I was talking to someone earlier about poverty and the apparent increase in poorly educated people and we postulated ways of remedying this problem. It's no secret, Though probably un-pc, That the people who have the most children are the poorly educated and and financially inadequate. Quite often we find that those on social security benefits and no job will churn out baby after baby while affluent professionals will have maybe one or two children (spare me the stories about you knowing doctors with 15 kids, This is a generalisation, Though a typically accurate one, at least where i live). One way we could reduce the number of children this class of people have is to offer them incentives to become sterilised. For instance, if someone is of low intelligence, A burden to the state and non-productive we could offer them a one off, lump sum payment of $15,000 in return for them being sterilised. The benefits to this are A cash injection that could be invested and perhaps help them out of poverty A lower birth rate among the less productive classes Less children being born into families which lack the intellect and funds to properly care for them If you are going to oppose this idea, And i assume many of you will, Let's actually have some arguments against it and not just knee jerk feigned outrage from people who, While not knowing why it's wrong, Assume it must be. And if your reason for opposing it is religious, Don't bother posting. I'm not interested in any argument that assumes invisible men would be against it. And let me stress, This would be entirely voluntary. it's giving people the choice of doing something that is legal, May benefit them financially and would benefit society as a whole.
Good thinking and I agree something needs done in that area, but to me, it seems like one of those problems that are intentionally left unsolved. There are too many people being born who either aren't parented the way they're supposed to be or in a situation that even if they were, they're a burden on the economy. People need to think before they attempt replicating themselves. Sadly, I'm a product of that misfortune. Even though it seems to go against nature, it's a good enough idea to be discussed.
Don't ever think of yourself that way. Nature isn't perfect, and sometimes it produces wonderful things from accidents. There is nothing unfortunate about you.
Ethical issues aside, it will be a waste of money, what with everyone who wasn't planning to have any more kids anyway, sterilising themselves and taking the cash. Do we need money being wasted by rewarding the unproductive? A strictly enforced law might work.
Not everyone would qualify for this program. Only the most profoundly uneducated, The permanently unemployed or those on, or around, the poverty line would be entitled. If anyone else wants sterilisation they can get it, But they wouldn't qualify for this program and wouldn't receive the cash incentive. These people would typically end up costing us more than $15,000 each as a result of their incessant reproduction.
Sure sounds like singling out a group of people, short of killing them, but making sure they do not reproduce. I thought from your posts you were against such things.
here is the thing though I have often thought there should be some sort of birth control clause with welfare checks, but unfortunately that is unamerican or whatever but if someone is getting extra because they are going on birth control or becoming sterilized why would there be a problem with it
Because, with that thinking someone else could come around and say we will pay gays to not be gay, their 'thinking' it would benefit society is their thoughts on family, religion, possibly health, a multitude of reasons. It is still singling out an entire class, an underclass no less. Then the next person comes out with graphs showing that if we pay blacks to not have kids it will benefit society, it is nothing more than class war fare IMHO, the damage far outweighs any perceived benefit. --- Why not simply stop the welfare and stop rewarding those who have more and more kids to stay on welfare..?
That is an entire slippery slope fallacy. Besides, There is nothing inherent to gays or blacks that makes them detrimental to society so a logical connection can't be made between race/sexuality and productivity/cost to the state.
One can use a chart/graph to conclude anything they want. You are doing the same thing based off of peoples financial situations IMHO that a racist would do to try to get blacks to stop producing, or a bigot to stop gays from being gay.
Don't flatter yourself for coming up with some new idea. India has already done that, they gave people a radio to sterilize themselves.
This is eugenics, and it is evil, plain and simple. This thread is almost as bad as the one where dumb people are not allowed to vote. Solving the social differences and inadequacies between us isn't about exclusion or sterilization. This entire notion that people are genetically predisposed to be dumb, or lazy or whatever, is the same sort of thinking that said it was ok to enslave blacks, because they weren't capable of being equal to white people. Genetically, they were an inferior race. We now know that to be untrue. Once you start setting minimum requirements like this, it is the worst form of bigotry and evil I can think of. Now government, on top of using public money to kill babies, is going to use that money to subsidize people removing their genetics from the pool. stOx, you sir, have a lot of issues as you keep bringing up these Machiavellian concepts of improving society.
The intellectual snob in me says it's a good idea, the realist in me sees this as evil and a dangerous road to start down.. I'm going to go with the realist this time.
