It isn't all about property...

[inibo.livejournal.com]

(Well, actually it is, but we won't go there.)

On a previous thread I was said to be an exemplar of the libertarian obsession with property rights, my property rights in particular. Maybe, maybe not, but let's pretend it's not all about property for a bit. I'd like to quote one of my favorite bloggers, Will Grigg. This particular piece is about John Holdren. "Holdren is Barack Obama’s “Science Czar,” in which capacity he counsels the president regarding the role of science in public policy."

Now whether or not Grigg connects his dots the way he intended is one thing, but in the course of the piece he discusses the idea and proponents of compulsory population control. It is that I want to touch on.

“How can we reduce reproduction?” wrote Garrett Hardin in a 1970 Science magazine article entitled “Parenthood: Right or Privilege?” “Persuasion must be tried first…. Mild coercion may soon be accepted – for example, tax rewards for reproductive non-proliferation. But in the long run, a purely voluntary system selects for its own failure: noncooperators out-breed cooperators. So what restraints shall we employ? A policeman under every bed? Jail sentences? Compulsory abortion? Infanticide?... Memories of Nazi Germany rise and obscure our vision.”

I like Grigg's comment: "Oh, those dreadful Nazis: If only they hadn’t given totalitarian eugenics such a bad name..."

Hardin was one of many anti-natalist luminaries – the list included Kingsley Davis, Margaret Mead, Paul Ehrlich, and sundry Planned Parenthood leaders – who endorsed the 1971 manifesto The Case for Compulsory Birth Control by Edgar R. Chasteen. That book offered one-stop shopping for policy-makers seeking draconian population management methods.

So let me ask about the morality of this... I hesitate to call it philosophy... this idea that someone, somewhere can make a determination as to who is or isn't fit to reproduce. On no other grounds than a kind of visceral horror that people could not just conceive the idea, but promote it as good public policy, I would think anyone who wasn't completely dead inside would be thinking torches and pitchforks.

Nevertheless, it is not only promoted, but by academics who depend to a large extent on grants and subsidies from many and sundry levels of government.

Though I do not claim to speak for all libertarians or voluntarists I have to ask why progressives wouldn't be as appalled at this as they are about Tibet or, dare I say Iran or Darfur? Why does it take a "right-wing" Christian "extremist" like Grigg to to even ask the question?

The deeper question is, why would you want any entity to have the power to be able to implement such a policy whether or not it is on the agenda today or not?

Comments

Re: Typical Libertarian short sighted worldview.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

If you want to put it that way, it is for the greater good that everyone's property rights, including self-ownership, must be respected above all else.

As I stated.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

In my reply.
Yep. There.


But if a situation occurred where further breeding became a direct threat to others (limited resources, etc) , the group would be entirely within their rights to defend themselves by pre-empting that individual right for the duration of the crisis.

Or, more plausible, if someone had proven themselves unfit (molestation, neglect, abuse, etc), proven themselves to be someone that will harm any child produced and left in their care, it is up to the group to remove existing child from the individuals custody, and ensure that the individual does not create any more innocents to harm. Happens all the time.

So I now have two un-assailable situations in which the right to reproduce can and should be removed and that removal enforced according to your own rules.

Now what?

Re: As I stated.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

But if a situation occurred where further breeding became a direct threat to others (limited resources, etc)

Impossible to happen. It is always an indirect threat. Claiming that it is a direct threat is more of a threat to society.

proven themselves to be someone that will harm any child produced and left in their care, it is up to the group to remove existing child from the individuals custody, and ensure that the individual does not create any more innocents to harm.

It's not within the rights of the group to do that preemptively.