the team :)

[Lisa0825]

15. Congratulations!!!

If we're lucky, you'll have twins! :evilgrin: LOL!

[RubyDuby in GA]

16. Uh...no.

Just one. Thank heavens! A fine little liberal boy - Carter Dean RubyDuby.

[xmas74]

17. I have a five year old reading on my bed right now.

I don't have plans for any others. Sorry.