>So, I will now confess that I have a problem with breeders. I’m sorry if you are one, but that’s just my opinion. Having one or two kids, fine. Five and six is just excessive and indulgent. The human race is not dying out. Quite the opposite. There are too many of us. 10,000 years ago the earth’s population ranged from 1-10 million people. There are now over 6 billion people. The numbers continue to increase logarithmically — so that there will be 8 billion by 2020. There is an upper limit to the carrying capacity of humans on earth — of the numbers that agriculture can support — and that number is usually estimated at between 13-15 billion. The more people, the more agriculture required to sustain such a population, hence the less land devoted to naturally existing ecosystems, and ultimately accelerating the process of extinction. That may sound a wee bit dramatic, but we as people are causing our own demise by our inability to don a rubber or pop a damn pill. I don’t want to hear the “I can’t afford The Pill” crap. Planned Parenthood gave me The Pill for $10 a month when I was in college. No problem. And I was damn broke when I was in college.
I can personally attest to the fact that there are too many people by the large number of people that successfully piss me off and hence make me aware of their existence.
According to Wikipedia (I love that site!):
The world’s current agricultural production, if it were distributed evenly, would be sufficient to feed everyone living on the Earth today. However, many critics hold that, in the absence of other measures, simply feeding the world’s population well would only make matters worse, natural growth will cause the population to grow to unsustainable levels, and will directly result in famines and deforestation and indirectly in pandemic disease and war.
Some other characteristics of overpopulation:
-Child poverty
-Birth rate is high
-Life expectancy is low
-Low level of literacy
-High rate of unemployment in urban areas (leading to social problems)
-Rural people are not gainfully employed (caught in cycle of poverty)
-Insufficient arable land
-Little surplus food
-Poor diet with ill health and diet-deficiency diseases (e.g. rickets)
-GDP per capita is low (under US$765 per annum)
-Many live in unhygienic conditions
-Government is stretched economically
-High crime from people who steal resources to survive
-Mass extinctions of plants and animals as habitat is used for farming and human settlements
Okay, so, “blah blah blah Jenn what the hell is the point of all this I was not in the mood for a social studies lesson…”
Well, I covered the topic of overpopulation as a preface to this news story I saw on MSNBC and became promptly irritated:
This woman from Arkansas just had her sixteenth child. Sixteenth. Why? And I don’t want to hear this “Gift from God ” and “Well of Souls” business. Have your religious beliefs, that’s fine. But not at the expense of the current poverty and famine rates of the planet. For Pete’s sake. They have their own documentary on the Discovery Health channel and another one planned for the Learning Channel. Yes, lets encourage their senseless breeding by rewarding them with the notoriety that comes from cable channels and news broadcasts. The python that tried to swallow an alligator in Florida and lost, that’s interesting news. But this kind of nonsense just pisses me off. In the process of my husband and I researching adoption from China, I discovered that there are hundreds of thousands of children in orphanages worldwide. Abandoned and unwanted, with substandard care, they need homes and parents and dogs and goldfish and birthday parties; they deserve to have healthy, happy lives, to be loved and cared for. But these people, in only what I can dub as an extraordinarily selfish act, have bred 16 times, and, according to the article, are planning to have more. Whaddahell. I hate to make statements like “some people should be sterilized”, but, seriously, some people should be sterilized. Damn, I am irritated. In case you didn’t know.
If you don’t agree with me on this, that’s cool, you’re entitled to your opinion. If you disagree and I have successfully pissed you off, too bad. It’s my blog.
voulez-voulez-vous breeders
Niff.Dot 
>I’m the last of nine children. I don’t know how my mother handled it without her head exploding, but she did. Keep in mind that she converted to Catholicism to marry my father in 1944. Go figure. Both of my parents came from utterly broken Depression-era homes, and my mother, who was the only one of her siblings to survive World War II, said that each new child was like the “best Christmas present ever.”She was an awesome mom, and I’m glad she had #9, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. I remember being mocked as a kid for being from that big stupid Catholic family. I had the impression that some of my friends’ Protestant parents sneered at my parents’ “lack of self control.” All my married sisters have had 2-3 kids, max. None of them would ever consider having a massive pile of children. Interestingly, too, my mom was a huge supporter of the right to choose, a big fan of birth control, and sent a check to Planned Parenthood every year. She just wanted a bunch of kids. I think she was trying to make up for a very empty and lonely childhood.It’s doubtful that I will ever have any kids (as a spinster on the verge of 40 isn’t exactly in Momster territory.) And friends question whether or not I have the patience to be a parent. I’m not sure, myself. But if I ever decided to go down that path, it would be adoption all the way. So many little kidlets out there that need love and stability.16 kids? That’s just insane. Someone tell Jim-Bob to Saran wrap his busy member, and, for the love of god, someone cut mom’s hair. That is the country-western hair of death. How the hell do you chase after 16 children with hair that drags at your ankles?I think I need some coffee.
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>Well, what do you expect, they’re from Arkansas! You know the birthplace of your grandfather and your Uncle!!!! Look out in their front yard and I’ll bet they have 5 old cars up on blocks!
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>LOL.I’m rading this book called “Generatons”, and it dscusses the depression-era baby boom. Then, large families were the norm (My mom has 5 brothers) but now the problem is the echo boomers (or generation y) have superceded the size of the 60-million strong baby boomer gen by about 10 million, and when you combine the two (I myself come from the miniscule generation x, the smallest number of living members at only 17 million) it makes for a very large chunk of the American population. Its the children of the latter half of the Baby Boomers and the early members of the Generation X that are having too many kids, especially with the advent of birth control. Figures it’s my generation thats causing the problem. 🙂
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>A point of note: Populations are actually DECREASING in Western Europe and among European-descended people.The population explosion is happening in the third-world, and the people who are descended from those cultures.Unfortunately, these are the same cultures that have difficulty feeding themselves.It’s a problem that needs to be addressed, but you won’t find any politician or statesman talking about it. To speak up would ruin their career.
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>Thanks for the point of note, AJ! Despite my best efforts in research it seems the numbers were worldwide, with no specific region specified. So on that note, I still maintain my opinion that excessive breeding is an exercise in selfishness when there are so many children without homes. And I agree with Merujo on the hair. That has to go.
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