Moscow's Baby Bust?

Foreign Affairs ^ | July 8, 2015 | Ilan Berman

[MinorityRepublican]

For decades, first the Soviet Union and then Russia languished under adverse population trends. Deaths far outpaced births, life expectancy was dismally low, and social ills, from alcoholism to unsafe abortion practices, were rampant.

Over the past several years, however, this demographic picture has somewhat brightened. In 2012, live births outnumbered deaths for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. That indicator has remained marginally positive, and others have also begun to improve. By 2013, Russia’s average life expectancy reached a historic high, at 71 years, and birthrates nearly matched European averages. These reversals have been modest, but they have been enough for the Kremlin to proclaim victory in its decades-long fight against demographic decline. In a December address to Kremlin officials, for instance, Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated the “effectiveness” of Russia’s demographic programs in reversing the country’s trajectory.

[Psalm 144]

This is a major problem for every Western nation and for Japan as well. No children, no future.

[marktwain]

I am not so negative. The Japanese population went from 72 million in 1945 to 126 million in 2015. That was a 66 percent increase in 70 years, very rapid in a historical sense.

From 1875 to 1945, the increase was from 47 million to 72 million, a comparable percentage rise.

It is not as if Japan is not having babies. They are just not having replacement numbers. The same for Russia.

Technologies may well increase life span and productivity, if they are allowed to do so.

[NorthstarMom]

I’ve heard someone say we value Sheetrock more than children. Average house size has gone up while family size has gone down.

We can’t avoid the consequences forever.

[Psalm 144]

I share your hopes for medical and tech assistance, but I also hope the young people will jettison the idea that barren is better. I did NOT want to become a dad, until I did. That is the best thing that has ever happened to me on this old world.

[Psalm 144]

I can believe that. It is a terribly empty thing.

[JediJones]

Every Muslim child is most likely intended by its parents to be a weapon in their conquest of the globe.

Every non-Muslim westerner who has no children is a surrendering peacenik in Islam’s world war against us. Going childless is akin to signing over your country to the Islamics upon your death.

[DiogenesLamp]

Every non-Muslim westerner who has no children is a surrendering peacenik in Islam’s world war against us. Going childless is akin to signing over your country to the Islamics upon your death.

And I wish to point out that it has always been thus. Not necessarily regarding the Muslims. Prior to them there were other threats, and the only way to deal with masses of humanity invading you was to have your own masses of humanity to throw them back.

Population literally meant survival of a nation and it's way of life. The word "nation" even comes from the root "natio" as in "natal", relating to birth. Native, Natural, Natal, Nativity, and Nation all share the same root concept. Birth.

[Jack Hydrazine]

‘Dying’ Russia’s Birth Rate Is Now Higher Than The United States’
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2013/07/25/dying-russias-birth-rate-is-now-higher-than-the-united-states/
25JUL2013

[PGR88]

I’ve heard someone say we value Sheetrock more than children. Average house size has gone up while family size has gone down.

In a neighborhood near me, they are building 3500+ square foot houses. I see a few kids, but mostly owners are older yuppy couples, with no kids, and a golden retriever. Seems the DINKS are working hard to maintain a nice home - for a dog to live in.

[CharlesOConnell]

Tzarist Russia traditionally had very much land but never enough people. The minority Bolsheviks, intellectuals posing as proles, instituted the first national abortion, even before the Weimar Republic. Today, 60 percent of children conceived in Russia are aborted. No word yet about pandemic breast cancer rates, but we'll hear about that tsunami soon enough.

[deadrock]

Steyn has been going on about death spiral birth rates for 10 years. Iian gotta get to the library more often.

[fella]

A government taxes and regulates it’s producing class’s beyond the point where one income will support a family and then wonders why there aren’t enough children.

[Gene Eric]

Fewer children, fewer taxpayers...

The economy of necessity and pleasure inevitably determines birth rates.

[JediJones]

If the women became barren in most cultures throughout history, it would be considered a curse. Many modern westerners would consider it a blessing.

We can’t turn our back on traditional values and survive as a people. There’s a reason traditional values have lasted for centuries. They work. New age value systems lead to death and extinction, which is why they’re new. If they led to health and prosperity, there would have been surviving cultures left to pass those values down instead of liberals having to invent them out of thin air now.

We are watching the decline and death in our civilization in slow motion and are powerless to stop it. We will be weakened and extinguished by invaders before too long. There is simply no trend line out there that shows any potential for a reversal of our impending extinction as a culture, a country and a people. The only question is a matter of time. Chances are the nuclear Islamic barbarians will be at the gate within this century to deliver the death blow.

[DiogenesLamp]

We can’t turn our back on traditional values and survive as a people. There’s a reason traditional values have lasted for centuries. They work. New age value systems lead to death and extinction, which is why they’re new. If they led to health and prosperity, there would have been surviving cultures left to pass those values down instead of liberals having to invent them out of thin air now.

Exactly right. There is a reason why these ideas have been adopted over time, and that reason is because they work, and other ideas don't.

We are watching the decline and death in our civilization in slow motion and are powerless to stop it. We will be weakened and extinguished by invaders before too long. There is simply no trend line out there that shows any potential for a reversal of our impending extinction as a culture, a country and a people. The only question is a matter of time. Chances are the nuclear Islamic barbarians will be at the gate within this century to deliver the death blow.

And here is where I think I disagree with you. I believe that we will have a massive social upheaval, Liberals and their ideas will get killed, and the rational surviving core of our population will re-institute sanity.

And then the Muslims need to run in fear for their lives.

Seriously, the only reason why left wing ideas can even get a purchase in our society is because we have slowly reduced the threshold for voting from what it once was, (Tax Paying Landowners over the age of 21) to include non-taxpaying parasites and people under the age of 21.

It will take massive social pain and many deaths, but eventually nature always reasserts itself. The only caveat is that we don't let things get too far before the upheaval starts, and by that I mean allowing a sufficient Muslim population to hold the beach-head they have now.