Culture

[Irish YJ]

Wasn't sure where to put this

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Chris Pratt with all of the wisdom <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MTVAwards?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MTVAwards</a> <a href="https://t.co/eu5cXU7WcQ">pic.twitter.com/eu5cXU7WcQ</a></p>— FANDOM (@getFANDOM) <a href="https://twitter.com/getFANDOM/status/1008902822098681859?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Pee first.... priceless.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Commentary's Noah Rothman just published an article titled "Over-Population: The Malthusian Myth That Refuses to Die":

The word “ethics” appears prominently in the biographies of the authors who co-wrote a recent Washington Post op-ed lamenting the “taboo” associated with “talking about overpopulation.” Frances Kissling is the president of the Center for Health, Ethics, and Social Policy. Peter Singer is a professor of bioethics at Princeton University. Only Jotham Musinguzi, the “director general of Uganda’s National Population Council,” doesn’t mention “ethics” in the bio. That’s good because the Malthusian views promulgated in the piece are anything but ethical.

Inauspiciously, the authors begin by applying a coat of gloss over Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book The Population Bomb, which they note had a “major impact” on public policy but that “spurred a backlash” rendering the discussion of its thesis “radioactive.” Indeed, that’s only just. Ehrlich’s claims were dead wrong.

Ehrlich claimed that the Earth had a finite “carrying capacity,” and its limits were about to be tested. He claimed that mass starvation was imminent; hundreds of millions would die. Neither the first nor the third world would be spared; the average American lifespan would decline to just 42 by 1980. Ehrlich continued to make apocalyptic predictions after his book became a sensation. “Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born,” he wrote in 1969. A year later: “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” Between 1980 and 1989, most of the Earth’s population, including over one-third of all Americans, would die or be murdered what he grimly dubbed “the Great Die-Off.” As recently as this year, Ehrlich—who still teaches at Stanford University—said that civilizational collapse remains a likely prospect and the chief shortcoming of his most famous book was that it failed to invoke the modern progressive Trinity: feminism, anti-racism, and inequality.

Our WaPo ethicists don’t tackle any of this. Indeed, they favorably observe that Ehrlich’s warnings render family planning in the developed world a necessity to stave off the unfortunate circumstances that would force the wealthy world to withhold food aid from the developed world to induce “necessary and justifiable” chaos and starvation. Seriously.

Because population control is not a problem in the developed world, where birthrates are declining below even replacement rates, population controllers tend to fixate on sexual habits in the developing world. The authors of this op-ed are no exception. They draw an almost always fallacious straight-line projection to conclude that—in the unlikely event that nothing changes between today and 2100—a population crisis should afflict a variety of Sub-Saharan African nations. To avert this crisis, they advocate promoting and supporting proper sexual hygiene, to which almost no one would object. But their authors’ core agenda isn’t the distribution of prophylactics. They seek to de-stigmatize abortion in the equatorial world, which is controversial for reasons that have nothing to do with faith. After all, it was The Population Bomb and its progenitors that lent renewed legitimacy to old arguments that inevitably result in targeting black and brown populations with sterilization and eugenics.

The title of Ehrlich’s book was lifted from a 1954 pamphlet issued by Gen. William Draper’s Population Crisis Committee, and it arguably inaugurated the overpopulation fad toward which pop intellectuals were drawn in the 20th Century. The effects this mania had on public policy were terrible. In the United States, population control hysteria led, in part, to the sterilization of “up to one-quarter” of the Native American women of childbearing age by 1977, according to Angela Franks’ 2005 book, Margaret Sanger’s Eugenic Legacy. “The large number of sterilizations began in earnest in 1966, when Medicaid came into existence and funded the operation for low-income people.” Thousands of Native American women in the early to mid-1970s were sterilized after signing consent forms that failed to comply with regulations.

With the assistance of the U.S. government and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Puerto Rican government operated a program of voluntary female sterilization for decades, but it was “voluntary” in the most perverse sense. Pressure from employers and public incentives united to “liberate” women from the drudgery of childbearing, leaving many women without much of a choice in the matter. A 1965 survey of Puerto Rican women found that one-third of women in prime child-bearing years admitted to undergoing sterilization.

