DAS Blog

I've noticed a fear amongst certain conservatives of any strategy or plan for "population control", to the point where the very idea that over-population could ever be a problem is denied (and does the use of population densities, which people who claim over-population is not a problem use to make their arguments, really make sense? does a comfortable population density necessarily remain constant over the denominator used in calculating such densities? c.f. body mass which ought not to scale with the obvious denominator of volume ...). What is going on here? Is it a worry about the techniques which may be applied to solve this problem: is it fear of the use of abortion as a population control technique or even the opposition of many (though not all -- a variation in opinion which has yet to be properly exploited by liberals) social conservatives to birth control? Is it a fear that concern about over-population reflects a hidden racism or at least a general misanthropy ("why would someone want to decrease the number of people around unless they hate them?") and a fear that an idea motivated by racism or misanthropy cannot amount to any good or at least a desire not to encourage such feelings? Is it a desire to "increase the flock"? Do those who set the agenda in the conservative movement hope to, under the cover of movements believing life to be priceless, increase the labor pool rendering the cost of labor cheaper and the price of life null? Is it a worry that measures to control population growth are linked with modernization which would tend to level the income inequalities on which our current quasi-colonialist world economic order feeds? Is it a worry that such measures empower women?

I seriously have no clue and suspect multiple reasons, some acknowledged by the right (fear of increasing abortion rates and a dismissal of concern about over-population as racism) and some un-acknowledged, are at play.