Saturday, September 17, 2011

Commentor KW on China's one-child policy

Commentor KW takes issue with my post condemning China's one-child policy:

KW:

I certainly object to forced abortion. It's outrageous,

There are different degrees of force. I presume you don't support government officials strapping women to tables to abort their children (a common practice in China). But any government population policy is force. The force may take less obvious form-- the family may be punished financially or professionally. It's still force. And you have no problem with it, it seems.

but only slightly more outrageous than forcing women to give birth.
Giving birth is natural, not forced. It's how we all got here, KW. If you mean that restricting abortion is force, I point out that killing innocents has generally been prohibited by law. Insisting that a child's life be protected and respected is not 'only slightly less outrageous' than forced abortions. It's not outrageous at all.
Perhaps big tax breaks for couples that have only one child would be better approach for the Chinese government.
Taxing the hell out of families with more than one child is such an enlightened policy. It will be of particular benefit to sustenance farmers trying to feed more than one child. That'll teach 'em to procreate when you ordered 'em not to.
The practice of selective abortions of girls is stupid because it will harm Chinese society.
It's not "stupid". It's an atrocity. And killing girls doesn't just harm Chinese society. It harms the girls who are killed. You seem to keep forgetting about them.
I hope the sake of Chinese morality isn't fixed by some transcendent opinion, and that the Chinese can learn to love their child no matter their sex. 
'Love and cherish the little darlings, but if you have more than one, we'll rip out your ovaries'. A prescription for love.
China is trying to save China,
Totalitarians are doing what totalitarians always do. It has nothing to do with "saving China". It has to do with the assertion of power over the most intimate aspects of family life. Large families and the intimate loyalty within the family have always been an impediment to totalitarians. Families distract people from doing what the totalitarians want them to do, which is obey totalitarians. Strapping a woman to a table and ripping out her kid that she conceived despite your order is a very effective way to teach obedience. It makes people listen more attentively in the future. In the society you envision, there can be no foci of influence (family or church) that distracts people from submission to your authority. Totalitarianism 101.
and in so doing the help to make the earth more sustainable for the rest of us.
I feel so much more sustained after of tens of millions of murders and forced abortions and sterilizations. Don't you?
I know that many, if not most, of American religious conservatives simply don't believe that we can ruin the earth because we are not in control.
Christians support conservation. It's batsh*t fact-free totalitarianism that gives us pause.
Others believe and want their best friend in the sky to save their righteous asses as it all goes to hell. Unfortunately the rest of us, living in the real world, have to suffer the consequences of your faith based politics.
And tens of millions of children murdered and men and women involuntarily sterilized for your totalitarian ideology suffered the consequences of your faith based politics.
The world is indeed going to hell in a hand-basket,
Can you name one prediction you totalitarian overpopulation nuts have made since Malthus that has come true?
and it's religious conservatives the world over that are fighting the hardest to make sure we do nothing about it.
Damn right. We think that the only overpopulation we have is that there is too much totalitarianism. We're trying to reduce the rate at which it reproduces.
If every person really understood what was happening to our planet, and wanted a future with a minimum of human suffering, they would use that knowledge and their intellect to suppress the genetically driven, religiously mandated, drive to reproduce like lemmings.
Tens of millions of dead Chinese children is quite a start on your crusade to save the world from... from... people. And why isn't the unchecked spread of totalitarianism a problem for our planet? Why isn't the violent intrusion of jackbooted government "population" officials into the most intimate aspect of family life a problem for our planet? Scares me a whole heck of a lot more than a few more people.

Why don't we just restrict the increase in population of totalitarians? (We could make condoms with little pictures of Pol Pot so totalitarians would want to use them). Unlike Chinese farmers, totalitarians have a proven record of killing lots of people.
Education and the shedding of illogical religious dogma is the key to a prosperous, just, and happy future.
Just what China has done. Hundreds of millions of dead children. Tens of million missing girls. Millions of women forced to undergo involuntary abortions. Millions of involuntarily sterilized men and women. Families shredded. An aging population without enough young people to sustain growth or even to support the aged.

But they do obey, which is what totalitarianism population control is all about.


21 comments:

  1. Egnor:

    "Totalitarians are doing what totalitarians always do. It has nothing to do with "saving China". It has to do with the assertion of power over the most intimate aspects of family life."

    Hence the totalitarian RCC's obsession with sex. Hence the totalitarian RCC's insistence on celibacy in its priesthood. There's a big mote in your own eye, Egnor.


    "Large families and the intimate loyalty within the family have always been an impediment to totalitarians."