America’s minority populations were, however, a secondary concern to population controllers. It was, as ever, the so-called underdeveloped world that preoccupies the technocrats. Toward supposedly enlightened ends, the World Bank, working in quiet concert with the U.S. government, helped to advance Washington’s unstated goal of keeping population levels in the developing world down. “In some cases, strong direction has involved incentives such as payment to acceptors for sterilization, or disincentives such as giving low priorities in the allocation of housing or schooling to those with larger families,” a triumphant 1974 National Security Council memorandum read. As part of this campaign, American philanthropic institutions working with USAID reportedly distributed unsafe and untested contraceptive devices in the developing world. “USAID has been able to put some distance between itself and many of the more objectionable elements of its population agenda,” Population Research Institute’s James A. Miller wrote in a 1996 exposé.

For decades, a pseudoscientific religion that justified coercion and eugenics to achieve “optimal” population ratios quietly guided the development of Western public policy. In a comprehensive 2012 essay in The New Atlantis, Robert Zubrin demonstrated conclusively that 20th Century population control programs were “dictatorial,” “dishonest,” “coercive,” “medically irresponsible and negligent,” “cruel, callous, and abusive of human dignity and human rights,” and, perhaps most of all, “racist.” It was, in fact, their “neocolonial” aspects that led to a left-wing revolt against population controllers in the 1970s. But the left will never be able to entirely divorce itself from the logic that led to population control because they are Malthusians at heart. From peak Earth to peak oil, the left is possessed of a boundless pessimism. Theirs is an ideology that is founded upon the belief that life is a zero-sum game; all commodities are finite and can only be distributed fairly by enlightened elites. They will always underestimate humanity’s capacity to engineer itself out of a jam.

So, yes, overpopulation is a “taboo” subject because it has justified one of the most grotesque campaigns of industrialized human rights abuses the world has ever seen. In making a veiled argument in favor of abortion, our ethicists have inadvertently made their opponents’ case for them: reproductive controls targeting women in the developing world inevitably legitimize condescension, imperialism, and dehumanization. “The conversation about ethics, population and reproduction needs to shift from the perspective of white donor countries,” the authors conclude. And yet, as was ever the case, the “perspective of white donor countries” seems always to be the place from which dangerous ideas about the undesirable procreative habits of women in the equatorial world spring. Fifty years after the publication of a book that helped to legitimize the sterilization of millions in the developing world, that kind of noxious chauvinism remains a prominent feature of the population control movement.

 

[Legacy]

Utah’s minority populations are growing the fastest — adding 130K people in seven years (Salt Lake Tribune)

The Utah delegates to Congress praised Trump's immigration executive order to keep children with their parents most of whom are seeking asylum from the violence in their countries. Mia (Bourdeau) Love, R, Rep of Utah's 4th District said:

“Congress must do its job and the executive branch must enforce the laws that Congress passes.. I have taken the lead to solidify these changes through legislation by getting these measures into the compromise bill that is up for a vote [Thursday]. I will continue the work of reforming our nation’s outdated immigration laws. ”

Love is a first generation American. Her parents came to the U.S.from Haiti, escaping political repression. Her father had been threatened by the Tonton Macoute, the secret police in Haiti. Her parents traveled to the United States on a tourist visa. They spoke only French when they arrived. Her father became a paint-company manager and her mother worked as a nurse in Brooklyn.

Love's birth enabled her parents to gain a U.S. residency permit (green card) under an immigration law that favored immigrants from the Western Hemisphere who had a child born in the United States. It expired in 1976. They later became naturalized citizens. Her father was a manager in a paint store and her mother was a nurse in Brooklyn where Mia grew up.

Love was born a Catholic but converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1998 when she was in college in Hartford, Conn. on a scholarship. She moved to Utah for work, and later married her husband, Jason, whom she had met in Conn. when he was on his mission. They have three children from their mixed marriage.

