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Vagina - it's not a clown car.
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This is why I consider it selfish. Partially, at least. It's just that much worse when combined with everything else.
Well, of course it is. In fact, survival in general is selfish. Selfishness, though, isn't always immoral. Certain levels of it is.
Agreed. I'm just saying that we should perpetuate ourselves, and ultimately it is a moral goal for human beings to pursue. The "at all costs" or "like bunny rabbits" is the problematic part of this equation.
QED.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
fuck you're right.
I always forget about that silly absolute morality directly controlled by a supreme being.
Maybe I should pull a Cat and quote myself on an issue you never answered; namely, where has it been said that their reasons for children are mutually exclusive? Instead, you responded with an insinuation that I'm racist by saying that if it were a black family I'd treat it differently.
You can have MANY reasons for bearing children. One of them should be because you want to and can care for it, but it's hardly the sole reason, even if it's the most important.
Ryu: Please, I know the conservative line on this. if they weren't anglo christians, you wouldn't be supporting them. And quite frankly, all the ancillary reasons in the world don't compensate for the ones I condemned above.
Yeah, you can want to have a kid for many reasons. You seem to agree that being able to and wanting to care for a child ought to be the number one reason to have one, though, and really the only reason that justifies a birth.
And they don't want to care for their children, as evidenced by the fact that their children are mostly cared for by their other children.
Nor are they able to, given dad's exceedingly demanding job and mom's constant state of pregnancy. Sure both could hope to care for one or two children in their state, but with as many as they currently have it's very clear to me that they simply aren't up to the task of parenting. Again, this is evidenced by the fact that they have their children handle most of the parenting duties.
Speaking of. 19 babies is a lot of labor. Painful, that.
One thing you can say is that liberal is exclusive from ultra right wing fundy.
Then again, if they weren't ultra right wing fundy then they wouldn't have had all those kids anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlUsiKfeDfo&eurl=http://areasofmyexpertise.blogspot.com/
http://www.ugo.com/movies/babylon-ad-video-gallery/?cur=vin-diesel-dungeons-and-dragons&morepics=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlUsiKfeDfo&eurl=http://areasofmyexpertise.blogspot.com/
http://www.ugo.com/movies/babylon-ad-video-gallery/?cur=vin-diesel-dungeons-and-dragons&morepics=1
You bigots.
Only seventeen babies, parents have to take care of themselves too.
They get lots of donations from retarded quiverfull churches and random fundies.
Another aspect of the "If they were liberal you wouldn't be so mad." accusation is that those girls are probably going to want to be just like mom, and part of that is them being raised and taught as though it were 1890. If they actually understood how the actual world worked, or even what the bible actually said, then they would realize that what their parents are doing is completely nuts. If the parents were liberal, their kids would be taught that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlUsiKfeDfo&eurl=http://areasofmyexpertise.blogspot.com/
http://www.ugo.com/movies/babylon-ad-video-gallery/?cur=vin-diesel-dungeons-and-dragons&morepics=1
I dunno, though. One of the arguments I see from Israeli friends against giving Palestinians voting rights in Israel is that, thanks to comparative birth rates, Palestinians would have a clear majority over Jews after a couple generations. This is obviously not palatable for them so they would prefer a two state solution over a single state solution if only to remain in control of their own nation.
Population expansion is a political strategy in any democratic system. Even if this is inadvertent, you have to acknowledge that a thousand or more families having 10+ children for a few generations will have a significant impact on at least local politics.
Fertility rates definitely correspond strongly to voting patterns, at least among whites. It's easier to focus on white fertility rates for a few reasons, mostly because I don't have fertility rates for non-whites on hand but mostly because white voters make up more than 75% of votes.
Republicans generally do well in more rural, less densely populated areas. These areas also tend to have the highest fertility rates. In the 2004 election, Bush carried 25 of the 26 states with the highest white fertility rates (with the exception of Michigan). Kerry got the 16 states with the lowest white fertility rates.
So yes, if you look long-term, this definitely amounts to significant shifts in the overall voting populace. If you have fertility rates tied very strongly to party affiliation, then the party with lower fertility rates is at a significant disadvantage over a significant period (2 generations or more).
It would seem that having tons and tons of children would happen far more often in conservative families than in liberal families (and the statistics bear this out). I don't think it is far-fetched to say that these birth rates differentials will lead to a sea-change in American electoral politics if they continue for the next 50 years.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
I am, of course, opposed to anyone breeding excessively, regardless of race, religion, or political leanings. If Michelle wants more kids she should employ of those Christian Values™ and fucking adopt some, rather than further infest the planet with human beings.
I guess I missed that day? Because I don't see it as a complete takeover, more as a subtle shift in one direction simply due to moving the center.
The fertility disparities are pretty stark, at least the numbers I'm seeing. One example is birth rates between Israeli Muslims and Israeli Jews. It's 3.6% to 1.8% (statistics from Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, 2003) in favor of Israeli Muslims. It wouldn't be a huge takeover but they would have significantly more power. They currently comprise 15% of the overall population; at current rates, they would be 19% by 2020.
