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Why Did American Liberals Abandon Efforts at Population Growth Control?

Why Did American Liberals Abandon Efforts at Population Control?

  • They realized they were wrong

    Votes: 1 16.7%

  • The white population of America is declining, which was the real goal

    Votes: 2 33.3%

  • I dont know

    Votes: 2 33.3%

  • It's not PC anymore to champion compulsory sterilization

    Votes: 1 16.7%

  • Cleaner energy and better agricultural methods means unlimited population growth is possible

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • There's no money in it for them anymore

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    6
truthatallcost

truthatallcost

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A movement spearheaded by American liberals in the late 1960'-1990's concentrated it's efforts at warning people that the United States, as well as the rest of the world, was headed for dire circumstances due to overpopulation. Groups like Planned Parenthood, the Population Council, and Zero Population Growth aggressively sought to convince Americans to restrict the size of their families, by force if necessary. Planned Parenthood's Vice President Frederick Jaffe authored what became known as 'the Jaffe memo' in which he considered ideas like the forced sterilization of women, how to promote homosexuality as a positive lifestyle, and how to decrease the high marriage rate amongst Americans. Jaffe went on to join the Guttmacher Institute, whose namesake Alan Guttmacher was a member of the Association For Voluntary Sterilization. Guttmacher had 3 children of his own.

The main public face of the population control movement became Paul Erhlich, a biologist from Stanford University. Erhlich was a guest on the Tonight Show 20 times, and wrote a bestseller about the need for lower birthrates in the USA. He favored governmental subsidies for married couples who remained childless, and compulsory measures for those who wouldn't obey. Erhlich endorsed blacklisting people, companies and organizations who refused to comply. Tax credits were to be issued to childless couples, while adding a luxury tax to diapers, cribs, and toys were also ideas Erhlich espoused.

If these ideas don't sound Orwellian enough, Erhlich also endorsed plans to add sterility drugs as an ingredient in processed foods.

The ideas of these later 20th century American liberals were thought so highly of that they were promoted on television, in magazine articles, and highly prized by academia.

So why have liberals abandoned their former calls for population control? Even climate change isn't important enough of an issue to bring back American liberal's former hunger for communist styled population control.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_S._Jaffe

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttmacher_Institute

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ehrlich
 
truthatallcost said:
A movement spearheaded by American liberals in the late 1960'-1990's concentrated it's efforts at warning people that the United States, as well as the rest of the world, was headed for dire circumstances due to overpopulation. Groups like Planned Parenthood, the Population Council, and Zero Population Growth aggressively sought to convince Americans to restrict the size of their families, by force if necessary. Planned Parenthood's Vice President Frederick Jaffe authored what became known as 'the Jaffe memo' in which he considered ideas like the forced sterilization of women, how to promote homosexuality as a positive lifestyle, and how to decrease the high marriage rate amongst Americans. Jaffe went on to join the Guttmacher Institute, whose namesake Alan Guttmacher was a member of the Association For Voluntary Sterilization. Guttmacher had 3 children of his own.

The main public face of the population control movement became Paul Erhlich, a biologist from Stanford University. Erhlich was a guest on the Tonight Show 20 times, and wrote a bestseller about the need for lower birthrates in the USA. He favored governmental subsidies for married couples who remained childless, and compulsory measures for those who wouldn't obey. Erhlich endorsed blacklisting people, companies and organizations who refused to comply. Tax credits were to be issued to childless couples, while adding a luxury tax to diapers, cribs, and toys were also ideas Erhlich espoused.

If these ideas don't sound Orwellian enough, Erhlich also endorsed plans to add sterility drugs as an ingredient in processed foods.

The ideas of these later 20th century American liberals were thought so highly of that they were promoted on television, in magazine articles, and highly prized by academia.

So why have liberals abandoned their former calls for population control? Even climate change isn't important enough of an issue to bring back American liberal's former hunger for communist styled population control.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_S._Jaffe

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttmacher_Institute

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ehrlich
Click to expand...

In the US until recently most American believed it was better to have large families.

In my own family, My grandparents had 11. My parents had 6.

None of my siblings had more than 3 with the average being 2.


Family planning is a good thing.
 
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truthatallcost said:
A movement spearheaded by American liberals in the late 1960'-1990's concentrated it's efforts at warning people that the United States, as well as the rest of the world, was headed for dire circumstances due to overpopulation. Groups like Planned Parenthood, the Population Council, and Zero Population Growth aggressively sought to convince Americans to restrict the size of their families, by force if necessary. Planned Parenthood's Vice President Frederick Jaffe authored what became known as 'the Jaffe memo' in which he considered ideas like the forced sterilization of women, how to promote homosexuality as a positive lifestyle, and how to decrease the high marriage rate amongst Americans. Jaffe went on to join the Guttmacher Institute, whose namesake Alan Guttmacher was a member of the Association For Voluntary Sterilization. Guttmacher had 3 children of his own.

