RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://swtotd.blogspot.com/

Sixty years ago, the threat of population growth outstripping the ability of the Earth to feed, clothe and house people was real. That is no longer the case. We now face the opposite challenge. The West, including the U.S. and the rest of the developed world, are no longer having enough children to replace themselves. Simultaneously, in the U.S. there has been a sharp rise in out-of-wedlock births and father-less children. In a world consumed with identity politics, legalizing marijuana and climate change the problem of one-parent families has been ignored. 

Aging and (ultimately for Europe and the U.S.) declining populations face us. Japan’s population declined by about 400,000 over the past twenty years. Europe’s population increased by sixteen million (727 million to 743 million) between 2000 and 2020, but only because of an estimated 40 million immigrants. The United States population grew by 50 million during the past twenty years, with about half the growth coming from immigrants.

Demographers use TFR (Total Fertility Rate) to determine whether a nation’s native population is increasing or shrinking. It is a measure of the fertility of an imaginary woman through her reproductive life. Replacement is 2.1. In 2019, the TFR for Japan was 1.37, for Europe 1.52 and for the U.S. 1.71. The last time a TFR of 2.1 was reached in the U.S. was in 2007. In contrast, in 1960 the TFR was 3.65. Economic growth, over time, relies on population expansion. If it doesn’t come through births, it must come by way of immigration. As the United States grew rapidly in the post-World War II period, TFRs averaged over 3.0. Where population growth exceeds replacement are in undeveloped countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, and in India and Indonesia. Even in those regions, TFRs are declining.

Problems associated from aging and shrinking populations, i.e., a smaller workforce supporting a larger retired population and greater use of healthcare, have been exacerbated by changing cultural mores and an abandonment of traditional Judeo-Christian values, particularly in the U.S.  Out-of-wedlock births have increased, while births to married women have declined. And, it has been clearly demonstrated that out-of-wedlock births (70% of all births in a city like Baltimore) lead to drug and alcohol abuse, with criminality, poverty and illiteracy as their progeny. Not assuming responsibility for one’s actions leads to increased dependency on the state, and increased dependency leads to a loss of the dignity associated with work.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percent of children living in two-parent households declined from 88% in 1960 to 69% in 2016, while the percent of children living with a single mother rose from 8% in 1960 to 23% in 2016. A survey by the Pew Research Center reports that the U.S. “has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households.”

https://weingarten.substack.com/p/biden-voting-rights-demagoguery-made?token=

President Joe Biden’s recent remarks on “protecting the sacred, constitutional right to vote” advocated for nothing of the sort. Biden, at his demagogic worst, in fact maligned those who would ensure the sanctity of the vote by passing laws undoing the election security-threatening, confidence-sapping, legitimacy-imperiling practices enacted during the COVID-stricken 2020 election season.

Biden’s disturbing rhetoric might be chalked up to politics, but when considered in the broader context of the Biden administration’s unprecedented and recently revealed “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism” document, which links questions about election integrity to terrorism, it takes on an even more sinister edge.

Biden describes the election reforms now being considered in some Republican-controlled state legislatures, most of which aim to restore some semblance of normalcy with respect to absentee and mail-in voting, as a “21st-century Jim Crow assault” and “the most dangerous threat to voting and integrity of free and fair elections in our history.”

“To me, this is simple,” says Biden, “This is election subversion…an assault on democracy, an assault on liberty.” The president goes still further: “We’re are [sic] facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole. Since the Civil War. The Confederates back then never breached the Capitol as insurrectionists did on January the 6th.”

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/getting-un-help-american-civil-rights-great-idea/

The small-minded people who believe in freedom and democratic self-government have their shorts in a bunch over the Biden administration’s invitation to the United Nations to review our country’s civil-rights record. What a superb idea. Long overdue.

The countries filling the human rights bodies at the UN have the kind of expertise you can’t get by reading books or following the rule of law. You have to get that kind of experience in the streets. Police brutality? All you have to do is ask the leading members of the UN Human Rights Council like Cuba, Libya, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Somalia, Sudan and Venezuela. They know a thing or two about protecting civil rights. But why stop there?

Let’s say the US wants to know whether it is imprisoning religious minorities and forcing them to work as slaves. Well, you definitely want to ask China. They have practical, on-the-ground experience. If Chinese observers see us jailing all the Uighur Muslims in Vermont, they are gonna reprimand us right away. Personally, I want to know. I think most red-blooded Americans do. After all, we may be falling short of China’s standards.

As for press freedom, China is not the only country that can help us, although Beijing’s experience shutting down all independent publications in Hong Kong is surely useful. Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and Iran can all pitch in. So can Belarus, Syria, Sudan and Libya. If any regimes understand what a free press really means, it’s them. It would be foolhardy to ignore their expertise.

Important as it is to work closely with these international partners, we should also ask for help from Facebook, Google and Twitter. They have particular experience dealing with stories that might affect election outcomes, such as discussing Hunter Biden’s laptop. They also knew that ‘loose lips sink ships’ in the early months of the COVID pandemic. That’s why they suppressed any mention that the pandemic may have come from a ‘lab leak’ in Wuhan. They knew it was pure disinformation. The more we learn, the more their wisdom shines through.

What about free assembly? Here again, the US is missing out on some great international experience. The United Nations can help by asking local police and their political bosses in Hong Kong, Moscow, Tehran, Caracas, Managua and Havana to review American procedures.

As for racial equity, I think we all stand with Nikole Hannah-Jones, whose scholarly expertise and nuanced knowledge of American history has been so helpful in designing the 1619 Project. In a podcast two years ago, she told Vox’s Ezra Klein, ‘If you want to see the most equal multiracial — it’s not a democracy — the most equal multiracial country in our hemisphere, it would be Cuba…Cuba has the least inequality between black and white people of any place really in the hemisphere.’