Generally speaking, I like our neighbors to the North. They’re so darn nice. And even if Canada is where Mark Steyn was put on trial for publishing an article critical of Islam, and where waiting lists for CAT scans stretch around the block, and where French is considered a second language if not the first…well, darn it, they make great beer and that goes a long way in my book.
Then I come across an incredibly wrong-headed and stupid thing like this editorial from Canada’s national newspaper advocating a world-wide ban on families of more than one child and I think to myself, “Darn it, is the sweet, creamy, delicious taste of Molson Brador really worth having idiots like this in my hemisphere?”
My first thought upon reading this was that it was some Swiftian modest proposal, but I read it again and if satire is the medium, the message is lost. What I think we really have here is the fully unhinged environmentalist mindset. The Malthus lovers had a vogue in the early 1970s, but their fears were as nonsensical as the worries about the coming ice age that also got a lot of play before it didn’t happen because of global warming. Or something.
So here we go again, with the environmentalist nutcases like Canada’s own Diane Francis, trying to tell the world that the only solution to our problems is to stop breeding. Diane goes as far as wishing for a world with roughly half our current population:
This would have immediate positive effects on the world’s forests, other species, the oceans, atmospheric quality and living standards.
Once again the environmentalist crazies fail to appreciate the real solution: people are not the problem, Diane. People are the solution to the problem.
But there’s more at work here than simple environmentalism. I’ve been saying for years that the environment is just a new, trendy face on the same old enemies of freedom. Fortunately, dear Diane spells it out for us:
None [of her proposed “solutions”] will work unless a China one-child policy is imposed. Unfortunately, there are powerful opponents. Leaders of the world’s big fundamentalist religions preach in favor of procreation and fiercely oppose birth control. And most political leaders in emerging economies perpetuate a disastrous Catch-22: Many children (i. e. sons) stave off hardship in the absence of a social safety net or economic development, which, in turn, prevents protections or development.
Now read between the lines. What can be done about those “fundamentalist religions” (by which she means Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, Hindi, Buddhism, and Islam)? Clearly they can’t continue to advocate for “procreation” if we’re trying to save the planet. Government will, of course, have to pass this law over the objections of these religions, thus eradicating the separation of church and state here in America. What darling Diane is really wishing for here is a method of silencing religion (like is done in her favorite nation, China).
Then there’s the second half of her paragraph: “Many children (i. e. sons) stave off hardship in the absence of a social safety net or economic development.” The solution here is also implied. We need an ever-larger social safety net provided by…c’mon, guess who…the Government. Only if the Government takes care of our needs will we be willing to welcome daughters in Diane’s brave new world.
Oh, Diane, you look green all over but your true colors are shining through, and they’re as red the maple leaf on the Canadian flag.
The Clampdown 