    Il Padrino di Cosa Nostra would be surprised to hear that.

    Commenting here is like shooting fish in a barrel. :)

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  2. @troy
    Hence the totalitarian RCC's obsession with sex.

    I asked Google for the meaning of RCC: Royal Caribbean Cruise. Obsession with sex? Hum...

    :-)

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  3. Michael,

    We are barely managing to feed the current global population of 7 billion. Around 500 million are on the verge of starvation. One billion depend on oceanic fisheries, which are being overfished to the point of collapse.

    We have only been able to feed so many people because of the Green Revolution which is dependent on cheap abundant energy in the form of oil and natural gas to manufacture fertilizers and pharmaceuticals.

    We have already harvested the most accessible supplies and as less accessible sources are tapped, the costs will skyrocket till all is gone. And accidents like Deep Horizon in less accessible sites such as the Arctic will be disastrous and almost impossible to stop.

    The world's population if we are lucky will only be 9 billion owing to the age distribution of the global population. There's a lot of young people who haven't had children so if each female has just 2 children, an increase of 2 billion is going to happen. So somehow, we are going to have to work out how to feed an extra 2 billion people with fertilizer becoming much more expensive and scarce.

    We are already farming 90% of the available arable land. Going to 100% won't be enough.

    You keep on ignoring the brutal fact that modern agriculture involves turning fossil fuel into food. Fossil fuels are finite. We are going through millions of years of laid down fossil fuels in years. Fishing trawlers are having to burn increasing amounts of diesel to catch decreasing quantities of fish.

    Regarding selective abortions of female fetuses. This can be overcome in two ways. Firstly, don't tell the parents the sex of the fetus if it's determined. And secondly, and principally, change society's view of females, make them equal to males in terms of education and career choices. That's what South Korea did when parents were choosing to limit their number of children but still wanted to have sons. South Korea made daughters valued more than just being incubators of grandsons, so the M/F sex ratio droped from 120/100 (China's ratio) to the normal(ish) ratio of 108/100.

    Pepe,

    RCC besides standing for Roman Catholic Church, also stands for renal cell carcinoma.

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  4. Troy has now refined his vitriol another level in order to direct it at Rome. From religion in general, to Christianity and now Roman Catholicism. His bigotry is now distilled.
    He compares the Holy See to the People's Republic of China.
    What an incredible position to take.
    Literally incredible.

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  5. @bach:

    [We are barely managing to feed the current global population of 7 billion...Fishing trawlers are having to burn increasing amounts of diesel to catch decreasing quantities of fish.]

    Yada yada... Every prediction of overpopulation psychos for 200 years has been crap. You've been more consistently wrong than any predictors I know of. Psychics get it right more often than you do.

    Paul Ehrlich is the prototype for you psychos. First, account for your utter failure to get any of the science right for 200 years, then show me what's different about your totalitarian delusion that would make me take it seriously.

    Ironically, essentially all of the recent famine in the 20th century has been the result of the same totalitarian crap that you're pushing now. The key to feeding humanity is to prevent totalitarians and sympathizers like you from gaining political power.

    [Regarding selective abortions of female fetuses. This can be overcome in two ways.]

    Sure:

    1) Stop abortion.

    2) Stop abortion.

    Stop tinkering with killing. If you want to stop killing little girls, stop killing anyone, and saving girls will be a nice side-effect.

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  6. I stand by everything I said.

    The political power of Christianity is the primary reason we have barely lifted a finger to do anything to help ensure a sustainable future.

    Why should they? Christianity is after-all, the worlds largest doomsday cult. At least a plurality, and perhaps a majority of Christians believe that Jesus will return in their lifetime, and everybody knows we need apocalypse for that to happen.

    Given that half of the people who ever lived are alive right now, here is no doubt in my mind that Christianity will cause more human suffering than any other source. In the grand sweep of history, suffering and death will be Christianity's overriding legacy.

    -KW

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  7. KW,
    Let's just tweak your comment a touch shall we? Have a look at it with some substitutes.
    Like for example, you wrote:
    "The political power of Christianity is the primary reason we have barely lifted a finger to do anything to help ensure a sustainable future."
    What happens when we replace the words 'Christianity' with 'The Jew'?
    Then your comment becomes:
    "The political power of THE JEW is the primary reason we have barely lifted a finger to do anything to help ensure a sustainable future."
    OUCH! That has a familiar tone, doesn't it?
    I hope the alarm bells are going off when readers cross these words.
    This is a gross misrepresentation of Christianity and Christians, and an attempt to lay blame for the ills of the world at the feet of a select group of SCAPEGOATS. In this case Christians, in the case of the NAZIs it was 'The Jew'. Same principle.
    THIS is the painted face of the whore that is Atheism.
    This is the spectre raised during the terror, pogroms, and genocides of the 20th century and that haunts the Gulags and Death camps of Asia.
    ALL this vitriol and hatred instilled in a young college kid who dreams of girls.
    It's a crime.

