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…but I'm interested in your analysis of the reasons for that replacement value.

I presume you mean the lack of replacement… The 2.1 figure instead of 2.0 is an adjustment to compensate for infant mortality and/or later infertility.

My analysis for the failure of native born females to achieve that minimum rate is rooted in two things:

1. The advent of the birth control pill and subsequent rise of modern feminism.

2. The advent of legalized, non-stigmatized, relatively cheap and easily obtainable abortions.

Relative to item 1 above, the birth control pill freed women from the inevitable consequence of promiscuous sex (pregnancy). With that freedom women were no longer bound to the inevitable and potentially unpredictable duties of motherhood. Consequently, women were no longer dependent upon a male for financial support and assistance in caring for the young. Therefore, the logic continued, that women should not longer be restricted by any other social restraint.

Modern feminism challenging many, if not all, social restraints based upon sex, arose on the tide of the sexual revolution stemming from the birth control pill. Since females could, in theory, control their fertility and the timing of children, they could engage in careers that were previously shut to them because of requirements of continuity or cumulative experience, i.e., the requirements that unplanned pregnancy and child bearing/rearing interrupted. For a number of women the lure of career forestalled their biological urge to reproduce until too late for child birth lowering the birth rate.

However, relative to item 2 above, not every woman availed themselves of the pill prior to engaging in sexual activity and, even for those who did, it is not 100% reliable. Consequently, when the Supreme Court invented the right to an abortion the “perfect storm” existed for stifling the native citizen birth rate.

To tie this little dissertation into our discussion on libertarianism and the “required interference” of a government into matters of personal liberty, we must examine the impacts of traditional values and the role that government has in promoting those. However, that is another discussion.

It's obvious enough that if Americans do not behave "virtuously," as the founding fathers put it, that our freedom will never last.

See the quote by John Adams about suitability of the American form of government for a certain type of people and its lack of such for those not possessing certain qualities.

To tie this little dissertation into our discussion on libertarianism and the "required interference" of a government into matters of personal liberty, we must examine the impacts of traditional values and the role that government has in promoting those.

Our various level of governments have no delegated powers to promote socalled "traditional values".

Nothing in the Constitution can be cited to support this communitarian position.

Which branch of government [at what level] would be empowered to decide what are to be "traditional values"? -- The very idea of trusting any elected official/or branch with such power is a ludicrous dream.

I did mean the lack of replacement, yes. I think you are right in blaming it on availability of birth control and feminism...though I don't doubt that there may be other causes as well.

I would be inclined to think that government has a responsibility to encourage the traditional American values of individual freedoms and our Constitution, along with its responsibility to preserve those things. Of course it turns out that it can't be trusted to do either, it would be the master rather than the servant.

Yes, the John Adams quote is the one I'm thinking of, though I believe some of the others said similar things.