She spoke at the 2012 Republican convention where Mitt Romney became the Party's nominee. She has represented her district in Congress since 2014, being re-elected twice. In October, 2016, she announced she would not support Donald Trump. Love is a co-sponsor of the Recognizing America's Children Act, which would provide a pathway for DACA recipients to permanently remain in the country. She is the only female Republican member of the Congressional Black Caucus and was the first black Republican woman elected to Congress. Her husband, Jason, is a member of the Congressional Spouses Club.

She describes her political beliefs as "fiscal discipline, limited government, and personal responsibility."

Mia Love (Wiki)

Mr. (Mia) Love — the man behind the congresswoman (Deseret News)

U.S. Rep. Mia Love's Commencement Speech at the University of Hartford, 2018

First your ability to rise will be bolstered or shackled by your ability to engage in elevated dialogue. It may seem crazy for a member of congress to be talking about elevated dialogue – but I believe it is the key to all of our finest hours. As a nation, as individuals and as communities we must get comfortable having uncomfortable conversations. We cannot rise if we are constantly spewing divisive and demonizing rhetoric. It is so tempting to melt-down someone’s twitter feed or blow up their FaceBook page with anger-filled words of frustration. Someone wisely said, “Speak in anger and you will give the best speech you ever live to regret.” Even if it’s sharing a virtual speech on social media – the result is the same. Remember this, moments captured are forever and friends keep friends off YouTube. The solution to any problem begins when someone says, “Let’s talk about it.” We have a long way to go as country – but it starts with each of us individually being willing to have an elevated conversation about the challenges of our day. It is impossible to rise without being comfortable and confident in higher dialogue.

That's quite an American story.

 

[Sureal]

Utah’s minority populations are growing the fastest — adding 130K people in seven years (Salt Lake Tribune)

The Utah delegates to Congress praised Trump's immigration executive order to keep children with their parents most of whom are seeking asylum from the violence in their countries. Mia (Bourdeau) Love, R, Rep of Utah's 4th District said:



Love is a first generation American. Her parents came to the U.S.from Haiti, escaping political repression. Her father had been threatened by the Tonton Macoute, the secret police in Haiti. Her parents traveled to the United States on a tourist visa. They spoke only French when they arrived. Her father became a paint-company manager and her mother worked as a nurse in Brooklyn.

Love's birth enabled her parents to gain a U.S. residency permit (green card) under an immigration law that favored immigrants from the Western Hemisphere who had a child born in the United States. It expired in 1976. They later became naturalized citizens. Her father was a manager in a paint store and her mother was a nurse in Brooklyn where Mia grew up.

Love was born a Catholic but converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1998 when she was in college in Hartford, Conn. on a scholarship. She moved to Utah for work, and later married her husband, Jason, whom she had met in Conn. when he was on his mission. They have three children from their mixed marriage.

She spoke at the 2012 Republican convention where Mitt Romney became the Party's nominee. She has represented her district in Congress since 2014, being re-elected twice. In October, 2016, she announced she would not support Donald Trump. Love is a co-sponsor of the Recognizing America's Children Act, which would provide a pathway for DACA recipients to permanently remain in the country. She is the only female Republican member of the Congressional Black Caucus and was the first black Republican woman elected to Congress. Her husband, Jason, is a member of the Congressional Spouses Club.

She describes her political beliefs as "fiscal discipline, limited government, and personal responsibility."

Mia Love (Wiki)

Mr. (Mia) Love — the man behind the congresswoman (Deseret News)

U.S. Rep. Mia Love's Commencement Speech at the University of Hartford, 2018



That's quite an American story.

Yeah man- I really like what she stands for but I don't know if she makes any inroads nationally especially in this climate. She's not extreme enough for many

 

[Bluto]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Planned Parenthood is spending $50k to beat a pro-choice woman after she supported Planned Parenthood workers trying to unionize. For a state legislative seat. <a href="https://t.co/mHEbUgIv7L">https://t.co/mHEbUgIv7L</a></p>— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) <a href="https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1008171126600683527?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

h/t Whiskey for this link. I don't even think I need to comment on the hypocrisy of an organization that is supposed to be ultra progressive and nonprofit union busting.