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  8. On the subject,
    I have been a member of the local and provincial conservation authorities for most of my adult life. Most of the members I work with (most with the local trail /shore group) are practising Christians - more so than me as far as regular religion and Church-going. The one who is not, is a Jew.
    The local Churches ALL participate in our drives, walks, and efforts about the Bayshore and peninsula. St Goerge's and St Mary's being BIG donors and volunteers. Also the 'Order of good Cheer' does a great deal of conservation work too. While open to all, it is a basically Christian order. I am also a lifelong member of the Order of St Lazarus. While our order is primarily a medical and military charity, we also play a role in the conservation of sites and regions of natural importance.
    I have yet to meet a GNU Atheist (or ANY atheist) in ALL my years of this volunteer work. I have met hippy animists, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Agnostics of all stripes, and the VAST majority in an extremely cosmopolitan region have been Christians.
    So?
    Maybe you Materialist folks are off base...again.

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  9. Michael,

    You're still wrong. There are three essentials for humans; food, fresh water and energy.

    The Club of Rome were wrong (so far) because they were worried about shortages of minerals. They were wrong, partly because minerals can be recycled or substitutes can be found. In a previous thread, I noted that the rare earth europium, which gives the vivid reds in colour TVs, was thought to be in very short supply, enough for only 200,000 sets, but alternate technologies were invented, such as plasma screens and LEDs.

    The clergyman Thomas Malthus was predicting catastrophe because he wasn't aware that cheap abundant oil was going to be exploited beginning just 50 years later.

    But once the oil and natural gas is burnt, it's gone forever. It can't be reborn or recycled.

    And we are dependent on oil and natural gas to make our fertilizers and pharmaceuticals. If we don't have the fertilizers and the pesticides to control pests in crops, how are we going to grow the food we need? So where are we going to get them?

    We need oil to run our extensive shipping. When the oil runs out, what then? Build new coal fueled ships and make the profession of ship's stoker respectable again?

    We can grow crops in deserts with enough fertilizers and fresh water. We could desalinate sea water if we have the energy. We can pump water out of aquifers if we have the energy too, but aquifers take a long time to replenish and many are being depleted with the water table dropping precipitously. We could synthesize fertilizers from inorganic materials if we had the energy.

    You're adopting an incredible head in the sand attitude, opposing conserving fossil fuels and developing alternate energy sources, as a result of your denial of AGW. Market forces won't save us. Nuclear power is very expensive requiring government support to make it competitive. I noted earlier that the Australian government had an enquiry to determine how Australia could develop a nuclear industry with all of Australia's advantages, but without public subsidies, and the answer was a carbon tax of $50 per tonne was necessary, much higher than any carbon tax proposed as a measure against AGW.

    The present population of 7 billion has only come about because we have been very successful in exploiting cheap abundant energy. And what happens when it's no longer cheap and abundant? Michelle Bachman, the favorite of the Tea Party has as her only energy policy making gasoline half the price, so people won't have the incentive to conserve again.

    Again, we are barely feeding 7 billion now, with relatively cheap abundant oil and natural gas, and oceanic fisheries that are still providing food for a billion. What are we going to be doing in 2050 when there will be a minimum of 9 billion, oil and gas will no longer be cheap or abundant and the world's fisheries gone?

    Stalin's collectivization of farms and adoption of Lysenko's mad acceptance of Lamarckian evolution and rejection of Darwin, and Mao's famine due to the so called Great Leap Forward caused deaths that pale in comparison to the 500 million currently not able to get enough food.

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  10. @troy

    What beef do you have with RCC? Don't you ever have sex? Especially on a cruise?

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  11. I've been reading this blog for a while, and I thought I should finally say something: thank you, Dr. Egnor!

    I'm sure there are many more like me, who appreciate your frequent writings and take a lot from them. A lot of us read relatively casually and don't care to engage in the comments (so often it's mostly vitriol from people who seem to live online - sorry, but that's how the average person sees the hard-hearted folks who write here).

    I look forward to reading your writings for my own edification, and I will let my friends and family know of the site as well. Thank you for your perseverance in the good fight!

