Sic 'em Aubrey

[aubunique]

80,
Lauren hasn't gotten around to adding a guest book. I need to raise her pay, I guess.
There is an email link there that sends messages straight in to our home computer to collect comments while the idea is fresh!

I certainly don't support anybody because they support absurd welfare laws.

I would hope that welfare mothers would get EXTRA bucks for NOT having more babies, something our tax system could use, too. It is really difficult for a woman with multiple children and no husband to get an education and get a job. As far as the tax system, how about this? The third child born would take away the deduction for the first and the fourth child would take away the deduction for the second. The actual penalty could kick in for the birth of a fifth child.
THIS graph ought to stir up a hornet's nest! Enjoy Mardi Gras, those who can!

[Cool Hand Clyde]

Great idea, Aub.

Except welfare mothers don't pay taxes.

[PawDawg]

I am going to throw my two cents in while you all argue over who got Momma's welfare check.

Aubrey's views of overpopulation are right on the money IMO. Arguing over who has kids to get a check is not going to solve anything. Until we have world leaders that will tackle this issue head-on instead of playing the blame game, then it will never get better.

The birth rate is high today (for everyone) and the avg. life expectancy (for everyone) has been increasing over the years. No matter if you are a welfare mother with five kids or Cool Hand Clyde with none, it is everyone's problem that we are expending our resources, polluting our air and water, and choking on our own garbage.

Think about how we have populated this Hemisphere since 1492. It is quite amazing if you think about it. How are we going to survive the next 500 years without resources? Actually, 50-100 years would be a better outlook at the rate we are going. Is this a problem that we want to push onto our future generations because we are all too busy blaming welfare momma's for having babies or think that Jesus is coming soon to save us, therefore let's act irresponsibly and exploit what he has given us?

As long as the Pope keeps encouraging Catholics to have babies, Christians believing that they must be "fruitful" because the Bible says so, but Pork is okay to eat because of better farming practices, and money controlling our every thought and government process, there are going to be some tough times ahead for us all.

Interesting........

I still say the world has plenty of resources to feed the masses. I know for a fact that the U.S. does. Nobody starves here unless they choose to. I would think the practices we have heard of in China are the only real way to control the population. Are you and Aubrey for that?

This country has plenty of room to grow. It's just that our nation's leaders think that varmints and trees are more important than people. Tough times in this country will never be the result of overpopulation. They will be the result of greed (the money controlling you mentioned). As long as the downtrodden trust more in the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons than what they are able to learn from history itself then they are doomed to a life of poverty. And that is right where Jesse and Al want them to stay.

You lost me on the pork comment. The other white meat!

[aubunique]

Dirty, stop telling me about this idiocy!

Found out late this afternoon the developer is going to pay the city park commission $18,000 to avoid keeping green space on the 2.5 acres that form an L on the south and west side of our half-acre lot.
Then drove 25 miles to Rogers to play in a one-hour, clock-never-stops basketball game and got in about 25 percent of the game and our team lost, sort of like the Bulldogs last week.
I don't need to hear about cutting a 400-year-old limb for a float built to drive down the street ONCE, only once!

[PawDawg]

WOW! A four hundred year old limb! That's an old one for sure.

I say don't cut anything over 350. See I can do my part to save the planet too. :wink:

[Dawgbitten]

Maddog,

Let me explain myself. I am sure to offend, so here it goes.

What I was saying is that the Bible tells you to be "fruitful", but it also tells you not to eat pork. Christians tend to take out of the Bible what they deem necessary to modern life and hold on to those laws or values that someone (such as the Pope) says is necessary. Have you ever wondered why Catholics are encouraged to marry catholic and have large families?

No I don't agree with China's policy. I believe in personal freedom and personal responsibility. Both of which are becoming more rare daily. I think a good tax reward/penalty system would work good for this country, but how do you try to maintain populations outside of this country where it is really out of hand? Who is going to be the one to tell the Arab to stop marrying five wives and having 25 kids? That is why we as a world community have some tough decisions to make.

Yes, we may have enough food to feed our country, but what about the ecological damages done while clearing more acreage to plant? My beliefs are the same as yours as far as caring more for people than animals/plants, but I am a firm believer in the balance of nature. The more we throw it out of balance, then the more uncaring we are becoming to ourselves.

[Dirtydawg]

Dirty, stop telling me about this idiocy!

Found out late this afternoon the developer is going to pay the city park commission $18,000 to avoid keeping green space on the 2.5 acres that form an L on the south and west side of our half-acre lot.
Then drove 25 miles to Rogers to play in a one-hour, clock-never-stops basketball game and got in about 25 percent of the game and our team lost, sort of like the Bulldogs last week.
I don't need to hear about cutting a 400-year-old limb for a float built to drive down the street ONCE, only once!

If it's any consolation, Aub, one float was broken in half by a limb several days ago. I don't know if it was this same limb, but several floats barely made it under until on huge float comes along and has it's top severed. All day long, passersby were trying to direct floats under the limb so as not to get hit.

[aubunique]

Monty, if our leadership cared more for critters and trees, the environment wouldn't be such as mess. It appears to me we have almost no one in a position of power who cares about such things.
When I advocate protecting the natural world I am not suggesting anything to hurt PEOPLE. People are not separate from the environment. The fact that many people want to see human beings as separate is a problem. We depend on air, water, soil, other species of animals and plants. Our higher level of intellectual development gives us the ability to dam up streams and create reservoirs and pipe the water here and there to irrigate and to drink and to bathe in, etc. However, all that means massive labor and constant maintenance. Freedom meant being able to walk in the forest and gather sustenance and find shelter. Every addition we make to our expectation of comfort and convenience reduces our freedom. Kids who need to be learning become slaves to electronic entertainment. They expect to have autos when very young. If their parents don't provide every luxury, many of them join the labor force, not to get a better education but to get a vehicle in which to listen to their music and court and endanger people street and themselves. Blame the whole society or blame those who would profit by this, but the kids never experience freedom because they feel NEEDS for things that they don't NEED.
We should NEED to destroy the Louisiana delta to grow grain to ship halfway around the world. We should not NEED to endanger the ocean to ship oil halfway around the world.
This can go on a long time. But the result finally will be bad.
A hypothetical example I have cited for decades follows:
A man works and schemes and plans and organizes and sacrifices his time to gather wealth and is able to send his family to a tropical island to lie in the sun. Among his investments are industries that pollute the air. His wife and kids develop skin cancer BECAUSE of his effort to provide them a life FREE from simply gathering the necessities. Now their freedom is impaired by the necessity of medical treatment. In their later years they cannot tolerate any exposure to the sun.

This is a great oversimplification; however, it represents all the things we do that harm human beings.
If the earth isn't safe for other species, it isn't safe for human beings. That is why we have scientists studying deformed frogs in the swamps. They are like canaries in mines. They warn us that conditions are rapidly deteriorating.
I don't the specifics of China's attempt to control population. In an educated society, everyone should be motivated to control population. No restrictive law should be necessary.
The most obvious harm caused by increasing population density is loss of freedom. People demand protection from one another. That means less freedom for all.
If 48 apartments are built on the L-shaped 2.5 acres on the south and west of our half-acre home, there will be how many cars added to our narrow residential street? 48? 96? More? How many criminals or juvenile dilenquents will be among the 49 or 96 or 200 or 300 people who live in those apartments? How much noise? How much disruption of service to the aging sewer and water lines under our streets?
I want every kid on earth to have a healthful life, starting with my own. What quality of life can 48 or 96 or more people have on 2.5 acres with the wetland paved over and the trees removed?