Planned Parenthood cares about their $$$ above all else, and their business is abortion. The end.

I think this is further proof that there is no true progressive political “party” in the US when it comes to economic and class issues.

 

[Legacy]

My Love for the Place (Notre Dame Magazine, Fr. John Jenkins)

Letter on Health Care Coverage (Office of the President, UND)

HUMANAE VITAE
(2 of 3)

 

[connor_in]

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name stripped from children’s book award over ‘Little House’ depictions of Native Americans - WaPo

 

[Bishop2b5]

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name stripped from children’s book award over ‘Little House’ depictions of Native Americans - WaPo

This goes directly to one of my pet peeves. Judging the views or actions of people from the past by today's standards is generally a mistake. Hardly anyone from decades or centuries ago didn't hold views or engage in behavior that would be considered biased, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, oppressive, etc. by TODAY'S standards or PC culture. Those people weren't evil nor trying to be evil or unfair. They were just living by the standards and teachings of their time. They were products of their era just as we are of ours. To deface or remove statues, trash the reputations of historical figures, or rewrite history in the name of "enlightenment" or being woke or PC hysteria is just wrong. If this continues, we'll end up trashing EVERYONE, no matter how good or important, from the past.

 

[Wild Bill]

This goes directly to one of my pet peeves. Judging the views or actions of people from the past by today's standards is generally a mistake. Hardly anyone from decades or centuries ago didn't hold views or engage in behavior that would be considered biased, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, oppressive, etc. by TODAY'S standards or PC culture. Those people weren't evil nor trying to be evil or unfair. They were just living by the standards and teachings of their time. They were products of their era just as we are of ours. To deface or remove statues, trash the reputations of historical figures, or rewrite history in the name of "enlightenment" or being woke or PC hysteria is just wrong. If this continues, we'll end up trashing EVERYONE, no matter how good or important, from the past.

So it's working as intended.

 

[Bluto]

So it's working as intended.

Why are we so obsessed with idolatry? Maybe that’s the question that needs to be asked.

 

[Irish YJ]

Why are we so obsessed with idolatry? Maybe that’s the question that needs to be asked.

I don't really care about idols or statues, but re-writing history and PCing everything likely creates more divide than leaving the shit as is. Throughout history people change, morals change, thinking changes, attitudes change...... I think it's more harmful to erase/forget our past, especially if some elements were bad.

 

[Bluto]

I don't really care about idols or statues, but re-writing history and PCing everything likely creates more divide than leaving the shit as is. Throughout history people change, morals change, thinking changes, attitudes change...... I think it's more harmful to erase/forget our past, especially if some elements were bad.

What “histories” have been “erased” (other than a number of Native American ones) or re-written?

 

[NorthDakota]

Rename the Heisman. The Nobel Prize. All of them. Blow up the national monuments in DC. Idolatry!!!!

 

[Irish YJ]

What “histories” have been “erased” (other than a number of Native American ones) or re-written?

Here's a Canadian take on it... from a Center source.

Cleansing history is just wrong

So you're OK with blowing up Mount Rushmore?

 

[Bluto]

Here's a Canadian take on it... from a Center source.

Cleansing history is just wrong

So you're OK with blowing up Mount Rushmore?

I don’t really care what the Canadian guy thinks. In your opinion how would blowing up Mount Rushmore “erase” a history? What “histori s” are being “erased”?

 

[Irish YJ]

I don’t really care what the Canadian guy thinks. In your opinion how would blowing up Mount Rushmore “erase” a history? What “histori s” are being “erased”?

memorials, statues, monuments, etc., whether you like them are not, are part of history. The definition of erase is "to rub out or remove".

also, idiot progressives doing things like banning Mark Twain from schools....

 

[Bluto]

memorials, statues, monuments, etc., whether you like them are not, are part of history. The definition of erase is "to rub out or remove".

also, idiot progressives doing things like banning Mark Twain from schools....