The main public face of the population control movement became Paul Erhlich, a biologist from Stanford University. Erhlich was a guest on the Tonight Show 20 times, and wrote a bestseller about the need for lower birthrates in the USA. He favored governmental subsidies for married couples who remained childless, and compulsory measures for those who wouldn't obey. Erhlich endorsed blacklisting people, companies and organizations who refused to comply. Tax credits were to be issued to childless couples, while adding a luxury tax to diapers, cribs, and toys were also ideas Erhlich espoused.

If these ideas don't sound Orwellian enough, Erhlich also endorsed plans to add sterility drugs as an ingredient in processed foods.

The ideas of these later 20th century American liberals were thought so highly of that they were promoted on television, in magazine articles, and highly prized by academia.

So why have liberals abandoned their former calls for population control? Even climate change isn't important enough of an issue to bring back American liberal's former hunger for communist styled population control.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_S._Jaffe

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttmacher_Institute

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ehrlich
Click to expand...

How did this end up in the "Polls" and not the "Conspiracy Theories" forum? You know your theories are pretty whacked out, right?
 
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truthatallcost said:
A movement spearheaded by American liberals in the late 1960'-1990's concentrated it's efforts at warning people that the United States, as well as the rest of the world, was headed for dire circumstances due to overpopulation. Groups like Planned Parenthood, the Population Council, and Zero Population Growth aggressively sought to convince Americans to restrict the size of their families, by force if necessary. Planned Parenthood's Vice President Frederick Jaffe authored what became known as 'the Jaffe memo' in which he considered ideas like the forced sterilization of women, how to promote homosexuality as a positive lifestyle, and how to decrease the high marriage rate amongst Americans. Jaffe went on to join the Guttmacher Institute, whose namesake Alan Guttmacher was a member of the Association For Voluntary Sterilization. Guttmacher had 3 children of his own.

The main public face of the population control movement became Paul Erhlich, a biologist from Stanford University. Erhlich was a guest on the Tonight Show 20 times, and wrote a bestseller about the need for lower birthrates in the USA. He favored governmental subsidies for married couples who remained childless, and compulsory measures for those who wouldn't obey. Erhlich endorsed blacklisting people, companies and organizations who refused to comply. Tax credits were to be issued to childless couples, while adding a luxury tax to diapers, cribs, and toys were also ideas Erhlich espoused.

If these ideas don't sound Orwellian enough, Erhlich also endorsed plans to add sterility drugs as an ingredient in processed foods.

The ideas of these later 20th century American liberals were thought so highly of that they were promoted on television, in magazine articles, and highly prized by academia.

So why have liberals abandoned their former calls for population control? Even climate change isn't important enough of an issue to bring back American liberal's former hunger for communist styled population control.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_S._Jaffe

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttmacher_Institute

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ehrlich
Click to expand...

Who said they abandoned it? Without any doubt, the planet is overpopulated. Human consumption has far outstripped available resources. Each person on Earth now requires a third more land to supply his or her needs than the planet can supply. Any responsible person, whatever their political affiliation should be cognizant of the fact that unless human populations are curtailed around the globe, humanitarian crises will occur at faster and more devastating rates.
 
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truthatallcost said:
A movement spearheaded by American liberals in the late 1960'-1990's concentrated it's efforts at warning people that the United States, as well as the rest of the world, was headed for dire circumstances due to overpopulation. Groups like Planned Parenthood, the Population Council, and Zero Population Growth aggressively sought to convince Americans to restrict the size of their families, by force if necessary. Planned Parenthood's Vice President Frederick Jaffe authored what became known as 'the Jaffe memo' in which he considered ideas like the forced sterilization of women, how to promote homosexuality as a positive lifestyle, and how to decrease the high marriage rate amongst Americans. Jaffe went on to join the Guttmacher Institute, whose namesake Alan Guttmacher was a member of the Association For Voluntary Sterilization. Guttmacher had 3 children of his own.

...

So why have liberals abandoned their former calls for population control? Even climate change isn't important enough of an issue to bring back American liberal's former hunger for communist styled population control.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_S._Jaffe

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttmacher_Institute

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ehrlich
Click to expand...

