Posted on 01/19/2007 6:57:15 PM PST by B4Ranch
Enough’s Enough
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” - Bertrand Russell
Is it just me or are there getting to be far too many people on this patch of earth we call home? Don’t get me wrong, I like people, at least some of them some of the time, but there’s getting to be far too many of us. The signs are everywhere. The population in this country is now over three hundred million and every 13 seconds we add another resident. And that’s just in my town, or at least it seems like it.
It took 1,000 years for the U.S. to reach one hundred million people, 52 years to reach the second hundred million and 39 years to reach three hundred million. At this rate we’ll reach four hundred million by 2040 and I sure hope I’m not around to see it.
Potholes and traffic jams are signs we’ve already overrun our infrastructure and yet another immigrant arrives every 30 seconds and another baby is born every eight seconds. The number of cars and trucks on our highways has doubled since 1970 and every one of them is on the road whenever I try to go some place.
It seems everyone wants more growth because no one is satisfied with what they already have. Everybody wants a bigger house and a bigger car and every company wants more stores and a bigger bottom line. The motto of the baby boomers is “more, more, more,” and yet our cities are already so overcrowded about the safest place you can be is in a prison these days. And they are stuffed too.
Any rancher worth his salt understands the concept of carrying capacity. I once rented a ranch from an owner who said the place would run 100 cows. I figured he was fudging and so I only stocked it with 85 and they darn near starved to death or got trampled running to the feed truck. In the very best year all I was ever able to run on that ranch was 65 head. Oh sure, I could have stocked the ranch with 200 cows and carried feed and water to them every day. Perhaps when my pastures were grazed down to dirt I could have cut the fences and let my cows over on to my neighbors, but pretty soon we’d both be in the same sad shape.
It seems to me we’ve reached the carrying capacity in this country. Sure, we could grow our already overgrazed cities so that we were all living like steers in a feedlot, chickens in a cage or hogs in a hot house. Then we really are going to need more people: janitors and police mostly.
I ask you, when faced with an overflowing bathtub what would you reach for first: a mop or the faucet? Well this place we call home is like that overflowing bathtub and so far all we’re doing is trying to mop up the mess with a stringy old mop. I hate to admit this but once in awhile the occasional environmentalist might be right about the state of this earth. But their answers are all wrong. If they really were sincere the greenies would be more worried about population control and less about fund raising. They’d talk more about restricting immigration and less about endangered fairy shrimp, three legged frogs and redheaded woodpeckers.
If we really want a higher quality of life in this country for the people, as well as the woodpeckers, we should learn from ranchers that growth is not always good. Any cowboy knows this. Oh sure, there was a time in the cow business when all the emphasis was put on growth. Some ranchers ended up with 1,800 pound cows trying to survive on sagebrush and mesquite beans. Those big cows used up all the energy for themselves and became so ugly and emaciated the bulls wanted nothing to do with them. Naturally, many of those cows failed to conceive. In the end, Mother Nature punishes ecosystems that grow too fast.
Perhaps that’s the answer? Maybe all we need to reduce the number of babies is more ugly people.
I know I am doing my part.
so how come you guys live in CA instead of moving to ND where there are almost no people and they are even declining in population.
I live in Calaifornia?
You are always on the "I hate Arnold" threads, so I assumed.
But in any event, MI is depopulating. You must love real estate prices there. Cheap, very cheap, just like OH to the south.
Gosh, I didn't know Paul Erlich was on FR. :')
The World a Century from Now
the current writer, et al | December 31 2004 | SunkenCiv, et al
Posted on 12/31/2004 3:46:20 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1311725/posts
"just pimpin' my vanity topic. I predict I won't do it again in 2005. ;')"
(but now it's 2007)
Good one!
The author lives in California; while he makes some sense, that also explains his attitude.
Myself, I moved from Florida to Kentucky last May, and I can say that this state, if anything, is underpopulated. Because not much seems to have happened here since the Civil War ended, sometimes I call Kentucky "the state the rest of America forgot." For a start, most Kentucky counties only have one town or city in them. The other places that look like "towns" on road maps usually turn out to be intersections with a few houses and a gas station/general store. I think Louisville and Cincinnati are the only cities with any suburbs at all; I'm in Lexington, which is surrounded by horse farms instead of residential communities. Perhaps Mr. Pitts should come here for a visit?
"so how come you guys live in CA instead of moving to ND where there are almost no people and they are even declining in population?"
'cause its gonna be SIXTY-EIGHT FRIGGIN' DEGREES at the beach today...that's why! LMAO
AMEN!
For all those who advocate open border, "let everyone in", I would like just one of them to tell us when it's "too many"! For me it was about 10 years ago.
How about a slight compromise? In the case of the border, lets make it "the faucet plus a can of Raid".
There is no set of all sets. It was fun, Positivism, while it lasted.
I'm pragmatic. Raid, or any number of products from Ortho or other manufacturers, would be fine with me. :-)
It's also mountainous. :')
Population control policies are the Ultimate Offense in meddling in personal affairs.
Population control policies are a form of genocide.
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