I do not think you understand the concept of a “history”. If all US monuments were destroyed tomorrow it would not “erase” any history (other than maybe some of history of the events surrounding the construction of the monuments themselves) because the events that those monuments were a response to have been well documented. Now, what is important is what histories or parts of various histories we choose to venerate and celebrate. That to me seems to be the issue.

Anyhow, equating changing some street names and the like to “erasing” history is pretty absurd when one takes into account that the device I am typing this on gives one access to basically all of the historical information that has ever existed.

 

[NorthDakota]

I do not think you understand the concept of a “history”. If all US monuments were destroyed tomorrow it would not “erase” any history (other than maybe some of history of the events surrounding the construction of the monuments themselves) because the events that those monuments were a response to have been well documented. Now, what is important is what histories or parts of various histories we choose to venerate and celebrate. That to me seems to be the issue.

Anyhow, equating changing some street names and the like to “erasing” history is pretty absurd when one takes into account that the device I am typing this on gives one access to basically all of the historical information that has ever existed.

I look up people that have streets/schools/etc named after them all the time.

I was in Harlem on a street named Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd. I took an interest and looked into him a bit.

A school got built in Fargo called Davies High School. Had no idea who the dude was, turns out he was the judge who ordered Little Rock High to be segregated.

When you rename all this shit, you end up hiding significant moments and people in our history. The information isn't being taken down on wikipedia or anything but you definitely are in one way, shape, or form steering people away.

Laura Ingalls Wilder used her life experiences to write a bunch of books capturing life on the frontier. Mark Twain is probably America's most famous author and wrote some "offensive" stuff too. Logically, when you scrub one of these, the rest aren't far behind. And that's a shame.

 

[BleedBlueGold]

Rename the Heisman. The Nobel Prize. All of them. Blow up the national monuments in DC. Idolatry!!!!

Don't touch the Heisman trophy name. Fun fact I learned recently: my wife's great grandpa was the originator of the Downtown Athletic Club Trophy and suggested the new name during a vote to rename it in it's second year. IIRC, he was the AD of the DAC during that time period. Anyways...carry on.

 

[IrishSteelhead]

I don’t really care what the Canadian guy thinks

YOU XENOPHOBE!!!!

 

[ickythump1225]

I do not think you understand the concept of a “history”. If all US monuments were destroyed tomorrow it would not “erase” any history (other than maybe some of history of the events surrounding the construction of the monuments themselves) because the events that those monuments were a response to have been well documented. Now, what is important is what histories or parts of various histories we choose to venerate and celebrate. That to me seems to be the issue.

Anyhow, equating changing some street names and the like to “erasing” history is pretty absurd when one takes into account that the device I am typing this on gives one access to basically all of the historical information that has ever existed.

Except there is a noted effort to reshape history into a PC, 21st century morally acceptable version of events. You can't change history, but you can rewrite it.

 

[BleedBlueGold]

Except there is a noted effort to reshape history into a PC, 21st century morally acceptable version of events. You can't change history, but you can rewrite it.

Precisely. See China and the infinite number of examples of how they suppress certain historical facts and change the narrative when teaching a new version in schools.

 

[Bluto]

Except there is a noted effort to reshape history into a PC, 21st century morally acceptable version of events. You can't change history, but you can rewrite it.

What does that even mean? The histories that were presented to myself and that I saw in the public discourse growing up were very one sided in that it was all WASP all the time. I think this cliche of the left “rewriting” history which is often bandied about is inaccurate and overstated. What I saw and experienced in my 11 or so years in academia was that the examination of histories other than those written specifically by WASP’s were being introduced and studied and inevitably a history told from a different perspective will contradict the WASP version. Case in point the histories of the troubles in Northern Ireland are radically different depending on whether a Unionist or a Republican are telling them.

So specifically, what histories are being turned into PC 21st century morally acceptable versions of events?

 

[Bluto]

YOU XENOPHOBE!!!!

Some of my best friends are Canadian.

 

[Rack Em]

Some of my best friends are Canadian.

