The Quiverfull movement appears to be one that emphasizes having many many children. The Wikipedia article gives several reasons for this:
But this debate is more about the idea that the movement principally seeks to create a massive fundamentalist Christian voting block:
Now, personally, having lived in a country where the average total living space for a person is about the size of your average American’s kitchen, I don’t see any benefit to a growing population count. But if I was a politician trying to present caps on children per family/woman, I don’t think that argument would get me anything but scorn.
But, does the ability to game the system like the Quiverfull movement might be doing provide the sort of convincing power to limit population growth? Can such legislation be justified morally, or would it entirely be a battle between Fundamentalists and non?
Apply this argument to any population one doesn’t want more of- Immigrants, religious minorities, welfare recipients. Does their “excessive reproduction” perhaps give justification to a political movement to cap their allotment of children? Liberals would be screaming bloody murder, and rightly so. And I hope they would do the same if the target were Fundie Christians.
That’s really sort of avoiding the question. Whether it’s fundies or Mexicans, or whoever, should any coordinated group be allowed to cheat democracy via artificial expansion of their group?
That it’s fundamentalists who, possibly, were the first ones to make a go at it isn’t particularly relevant.
I have no desire to limit breeding, but if I did, those people would be the first I would line up for forced sterilization. They are a worse drain on society that welfare queens; they have a huge carbon footprint, owing to driving to their megachurches in their SUVs and eating way too much red meat, alone. Plus they hold back progressive policies that would benefit them despite their intense desire to shoot themselves in the foot. Their collective brainpower isn’t worth the powder to blow it up, but if I could, I would.
So…what because they’re black they should be allowed to game the system? That doesn’t seem any less racist a stance.
But again, the question isn’t about who is or isn’t gaming the system. It’s about a) whether any group has a right to do this, and b) whether this is a compelling argument for a birth caps on everyone?
This isn’t a thread about Fundamentalists, blacks, Mexicans, or anyone else. It’s purely about what the title says, the power to vote with your vagina.
No. The cure would be worse than the disease, in my opinion. While I don’t like the idea of there being more fundamentallists, they can’t make vote until they’re eighteen, and by then they might have become educated enough to avoid sharing the worst of their parents’ beliefs.
The only “artificial” expansion of a group comes through fraud. There can’t be any more natural means for a group to expand than by its members having children. The problems of the Quiverfull movement are more immediate and personal than whether or not this small (albeit growing) number of extremists can actually breed their way to political supremacy.
The Quiverfull movement is, at its heart, abuse. Domestic abuse of the worst sort. Subjugation of the women (and later in their lives, the daughters) in order to maintain “perfect” (or rather, perfectly appearing) homes and families. If there’s a reason to dislike this movement, it’s not because they’re churning out low-information, poorly educated, presumably right-wing voters. It’s because they’re doing so at the cost of the personal autonomy and intellectual development and in many (if not most) cases the mental and physical health of the women and female children involved.
No, just that you may not in fairness pick out just one disliked group and try to stop them. If someone is gaming the system to the detriment of society, then it shouldn’t matter if you like the group or regard it neutrally.
You are suggesting that because some fundamentalists are having more children than you would like, that this might “provide the sort of convincing power to limit population growth”, whereas other groups that are not disfavored do not trigger the suggestion.
Agreed, the UK (or parts of it anyway) seems pretty overcrowded at present. I for one am in favour of reducing the population and enforcing breeding limitations.
The Guardian newspaper even had an article on it, seems like the idea is becoming mainstream at last.
There are many good reasons for reducing the population and few good ones for increasing it any more.
Fewer people means more resources to go round, better standard of living and less environemental damage, more people will (eventually) cause all of these things to decrease (except the damage).
It is possible to limit population without eugenics or victimisation, all we need is a limit to the amount of children allowed per couple. Makes life difficult if you re-marry, but tough luck the fate of the planet is at stake.
I don’t think the “Quiverfull” movement is large enough really to make a difference. Sure you may have a few families here and there (let’s say 500 such families, 10 in each state), with a passel of kids (again, say, a dozen). That still comes out to 6000. Out of 300 million, or 0.002% of the population.
Now some might ominously predict, “Well, what if those 6000 have quivering families of their own, and then the children of those families go on likewise, and so on and so forth.” But the thing of it is, even among those born into families like the Duggars, there will be a definite regression to the mean. Most of the Duggar children will have larger families, but certainly not nineteen children or even nine children.
In light of that, I’m not terribly worried about “gaming the system” (if, in fact, it can even be called that–you are allowed to have citizen-children and it is not “gaming the system” to hope that your children transmit your values through succeeding generations). And I’d certainly be a great deal more exercised by a society that presumes to–what exactly?–sterilize forcibly those with “too many” children, even if they are being suitably provided for?
Explain how this is “cheating,” and then explain how having children is “artificial” population expansion.
I think it’s relevant: do you think you could have been made this suggestion about another group? I think it you might have been more aware of the monstrous implications if you had been discussing a racial or ethnic group instead of a religious group with views that are highly unpopular here.
It all comes back to fixing education, and establishing every child’s right to it. If we stop allowing people to “homeschool” their children, then the kids would have the preparation, information, socialization, and credentials necessary to make their own decisions about their lives and beliefs.
If someone produces 22 children who each make an informed and educated decision to become conservative voters, then that’s democracy. If, however, those 22 children are walled up into a closed society into which outside ideas are never allowed, then they have not made decisions freely. I don’t have a word for that, but it’s not democracy.
The English Government did soemthing similar in Northern Ireland “seeding” the population with families http://wapedia.mobi/en/Plantation_of_Ulster And I’d say it worked to an extent. There is certainly a difficulty in finding a majority to democratically support the reunification of Ireland.
Well, trying to ethnically cleanse an area and bring in your own countrymen is a bit different from simply trying to outbreed those who disagree with your ideology in your own country.
This is more like the 19th century fear that Irish and Italian “papists” would take over key parts of the city/country and make Roman Catholicism the national religion due to their perceived tendencies to have large families.
Playing devil’s advocate, I would point out that limiting family size is “artificial” compared to unlimited reproduction.
Personally though, when I see groups like the Humane Society urging people to have their pets spayed/neutered, I can’t help thinking that they are targeting the wrong species.
Um, it’s not ‘gaming the system’ and it’s not ‘cheating democracy.’ Democracy reflects the people; as they change so does the government. That’s not cheating. Are you saying that I and a partner should only have two children so that our opinions don’t become over-represented in the community? That’s just ridiculous.
Anyone else get a rather amusing, if messy, mental image from the thread title? This thread was not about what I thought it was going to be about, at all. I was wondering how one would manage to pull the lever…