As I’ve written previously in these pages, there are too many of us. I don’t think I’m exaggerating in saying that all of the problems of the human race are either caused or exacerbated by overpopulation and its rushing increase. Pollution, “resource” overuse & depletion, war, tyranny, loss of freedom 1 freedom is inversely proportional to population density) and, most importantly, “destruction of natural diversity and the life support systems of Earth are results of human overpopulation. It is not enough to slow the rate of population gain or even to stabilize it. We must reduce the population of Homo sapiens — significantly and quickly — or it will be reduced for us in one of several very unpleasant ways: war, plague, famine, natural disasters, social collapse or a combination of these horsemen of the Apocalypse. Worthy goals for stable human population may be 50 million in the United States and fewer than a billion world wide.
How do we get there? To begin with, here are some relatively painless, simple actions:
1) Detailed and positive education on birth control and nonparenting beginning in elementary school.
2) Free contraceptives to anyone who requests them.
3) Free abortion without restrictions.
4) Free — no, make that, subsidized — sterilization. Give anyone who elects to be sterilized $5000 if they are not a parent and a decreasing amount based on the number of children they’ve produced.
5) No food exports or foreign aid to countries who have not instituted a serious population reduction strategy.
6) Tax penalties for having children (higher income tax exemption for those without children).
7) No welfare payments or food stamps to parents who produce more than two children (grandfather-in all prior parents so they are not penalized).
8) Prohibition of further immigration into the United States with minor exceptions (such as part-American children in Southeast Asia).
9) Restriction of the excessive maintainence of life (use of expensive life-support machines for those clearly fated to die from old age, disease, birth defects, accidents, etc.).
10) Capital punishment for murder, rape, kidnapping and other violent crimes.
11) Mandatory sterilization for all people with genetic defects or those unfit to be parents.
12) Legalization and “humanization” of suicide.
Many would consider these relatively simple measures heavy-handed but even they are thoroughly insufficient to effectively reduce population. We are in an emergency situation and sterner measures are required. If we are not willing to be stern, then we may as well hang it all up and enjoy our last days because nothing else — on any issue — is going to accomplish anything. What is really needed is to:
1) Give every woman the right to one child.
2) Offer a $20,000 payment to anyone willing to be sterilized without producing any children.
3) Make sterilization mandatory for all women and men after they have parented one child. Anything else is pissing in the wind.