Wow, your post offered insight into your basic underlying principles.
irrespective of what people are saying, that's the incentive structure in a post-modern society with a solid entitlement support system for the elderly. hell,
I know about this stuff, and me and the wife aren't sure
we want a third? why? well, we have two boys, they're a lot of work (aie, especially the 3 year old, i swear that kid pops caffeine pills when we're not looking), i am gone a lot, it would be a lot on my wife, the wife doesn't want to go through pregnancy again, our income is low middle income... the incentive structure - since we don't
need children - is against us having a third. but we both do want a third, and are hoping for a girl. perhaps we will adopt; plenty of children are abandoned to the system, and we could perhaps save a childs' life. we shall see.
Population is another problem. It deserves another poll.
overpopulation isn't a problem, and the people selling that pap have been proven embarrasingly amazingly wrong again, and again, and again. a society needs a birthrate of 2.1 just to sustain itself. less than that number means the society is becoming older, greyer, and less able to take care of it's more vulnerable members.
no society in human history has ever come back from dipping below 1.8
care to guess what southern europe's is?
shewolf said:
The issue of population implosion could be easily solved with immigration reform..
yes, that was Europe's solution to the problem. the issue is that when you have to import massive amounts of child-producing immigrants to replace your current populace, there is little to no reason to suspect that they will automatically pick up your culture. that has been the experience in Europe, and to a lesser extent in parts of the US. so "The West" as an institution (you know, the enlightenment, scientific rationalism, limited government, secular government, rights for women, slavery foridden) will cease to exist in much of Europe, replaced by the culture of the immigrant populations.
immigration can keep a society vibrant, refreshed, and growing. but you must have some level of mutual assimilation, where the governing norms of the society are adopted by the immigrants and the best parts of the immigrant society are adopted into the general culture.