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  12. Bach,
    Here is the central issue: No one is prepared to listen to the boy who cried wolf any longer.
    People, the majority I know, are NOT prepared to 'trust' in the same science and logic that LED us here in the first place. If your AGW is true (BIG IF on the A) in the slightest degree, then it is PROGRESSIVE, INDUSTRIALIST, MATERIALIST, SCIENTISM that has brought it on. Now the SAME folks who GENERATED the disaster want us to trust them as saviours? NO WAY, mate. NO way. That is just the horrible truth of it.
    In truth I doubt the 'A' in AGW, to any extent that it is of significance. POLLUTION and WASTE is a real issue, that is almost entirely ignored in favour of less politically explosive 'emissions'. The vapours are much safer to talk about than PCB's and toxins being DUMPED by the big Science Corps world wide, eh? You bet!
    The issues of food and resource shortages are a real security consideration. We do not make contingencies for things that have ZERO chance of occurring, in this military...and we have contingencies for these types of possible events.
    I will concede there is a real possibility of resource based conflicts spreading into new regions. But, I fail to see how that has baring on Red China's killer policies. Whether we are talking their eugenics/abortion stuff or their mass executions and 'vanishing' women and children. China is more than just Red, it is crimson with the blood of the Chinese people.
    There is NO excuse for what they do, they deserve NO credit for it.

    To play apologetics with their policy is to discredit your own position.
    Western Atheists would do well to note that, if they wish to be taken seriously by the majority of their peers.

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  13. @Christine;

    Thank you! It means a lot to me to hear from friends. I appreciate your reading.

    Blessings,

    Mike

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  14. One more note on clinate change. Glacial maximums and minimums are cyclical events. Geology and history tell us this. In the RCN and DnD (Navy and Defence) we are preparing for Arctic traffic in newly exposed sea routes. We have just started a joint exercise with the USNCG, RN, and Royal Danish Navy.
    There's no doubting the ice is moving in the circle. I have been up there several times and SEEN the difference near resolute over 15 years.
    We have also been tracking a rapid drift in the magnetic pole, that has been accelerating for decades. Things change on earth. There are cycles. We are preparing for those changes. We are preparing shipping and industry, for offshore drilling, for fisheries....not the end of the world.


    I thought it was us Christians who were supposed to be the 'doomsday cult'?
    Dr Egnor is correct. We have known about these changes for decades (over a century). The histrionics is the only new part.
    The hippies have 2012, the nerds have AGW, and the Theists have another Holiday feast to plan for.

    I would just add that the whole 'end of the world is nigh' is a red herring, a canard.

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  15. @Christine,
    I agree. I love to read this blog too. The difference , I suppose, is that I am a bit of a frog mouth :P
    I hope I do not come off as too hard hearted or bull headed, as that is not the intent. I would not want to think I was acting in a way that puts people off from commenting.
    I am only trying to add my own piece to the puzzle, but sometimes it gets a little frustrating...like talking to an ideological wall.
    Anyway thanks for reading our back-and-forths, and keep on coming back to dig the Doc's posts!
    God bless, and have a great weekend.
    CR

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  16. CrusadeRex,

    What have I done to deserve your double diatribe? All I'm saying is that we have to be making plans as to how we are going to be feeding an extra 2 billion people in less than 40 years.

    China doesn't deserve your diatribe either. How shots has the Chinese military fired in anger in the last 25 years? The answer is; zero. The Chinese have been remarkably peaceful, unlike the Americans who waged an unjust war against Iraq.

    Tony Blair is even worse. As the Middle East 'peace' envoy, he is busy talking up war against Iran, despite the American intelligence indicating that Iran stopped a nuclear weapon program in 2003, and Iranian troops fought alongside the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. Iran has an interest in keeping the Taliban out. Our problem in Afghanistan is Pakistan.

    But I digress. If technology has got us into this mess with pollution etc, then it's technology that's going to have to get us out of it. Rejecting science is just crazy.

    And the global warming now is proceeding at a faster rate now than it was at the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum 55 MYA, due to a release of greenhouse gases resulting from suboceanic volcanic activity collapsing methane clathrates of similar magnitude to the current human release of carbon emissions today (see this years July issue of Scientific American for details).

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  17. Oops, it should have read 'how many shots has china fired ...'

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  18. Bach,
    Diatribe? Response.
    A response to your RANT about the merits of a murderous totalitarian state. You did not only deserve a response - you asked for it, Bach.
    Shots fired? How about the ones fired into the heads of Chinese people before soccer games?
    Or the rounds expended on Tibetan Monks or Muslims in Xinjiang?
    Do you have any Chinese friends, Bach? I do. Both from the mainland and Hong Kong. They do not see Beijing as benevolent and 'for the Chinese'. They see that government as the biggest enemy the Chinese peoples have ever faced. They FEAR Beijing, and privately HATE the communists.
    We have tour buses FULL of people from Red China that come to Ontario each summer to tour our CHURCHES and worship outdoors (illegal back home) and they have to lie and say they are on 'waterfall tours'. One of my friends is a guide to these folks, and has spent many hours relating the nastiness his family and these folks go through in Red China.