As goes your basic question, I think it less about liberals and more about observant policy makers, economists and thinkers -- liberal, conservative or otherwise -- recognizing the current state of population growth (non-growth) and understanding, based on extant analysis, what impacts it has. Not everything is about endogenous domestic politics.

You may find the following useful:
The short and super-summarized answer is that population growth in Western countries threatens to fall below the replacement rate, which, obviously augurs adversely for OECD nations, given China and India's huge population advantage and the leveling of the playing field technology has enabled. We're in the Information Age, "round two" by some folks' assessment; thus unlike the 20th century and before, there are substantively no more secrets, and nations like the PRC and India are wholeheartedly embracing science and technology to spearhead their rapidly advancing themselves in the quest to achieve parity with Western countries.

The reality is that in the "battle" for global dominance, sooner or later and in the absence of "geologic"-scale catastrophe, population size provides multidimensional immutable edge that manifests itself writ large in science, technology, economics (income, wealth and productivity generation), education, military strength/capability, discovery, and entrepreneurship/innovation. Geopolitically and with regard to the impacts of population, one can think of present day India and China as being roughly where the U.S. was, in comparison to Western European nations, just ahead of WWI and WWII, which is to say, they're "sleeping giants" that it's imprudent to push too far.


Red:
Did those groups have to work all that hard to catalyze a mindset of having smaller families, given causal correlations between increased wealth/income and birth rates.
 
Middleground said:
How did this end up in the "Polls" and not the "Conspiracy Theories" forum? You know your theories are pretty whacked out, right?
Click to expand...

Which part of my OP is theoretical? The movement I'm referring to is well documented, none of this is a secret. Paul Erhlich even wrote a NYT best seller, where he advocates for the measures I discussed in the OP.
 
HumblePi said:
Who said they abandoned it? Without any doubt, the planet is overpopulated. Human consumption has far outstripped available resources. Each person on Earth now requires a third more land to supply his or her needs than the planet can supply. Any responsible person, whatever their political affiliation should be cognizant of the fact that unless human populations are curtailed around the globe, humanitarian crises will occur at faster and more devastating rates.
Click to expand...

Ok, so you are one person who hasn't abandoned the logic, but where did everyone else go? That is the question of my poll- why did liberals abandon the population control movement? At one time, LBJ and Nixon approved of the overpopulation message, and Paul Erhlich's Zero Population Growth organization had nearly 100,000 members alone.
 
Middleground said:
How did this end up in the "Polls" and not the "Conspiracy Theories" forum? You know your theories are pretty whacked out, right?
Click to expand...

Its just par for the course LMAO I dont recall a thread or poll that hasnt been mocked by normal people right left and center and pointed out to be factually wrong.:lamo
 
1751Texan said:
In the US until recently most American believed it was better to have large families.

In my own family, My grandparents had 11. My parents had 6.

None of my siblings had more than 3 with the average being 2.


Family planning is a good thing.
Click to expand...

We've heard for years that family planning is a good thing, and it usually is for the individual couple. But we've also heard about the coming aging crisis in places like Japan, Germany, and most of Europe will begin experiencing shortages of human capital. The current cure all for that problem is merging the aging crisis in Europe with the migrant crisis springing forth from the Mideast and Northern Africa. Problem solved.... But not really. It turns out that populations of humans are not interchangeable, and countries like France, Germany and Italy are not benefitting significantly from the recent addition of young people from those regions of the world I previously mentioned.
 
They did not abandon it, see the funding for planned parenthood and the current stats on abortion.
 
AGENT J said:
Its just par for the course LMAO I dont recall a thread or poll that hasnt been mocked by normal people right left and center and pointed out to be factually wrong.:lamo
Click to expand...

Ironic choice of words, dontcha think?
 
truthatallcost said:
Planned Parenthood's Vice President Frederick Jaffe authored what became known as 'the Jaffe memo' in which he considered ideas like the forced sterilization of women, how to promote homosexuality as a positive lifestyle, and how to decrease the high marriage rate amongst Americans.
Click to expand...

The "Jaffe Memo" is available online. It doesn't say what you think it says. You have to actually read the whole thing. Jaffe is writing to a more radical colleague, pointing out that there's a lot of stuff that can be done, and a lot that should be done, before anyone should even consider things like forced sterilization. He's telling the recipients of the memo to cool their heels some.
 
truthatallcost said:
Ironic choice of words, dontcha think?
Click to expand...

