[trisham]

Here is the post to which Bob and I responded:

Well for heaven sakes man why have you been keeping this chart a secret? Why haven't you shown it to the people of Los Angeles and to the people of Las Vegas begging for water? Why haven't you shown it to the people who are sitting in traffic jams in New Jersey for hours in commutes? The truth is there is very little habitable and attractive land with good climate where people want to live. The idea that you're going to put 9 billion people in the wastes of West Texas is too absurd to debate.

But let us consider the idea of installing 9 billion people in one state and I will show you a dystopia rivaling our worst prisons. State control of everything would be mandatory; there will be no liberty. Everything, and I mean everything including air, light, water and exercise space for children would be rationed. The more density the less quality of life, the more density the less liberty.

The absolute number of people competing for space on the highways, for public services, for a hearing in our courts, our fish stocks, our beaches, our waterways, our land-use, all compete against one another for these resources. Inevitably, the government must arbitrate among these competing claims. Inevitably, those free beaches will be denied you and you will lose that liberty, just as you have lost your liberty to freely fish, to hunt, to build on your own land, to visit our national parks, to maintain animals on your property, etc. Do you really think your right to drink soda from a 16 ounce cup is in jeopardy in sparsely populated North Dakota as it is in densely populated New York City? Do you really think in a society of 310 million people we can survive without zoning laws limiting your right to use your property? You just lost liberty. It was not so when I was a youngster with 140 million people.

This is not a conservative question, we don't have to deny that there is insufficient habitable and desirable land for the doubling of American population every fifty years in order to maintain our conservative credentials. I don't know where this notion that growing population is good comes from among conservatives. Is it because misguided conservatives do not want to admit a predicate that allows for abortion? Is it because there is a Roman Catholic tradition that does not want to admit a predicate for birth control? Is it to sustain the Wall Street Journal's editorial approach of open borders? Is it because there is a misguided conservative tradition that no land use controls can be accepted even when we need actual protection from our neighbors?

The idea of Jeffersonian democracy, the idea of the New England Cracker Barrel democracy, only works when there is sufficient space for man to live independent both of his neighbor and the government. Double your population and halve your liberties

Feel free to explain how you are not advocating abortion and birth control.

[nathanbedford]

I think the relevant portion of my post is as follows:

I don't know where this notion that growing population is good comes from among conservatives. Is it because misguided conservatives do not want to admit a predicate that allows for abortion? Is it because there is a Roman Catholic tradition that does not want to admit a predicate for birth control? Is it to sustain the Wall Street Journal's editorial approach of open borders? Is it because there is a misguided conservative tradition that no land use controls can be accepted even when we need actual protection from our neighbors?

You ask, "Feel free to explain how you are not advocating abortion and birth control."

First, I am indeed advocating birth control, I am strongly in favor of birth control. We need not go into all of the problems that have led to abortion because of Griswold vs. Connecticut do we? The mindless law prohibiting sale of birth control to married couples created the perfect conditions for a sham case which established the power of the Supreme Court to set aside state laws on the grounds of privacy. This directly led to the Supreme Court legalizing abortion (Roe V Wade), homosexual sodomy (Lawrence V. Texas) and, now, homosexual marriage.

Yes I am advocating birth control both as a measure of population control which is acutely needed, and as a matter of natural human right. By what conservative principle do you, claiming to be conservative, believe that government should deprive us of birth control? When the state behaves mindlessly, as the anti-contraceptive law in Connecticut was, we invite liberals to intrude and we lose the power of the state to make legitimate laws promoting the general welfare or establishing the police powers. While I advocate birth control, I do not advocate denying a state the power to be wrong, which is the power to outlaw birth control. That is an entirely different matter from the wisdom of outlawing birth control.

So our ill advised and invasive laws on birth control have been exploited by the left to deny states the power to control abortion, at least in the first trimester. If you want to know about my credibility concerning abortion I refer you to a vanity,

Ruthie "Remidies" is Preganant! A different view of Gonzolas v. Carhart

posted as long ago as 2007. I invite you to read that vanity and tell me that I support abortion.

Further, I invite you to read the quoted portion above and tell me why in logic that implies that I support abortion? Merely because I site others disapprovingly who support population growth because they oppose abortion does not mean that all people who oppose population growth support abortion.

I support birth control in principle but not as a matter to be legislated for or against. I oppose abortion as a matter that should be prohibited by legislation. Both of those positions are entirely compatible with the quoted portion above and are entirely conservative positions.

Let me ask you a question, is it logical, that is, is it appropriate for me to allege that you are for open borders and unrestrained illegal immigration because you see no problem with population doubling every half-century? I will tell you my answer, for me to make that allegation would be illogical. It does not follow that you want unrestrained immigration simply because you do not fear growing population. That is because there are other considerations which might come into your thinking.

So it is with population and abortion.

Let us stop this name-calling and get down to arguing on the merits.