    As for America and her 'unjust' wars, your standards do not match mine or that of any military I know of. America has flaws and has been excessive on occasion...but she has many merits. Red China? None I can see. None.
    Iraq unjust? There was better targets, IMHO. Unjust, I don't buy. Nothing to do with justice, war. That is just spin. Retribution and diversion is what Iraq was about and it worked...at least for a while. Iran would have been better, IMHO...but hey it's all about balance.

    America may have her faults, I'll not argue that - but at least she has merits. China, as a nation, has NONE that I can see.

    Red China deserves NOTHING less than suspicion and NOTHING more than the contempt of this guardian. I would be delinquent at my station and a disgrace to my rank if I did not see this Red stain on China for what it is: A serious threat, and an abomination / outrage against one of the oldest and richest cultures of our world.

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  19. CrusadeRex,

    Please address my point. I was noting that we have to plan how we are going to feed an extra 2 billion people in 40 years.

    I also don't think that China is as bad as you reckon. They do allow their citizens to travel overseas. They do have a pretty good record in foreign affairs in not having started a foreign war for at least 25 years. They trade and pay their bills.

    OK, their human rights aren't the best, but I expect that they'll improve as their citizens travel overseas more extensively. At least they aren't executing innocent people and pretending to be sanctimonious about it like the Americans.

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  20. Your point? What point Bach?
    This? "I was noting that we have to plan how we are going to feed an extra 2 billion people in 40 years"
    My answer? We will convert our wasted resources so that we can, or we WON'T. We (humanity) will "cull our own herd" with resource wars, as we always have. People will starve, as they do today and did 1000 years ago. Others will gorge.
    People will spread out into new areas. Wars of expansion.
    Is that simply enough put for you? We will feed them or we wont. Killing a few million unborn in the meantime is pointless and EVIL.
    Let's apply your position to AGW, Bach. Should we abort human babies to stop the warming of the globe? Should we maybe GLASS India and China (and maybe tracts of Africa) to cut down on the worst polluters? Come on now. PROXIMATE solutions are the ONLY solutions. We need FIXES not genocides. PEOPLE are not the problem - they are US.

    You state:
    "...also don't think that China is as bad as you reckon. They do allow their citizens to travel overseas. They do have a pretty good record in foreign affairs in not having started a foreign war for at least 25 years. They trade and pay their bills."
    Maybe you should spend 6 years at the RMC.
    The popular press is beholden to China. We, in the Forces, are NOT. Or you could get to know some Chinese folks. They will set you right.
    But, I can understand your desire to optimistic given your geography, Bach. The best you can hope for, IMO, is a change WITHIN China and that it is not too far to the right or religious (Islam). A free and open China would be a blessing we would ALL enjoy...but it has NEVER happened and not likely to happen any time soon. I can most honestly say I hope I am wrong here.

    Then you wrote:
    "At least they aren't executing innocent people and pretending to be sanctimonious about it like the Americans."
    China executes political prisoners, welfare cheats, economic criminals, protesters, cultists, frauds, and drug dealers, for God's sake. They have 68 offences that meet the 'death code'. Most executions take place after less than 1 month after the hearing/arrest! Justice? Their 'justice' is almost completely political and arbitrary.
    How an educated man can compare the American legal system to that of the Chinese is utterly beyond me. The American system is far from perfect and there are WAY to many people in prison...but compare it to CHINA? Come on now!
    That said I don't agree with capital punishment at all. I don't care if it is 46 lethal injections in the USA, or the estimated 2000+ (state secret) in China for 2010, I stand against the vengeful killing of unarmed and contained alleged 'criminals'. I also stand against communism and dictatorship. Any sane Western person does, no?

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  21. CrusadeRex,

    You have a pretty dismal outlook on the future of humans.

    I'm actually optimistic, but good outcomes require good planning.

    I stated that China's Human rights aren't the best. But I am optimistic that that will improve as China continues to open up and is citizens travel more. I doubt that China is actually communist though, there are too many Chinese millionaires and even billionaires.

    And yes, I have met ordinary Chinese including a couple on their honeymoon in the middle of Australia just 2 weeks ago, computer programmers from Shanghai. They seemed happy enough.

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