Im sure YOU feel that way and that further highlights the issue and perfectly proves out point . . wow nothing like you completely owning and exposing yourself :2rofll:
 
ashurbanipal said:
The "Jaffe Memo" is available online. It doesn't say what you think it says. You have to actually read the whole thing. Jaffe is writing to a more radical colleague, pointing out that there's a lot of stuff that can be done, and a lot that should be done, before anyone should even consider things like forced sterilization. He's telling the recipients of the memo to cool their heels some.
Click to expand...

I've read it, and you have to admit it reads exactly like a rather well known conspiracy theory circulating today. 'Find ways to increase homosexuality', 'encourage divorce and single mothers to increase'. It very much appears as if Bolshevik Jaffe is drawing up a prescription for how to cause the self destruction of American society.
 
truthatallcost said:
Which part of my OP is theoretical? The movement I'm referring to is well documented, none of this is a secret. Paul Erhlich even wrote a NYT best seller, where he advocates for the measures I discussed in the OP.
Click to expand...

Show me.
 
truthatallcost said:
A movement spearheaded by American liberals in the late 1960'-1990's concentrated it's efforts at warning people that the United States, as well as the rest of the world, was headed for dire circumstances due to overpopulation. Groups like Planned Parenthood, the Population Council, and Zero Population Growth aggressively sought to convince Americans to restrict the size of their families, by force if necessary. Planned Parenthood's Vice President Frederick Jaffe authored what became known as 'the Jaffe memo' in which he considered ideas like the forced sterilization of women, how to promote homosexuality as a positive lifestyle, and how to decrease the high marriage rate amongst Americans. Jaffe went on to join the Guttmacher Institute, whose namesake Alan Guttmacher was a member of the Association For Voluntary Sterilization. Guttmacher had 3 children of his own.

The main public face of the population control movement became Paul Erhlich, a biologist from Stanford University. Erhlich was a guest on the Tonight Show 20 times, and wrote a bestseller about the need for lower birthrates in the USA. He favored governmental subsidies for married couples who remained childless, and compulsory measures for those who wouldn't obey. Erhlich endorsed blacklisting people, companies and organizations who refused to comply. Tax credits were to be issued to childless couples, while adding a luxury tax to diapers, cribs, and toys were also ideas Erhlich espoused.

If these ideas don't sound Orwellian enough, Erhlich also endorsed plans to add sterility drugs as an ingredient in processed foods.

The ideas of these later 20th century American liberals were thought so highly of that they were promoted on television, in magazine articles, and highly prized by academia.

So why have liberals abandoned their former calls for population control? Even climate change isn't important enough of an issue to bring back American liberal's former hunger for communist styled population control.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_S._Jaffe

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttmacher_Institute

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ehrlich
Click to expand...

What makes you think their vision hasn't succeeded. In every developed nation birthrates have dropped precipitously so much so several have a negative growth rate. Its even occurring here in the US were the native born population is not replacing itself.
 
truthatallcost said:
The main public face of the population control movement became Paul Erhlich, a biologist from Stanford University. Erhlich was a guest on the Tonight Show 20 times, and wrote a bestseller about the need for lower birthrates in the USA.

So why have liberals abandoned their former calls for population control? Even climate change isn't important enough of an issue to bring back American liberal's former hunger for communist styled population control.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ehrlich
Click to expand...


You're such a hack that you can't even get your Wiki references straight.
It would be mighty interesting to see a videotape of The Tonight Show from 1915, because that is the last year Paul Ehrlich would have been available to speak without a complex system of winches and pulleys, and an awful lot of perfume to staunch the stench.
He died in 1915.

If you're talking about the AUTHOR Paul R. Ehrlich, let's remember that he had critics on both the Right and the Left.
His book, "The Population Bomb", was described as a gigantic neomalthusian hissy fit, and many liberals described his philosophy as knee-jerk reactionary at best.

As for work done by Planned Parenthood and the Guttmacher Institute, the only thing that conservatives scream about is the fact that PP offers abortion services. Conservatives use birth control and family planning just as much as anyone else.

So why did the call for population control slowly die out? Because neomalthusianism died out, and because individual access to birth control has become more readily available, and because more emphasis is being placed on efforts at redistribution of wealth and resources.

The more you engage in RED BAITING, the more you begin to sound like a paranoid shrill hysteric.
It's not a good look for anybody, including you.
I cannot respect someone who runs around with their hair on fire, screeching about how all liberals are communists. You asked for more efforts at civility.
It is difficult if not well nigh impossible to practice such when surrounded by people who behave as if they are at a community dunking and are just searching for an adulterous sorceress to drown.

Last but not least, "Paul Erhlich's Zero Population Growth organization had nearly 100,000 members."