That's a pretty significant shift in a fairly small period of time? True, I'd agree that fears are overblown by the media but it would still have an impact on politics, especially in a parliamentary system.
Edit: I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing, necessarily. Just that the effects would be felt in some significant ways.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
Voting patterns in the US don't reflect the birthing patterns - seems that the children of the right are more likely to be apathetic about politics and simply not vote, so the system remains fairly balanced between dems and repubs in raw number terms. The advantage is simply secured by gerrymandering and disenfranchisement of poor dem-heavy populations. In addition, each generation has been more 'liberal' by absolute measures over the course of the century. The theory doesn't add up.
I agree so hard. I'd lime the entire post, but it seems superfluous.
?
Breeding combined with population movements sorta HAVE to have an effect eventually.
It's happened over and over historically (there aren't exactly that many areas still run by indigenous peoples), and it's set to happen again in various areas. It's true that there is some degree of assimilation, but not to the point of wholly overriding it.
In California, due to religion/culturally-inspired reproductive rates (Catholics, whee), vast amounts of migration ('cause they're breeding so much elsewhere), and the whole "White Flight" thing, the Hispanic population will be the majority in 2042.
Whatever your opinion of that fact, good bad or neutral, I don't think it's unsafe to say that will change how things are there. Maybe not as much as the earlier takeovers by earlier European groups, but still significant.
Obviously, when population density changes, population behavior changes, but there's still going to be some serious lag time until liberalization kicks in, especially with migrations OUT of an area.
Breeding your way in to power may even be more popular than genociding your way in to power. Maybe.
Ok, I have a few questions then. because the fertility numbers I see make decent sense to me. Poor, white, rural areas vote largely Republican. They also have much higher than average birth rates than Democratic, urban centers. So I see a correlation there. Perhaps I'm wrong, but this holds true in the 2004 election as I noted in a post above.
Sure, most of them probably don't vote but the pubbies did a great job of turning out their base in 2000 and 2004 (particularly in 2004). It wasn't really that the Democrats failed in turning out their base; actually, they did a great job. They simply didn't get as many, which seems to imply that you can get those apathetic conservative kids to vote in large numbers if you push the right buttons.
I'm not sure if the pendulum is going to keep swinging toward "liberal." We've seen some significant changes to the Supreme Court and Federal Courts that imply that future rulings will be more conservative than the courts of recent decades. For example, recent abortion rulings and anti-diversity in public schools ruling. The youngest members of the court, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, are staunch conservatives. The oldest members of the court are the more liberal ones. So I see, at least from a legal standpoint, SCOTUS and Bush federal court appointees pushing a conservative agenda for the next few decades. These are people whose only oversight is, to quote, the icy scythe of Death.
I agree that gerrymandering has a big part in it, as does disenfranchisement. But I did work, specifically on disenfranchisement, during the 2004 election (which was not gerrymandered, obviously, at least any more than the electoral system is broken). There were no seriously significant cases of voter fraud and disenfranchisement (unlike the ones in Florida and elsewhere in 2000 that handed Bush the election). I know that some people were crying foul in Ohio but, checking district voting records for the past 40 years, no one in the team found anything outside reasonable results.
I guess I don't share your optimism that things are going to keep getting more "liberal." Recent Supreme Court decisions are frightening because they blatantly ignore precedent. Scalia even scolded Roberts for not being more forthright about this disdain for precedent. SCOTUS is a huge factor in molding culture because they can be an engine for change (Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade) or an impediment to it (recent rulings on abortion for instance).
Again, I'm not really trying to point to past instances of this occurring. Rather, I'm trying to figure out what the future is going to hold.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
Districts get changed every 10 years or so. The redistricting in 2003 and the redistricting in Georgia flouted that precedent.
It was beyond the pale, Salvation. It was pretty unique.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
That really only matters if Hispanics start voting in any number
Those instances, yes, but occurences of gerrymandering itself is about as rare and unique as a politician's rhetoric.
Oh snap.
There was a good article in the New Yorker in 2004 I think that discussed how the gerrymandering done during the first Bush term was far more systematic and damaging than previous attempts by either party. It wasn't just surprising in terms of timing, it was surprising in terms of scope.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
There's something inherently dirty about that comment.
Ah, I see. It's all a conspiracy by the conservatives to keep the liberals down! There's actually some studying going on right now on this type of topic re: birth rates and fertility rates. See here.
In addition, I might challenge that each generation is more liberal. There's been a shift over the last 20 years towards conservatism as evidenced by Republican wins in politics, decrease in support of abortion and general distrust over large social programs (especially by the current young generation). In some countries, it has been more liberal, but I don't think it's a continued growth of liberalism.
But a single middle-class family with the support of their community, living in an area with a low cost of living can.
Areas with low cost of living typically have lower overall income levels as well.
Because 9% think it's too high, and shouldn't be cut! 9% of respondents could not fully
get their arms around the question. There should be another box you can check for, "I
have utterly no idea what you're talking about. Please, God, don't ask for my input."