Opinions aren’t the issue. Fundy-ism isn’t genetic, so the comparison to ethnicity or race is stupid. You can’t breed for political opinions. The only issue I would have is with the burden it creates on the taxpayer to have to support these giant families.
I also am disturbed by the fundy trend towards isolating their kids from society and raising them in virtual prisons where they are brainwashed into religious fanaticism and hatred of society. The rights of those kids should be better protected than they are. Hopefully most of them will be able to escape.
For those who worry about liberal infecundity, the obvious solution would be to open the borders and import a population that overwhelmingly votes Democratic. This effect would swamp the effect of these movements, as Gibbler notes
As others have noted, it’s hardly a sure thing that people will have kids whose values (and votes) reflect their own… unless they’re being homeschooled and brainwashed into believing they’ll be unloved and then going to hell if they stray.
As tumbledown mentioned, you don’t even have to care how many kids people like the Duggars have to question their support of Bob Jones University and adherence to strict gender roles (including preventing the girls from pursuing higher education). Or, for that matter, to question TLC for funding them.
Of course they do. But if people are concluding that having more kids = creating a specific voter base, I can’t help but think that this would be more likely if they are not being raised as independent thinkers. Not that I think progressive parents wouldn’t be just as put off by conservative children (and I’ve seen it happen, the little Republican rebels), but if the Duggar girls are being taught that their roles are to raise more children and obey their husbands, and refrain from pursuing higher education, I think they have a better chance of falling in line with their parents’ and husbands’ political agendas.
Do we have any statistics on that? While there are rebellious children, I think most people stick with their parents religion. 18 years of brainwashing is nothing to sneeze at.
Where does like/dislike come into anything? Is it being unfair to stupid people to prevent cheating on tests? Is it singling out those poor repressed convicted axe murderers to throw them in the slammer? Do you get the impression that I would argue that likeable axe murderers should be allowed to stay free from jail?
Policing the populace to prevent them from doing things to fuck with others is the norm last I looked.
I’m sure that’s the idea, I’m just saying it doesn’t always work out that way.
I don’t know any statistics about it. But there’s also a ton of variability between “sticking with your parents religion” and practicing the same rare variant of Christianity.
At the moment this sounds like the kind of religious sectarian panic you hear about every couple of years. In 2004 it was “Dominionists,” right now it’s “The Family” and perhaps these guys. Or maybe these guys are next.
It’s funny you bring up NI because some Nationalists had hoped that Catholics with traditionally higher birthrates than Protestants would one day outbreed the Unionists. It hasn’t happened as yet and I believe it is partly because the birthrate has lowered significantly amongst Catholics/Nationalists.
We can at least be fairly assured that the majority of this spawn won’t eventually be occupying the highest echelons of power, anyway (statistically, if not intellectually speaking). So they can all vote Republican when they grow up, whooptedo…it’s not like Oklahoma and Utah, et al, (where a lot of this sort of thing is more likely to be happening) are teetering on the edge of a Liberal Revolution or anything.
Let’s look at this from a psychohistorical perspective. There are three possibilities.
They form a small but influential bloc.
They form a large bloc.
They form a majority.
If the Quiverfull movement succeeds in creating a voting bloc which sways a few elections based on their views, then we get to evaluate their preferences in real life. If they work and produce a better life for people, even those outside their bloc, then they’ll continue to prosper and win more elections/issues. This is a win/win for both them and the majority comprised of them and those who sided with them on some issue. Therefore it’s a win for the majority and for democracy. There is nothing in this scenario which violates the principles of democratic rule.
In the second case, where they don’t need to maintain a large coalition of non-quiverfulls in order to sway elections, they’ll run into the economies of scale. Internally they’ll have to provide a lifestyle that significant portions of the bloc find appealing or risk splintering it. If their beliefs and practices lead to the sort of repressed and miserable existence you believe they will, this will be extremely difficult and the movement will crumble on its own. If they start winning elections and swaying public opinion on issues and things deteriorate for the non-Quiverfull population, they’ll lose the moderates and they’ll essentially be relegated back into the first case again.
In the third case, that’s just evolution. The pandas which wouldn’t screw to save their species deserve to die out. You may not want to live in a world where the Quiverfull movement is 51% of the population, but if it comes about it will be because you(the generic you, not specifically Sage Rat) decided not to pass on your genetic material and invest in a new generation with different values and therefore you have no stake in the matter.
According to the cites you’ve given, this is not true.
Wikipedia says that “The core motivation expressed by Quiverfull authors and adherents is a desire to be obedient to God’s commands in the Bible.” Joyce says the same, and is cited on the Wikipedia page saying as much.
If the principal goal of the movement was to create a large bloc of voters, they would not be opposed to infertility treatments. Such opposition only makes sense if the real motivation is indeed to leave all issues of childbearing entirely “up to God.”
Do you have any quotes from anyone actually in the movement that says that political change is what “the movement principally seeks?”
What disturbs me is the argument that having too many kids takes from everyone else; the premise being that one’s very existence is, or should be considered to be, at the sufference of everyone else. If it ever came to the point of people being told they can’t reproduce because their children would use too much of “other peoples” air, water, food, etc., I worry it would set the stage for resource wars- exterminating rival populations for their resources.