These friends?

 

[Bluto]

These friends?

Maybe...haven’t watched South Park in 20 years or so. I never really did like Micheal J Fox though.

 

[Bluto]

I look up people that have streets/schools/etc named after them all the time.

I was in Harlem on a street named Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd. I took an interest and looked into him a bit.

A school got built in Fargo called Davies High School. Had no idea who the dude was, turns out he was the judge who ordered Little Rock High to be segregated.

When you rename all this shit, you end up hiding significant moments and people in our history. The information isn't being taken down on wikipedia or anything but you definitely are in one way, shape, or form steering people away.

Laura Ingalls Wilder used her life experiences to write a bunch of books capturing life on the frontier. Mark Twain is probably America's most famous author and wrote some "offensive" stuff too. Logically, when you scrub one of these, the rest aren't far behind. And that's a shame.

So it seems more a case of what we choose to venerate and push to the forefront.

 

[Legacy]

Justices Back Pregnancy Centers That Oppose Abortion, in Free Speech Case
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile...urt-crisis-pregnancy-center-abortion.amp.html

See SCOTUS blog site for arguments

 

[Irish#1]

What does that even mean? The histories that were presented to myself and that I saw in the public discourse growing up were very one sided in that it was all WASP all the time. I think this cliche of the left “rewriting” history which is often bandied about is inaccurate and overstated. What I saw and experienced in my 11 or so years in academia was that the examination of histories other than those written specifically by WASP’s were being introduced and studied and inevitably a history told from a different perspective will contradict the WASP version. Case in point the histories of the troubles in Northern Ireland are radically different depending on whether a Unionist or a Republican are telling them.

So specifically, what histories are being turned into PC 21st century morally acceptable versions of events?

I think you're splitting hairs. Let me take a crack at this. Perhaps "rewriting" history is the wrong term to use. Maybe it should be something like "bury" or "hide" history. There's plenty of history that has been written and taught by WASP's. so of it good, some of it bad. If you continue to suppress and ignore the "hurtful" facts, literature, etc., then after a period of time, children growing up won't even know what the Revolutionary War, Civil Wars or Trail of Tears were along with other painful events that have occured. What's the old saying, "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it"?

P.S. I find it interesting that the PC crowd wants to get rid of anything related to the Civil War that is South related, but when it was brought up that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and many more of our founding fathers were slave owners, they don't scream "injustice" and demand their statues be torn down. Whether right or wrong, those that fought for the South had as strong of a conviction to their cause as those who fought England in the Revolutionary War. That's what needs to be taught.

 

[Bluto]

I think you're splitting hairs. Let me take a crack at this. Perhaps "rewriting" history is the wrong term to use. Maybe it should be something like "bury" or "hide" history. There's plenty of history that has been written and taught by WASP's. so of it good, some of it bad. If you continue to suppress and ignore the "hurtful" facts, literature, etc., then after a period of time, children growing up won't even know what the Revolutionary War, Civil Wars or Trail of Tears were along with other painful events that have occured. What's the old saying, "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it"?

P.S. I find it interesting that the PC crowd wants to get rid of anything related to the Civil War that is South related, but when it was brought up that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and many more of our founding fathers were slave owners, they don't scream "injustice" and demand their statues be torn down. Whether right or wrong, those that fought for the South had as strong of a conviction to their cause as those who fought England in the Revolutionary War. That's what needs to be taught.

Ok. Again, from what I have seen the “PC” crowd isn’t pushing to “hide” or “bury” any one groups “history”. What I have seen is an effort to push other histories to the fore and or questioning who and what is being celebrated, venorated and memorialized. I think that is a good thing. They are also advocating discussing “hurtful” facts like the realities of the institutions and social order the confederacy for instance was fighting to defend.

Again in the specific case of the Civil War if we are going to be honest many Southerners have engaged in these same “PC” history erasing tactics present day “PC Police” are being accused of to obfuscate what they were actually supporting, fighting and dying for, white supremacy. Should we celebrate and memorialize that? I don’t think we should.