It's completely different, No matter how hard you try to compare it to what a racist may do to wipe out another race. Someones financial situation directly effects the upbringing they can provide. Their intelligence can directly effect how well they raise their child. So until you provide evidence that skin colour directly effects someones ability to raise a child you would do well to stop making the fatuous comparison. well, What is wrong with it? It's not forced, it's not compulsory and it's not mandatory. People would be identified, through a number of measures, who is the most unsuitable to raise a child, Who is least productive and who would put most strain on society. If they agree, They are given a cash lump sum to under go sterilisation. You are doing precisely what i asked people not to do. You are having a knee jerk reaction and claiming it is wrong without offering any kind of reason why it's wrong, besides of course labeling it with terms that are accepted as being "bad". The question could be reworded as "what is wrong with voluntary eugenics?". The word "eugenics" has had some bad press, But if we look at the definition; "Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention", What is wrong with it as long as the intervention is voluntary? If we encourage clever people to breed and encourage dumb people not to breed, through entirely voluntary ways, What could possibly be wrong with it? You are for free choice, no?
I was talking to my father the other day about this in regards to one of my distant relatives. I guess you have the same problem in England as we have here, that is that the less fit someone is to have kids the more likely they are to have kids and the more kids they have. I don't know about sterilization but some sort of incentives should be created to keep people from having kids when they can't provide adequately for them. I think if you took away all the bad parenting(or lack of parenting) in this country you would get rid of 95% of our social problems.
That would be a good start. People are incentivized and subsidized by the government to have kids that they shouldn't be having. It's not about race or even genetics. I don't like the idea of sterilization, but certainly something can be done to not incentivize bad behaviour which IMO is the core cause of the vast majority of our social ills. BTW, I know many people like this and they are all white, and while not very well educated are of at least normal intelligence. They also, somewhat ironically, usually tend to be the ones who are most against abortion. Abortion may be immoral(or not) but I don't think it's anymore immoral than what they are doing.
Ahh but when lets say 80% of those who can not afford the children are of a color? I find many things wrong with it, it is stating you need to have a certain level in order to have kids.
I will be totally up front about this. I am absolutely stunned, that an intelligent, western man, without any obvious racial or genetic biases, would propose such a thing. This is not a knee jerk reaction. This is bewilderment, because I cannot fathom the mindset that comes to these ideas, or is willing to defend them, while claiming genuine naivety that there could be any issues with it. Something people have taken from Ron Paul and have started to repeat more and more, is "what is the proper role of government?". In this case, you seem to believe a role of government is to manage the genetics of the citizenry. To promote genetic discrimination, and to incentivize people terminating their genetic contribution to the gene pool. Don't take this personally, but government can barely do anything competently, and now we want to ask them to determine the future of the human race, by teasing the unfortunate into sterilization with money? The state is not capable of raising children! More kids are raped and abused under state care per capita than under care by parents in western countries. And they are going to decide by some metric, who is and is not right to procreate? Something I have noticed you lack (again, please do not take this personal) are principles. You have some good positions, and some which I think are really bad. But there is no consistency to it, because I don't think you have any core values or principles that you base your decisions philosophically upon. For example, have you considered, that once you say the state can determine who should or should not be pro-creating, you are creating a dual class system, where discrimination is inevitable. That once the state can rule on the right to procreate, we've pretty much sacrificed every single right to the government. Forget the right to smoke or drink. Forget any other supposed rights you may think you do have, if you can no longer decide if you are a breeder... I know, you will say, you aren't forcing people to do it. But that door can't be opened until it is acceptable for the government to make the offer. Once we accept that the state should select who can breed, then it's not a big stretch to the state creating some sort of emergency or crisis (environmental crisis seem to be popular) and having to force sterilization. Hell, all it needs is a fire at the Reichstag, or a Gulf of Tonkin, or a 9/11. You confuse voluntaryism with incentivized government programs. Voluntaryism is a free decision. It can be one of these people using birth control, or abstinence. It doesn't have to be forced medical sterilization. You are actually arguing for coercion and intervention, then calling it voluntaryism. I don't think you understand the idea of personal liberty and self-ownership at all. I am for free choice. Waving money in front of a poor, socially unacceptable person to mutilate their reproductive process, is not free choice. It's no different than Christian missionaries going into poor villages and giving out medicine to the sick, if they participate in prayer and learning the Bible. It is coercion.
Unless the REASON is their colour the comparison is a flawed one. Do you not? Are those in poverty equally able to provide? Are those of limited intelligence equally able to raise?