That is hardly what I would call a grassroots movement or a widespread trend.
A hundred thousand people bought into it, whoop-dee ding.

I remember ZPG and I remember the book Ehrlich wrote.
I also remember that the biggest problem with population wasn't resources, it was greed and selfishness.
Not much has changed with greed and selfishness.
 
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truthatallcost said:
A movement spearheaded by American liberals in the late 1960'-1990's concentrated it's efforts at warning people that the United States, as well as the rest of the world, was headed for dire circumstances due to overpopulation. Groups like Planned Parenthood, the Population Council, and Zero Population Growth aggressively sought to convince Americans to restrict the size of their families, by force if necessary. Planned Parenthood's Vice President Frederick Jaffe authored what became known as 'the Jaffe memo' in which he considered ideas like the forced sterilization of women, how to promote homosexuality as a positive lifestyle, and how to decrease the high marriage rate amongst Americans. Jaffe went on to join the Guttmacher Institute, whose namesake Alan Guttmacher was a member of the Association For Voluntary Sterilization. Guttmacher had 3 children of his own.

The main public face of the population control movement became Paul Erhlich, a biologist from Stanford University. Erhlich was a guest on the Tonight Show 20 times, and wrote a bestseller about the need for lower birthrates in the USA. He favored governmental subsidies for married couples who remained childless, and compulsory measures for those who wouldn't obey. Erhlich endorsed blacklisting people, companies and organizations who refused to comply. Tax credits were to be issued to childless couples, while adding a luxury tax to diapers, cribs, and toys were also ideas Erhlich espoused.

If these ideas don't sound Orwellian enough, Erhlich also endorsed plans to add sterility drugs as an ingredient in processed foods.

The ideas of these later 20th century American liberals were thought so highly of that they were promoted on television, in magazine articles, and highly prized by academia.

So why have liberals abandoned their former calls for population control? Even climate change isn't important enough of an issue to bring back American liberal's former hunger for communist styled population control.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_S._Jaffe

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttmacher_Institute

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ehrlich
Click to expand...

Paul Ehrlich, who died in 1915, was a guest on the Tonight Show?
You're sooo full of crap...
 
Cardinal said:
Moderators just stopped moving threads into the the CT section altogether two years ago. When the entire Republican Party turns into a CT club, what are you going to do, just move over half the forum into the CT forum?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'll bet that's totally it.
 
Middleground said:
How did this end up in the "Polls" and not the "Conspiracy Theories" forum? You know your theories are pretty whacked out, right?
Click to expand...

Moderators just stopped moving threads into the the CT section altogether two years ago. When the entire Republican Party turns into a CT club, what are you going to do, just move over half the threads into the CT forum?
 
Cardinal said:
Moderators just stopped moving threads into the the CT section altogether two years ago. When the entire Republican Party turns into a CT club, what are you going to do, just move over half the threads into the CT forum?
Click to expand...

ROFLMAO!!!! BwaaaaaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!!!

:lamo

Felix Laughing.gif
 
truthatallcost said:
I've read it, and you have to admit it reads exactly like a rather well known conspiracy theory circulating today. 'Find ways to increase homosexuality', 'encourage divorce and single mothers to increase'. It very much appears as if Bolshevik Jaffe is drawing up a prescription for how to cause the self destruction of American society.
Click to expand...

If you've read it, you need to read it again if that's your impression. He does mention these, but in the framework of saying that there are other things that we should do first, before even considering these possibilities--like, for example, just letting people voluntarily control their own fertility. He's pointing to these as various proposals that others have made, but saying that it would be more reasonable to think in terms of simply getting the message out about population and letting people decide. He also points out that there are several uninterrogated assumptions in the more extreme views that population will become as bad a problem as those extremists seem to think--he points out, for example, that people do (or may) respond to population pressures on their own.

From the memo:

Accordingly, at least as regards the United States, I believe that a number of activities must be undertaken as prior and necessary conditions to consideration of whether or not the U.S. should adopt any explicit population policy (emphasis in original).
Click to expand...

In the broad strokes, here are the "activities" he references:

1. Make sure we understand present fertility data and don't make the mistake of extrapolating present data to future results.

2. Make sure the terms of discourse are clear and accurate--that is, don't start any discussions where the interlocutors have different definitions of key terms.

3. Assess how a population policy would impact other areas of policy and society--economy, education, etc.

4. Assess how effective voluntary fertility control might be--don't just assume the government needs to clamp down. Let's see how people would do on their own.

5. Figure out whether explicit population policy would lead to unexpected outcomes or unfair practices or outcomes. Figure out whether people actually want an explicit population policy.
 
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