2:53 PM
Garit
Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama seem convinced that America will inevitably spiral into the abyss of declined civilizations. Every empire has its fall, so why postpone the inevitable? President Obama is so committed to American global decline that he was the first president to ever apologize to the world for defending and protecting it---as a campaign tactic! His 2008 pre-election “apology tour” in Europe set an unprecedented show of commitment by American leadership to American global decline.
Apart from his unique ability, as president, to be a self-fulfilling prophet, he might be more right than he knows.
The tragic dilemma that defines our times is the “birth dearth”. The developed nations of the world, borrowing from a European playbook, are now competing in the greatest competition the world has ever seen: they want to see who can go into extinction first. The method of choice in this competition involves vehemently contradicting the purpose of the second strongest physiological urge of the human race: reproduction.
European, North American, Australian and Japanese families have decided that having children is no longer worthwhile, despite millennia of evidence that the contrary is advantageous. This anti-children approach to civilization has resulted in the native population decline of several of our world’s leading nations, including France, Germany, Italy and Greece. (And by native decline, I mean decline of the “native peoples” of the country, ie everyone but the immigrants.) Some of the developed nations have not even been able to stave off population decline through immigration, resulting in a decline of the entire country’s population.
In order to maintain a stagnant population (neither growing nor shrinking), a country must have a replacement rate of 2.1. In other words, you need a Total Fertility Rate of 2.1 live births per woman to maintain a steady number of people in your society from generation to generation. Europe as a whole has a rate of 1.38; Japan is at 1.32; Russia trails at 1.14. Canada weighs in at 1.48. (Source: America Alone, Mark Steyn)
Where does America stand? Right on the edge: at 2.11.
In my opinion, white Americans might as well be grouped with the Canadians. It is a widely known fact that Hispanic peoples in America have the biggest families, as do other non-white ethnic groups. Most white Americans would rather have one or two designer-babies after finishing graduate school at the age of 32 than have four or five starting at the age of 19 or 20.
Motherhood has become the career of last resort. According to many modern thinkers, anyone with brains, talent or initiative isn’t going to worry about having a family when they can be pursuing a career. “Oh, I’m just a mom.” “If you get married now, you’ll be barefoot and pregnant for the rest of your life.” “I’m waiting until I get my career off the ground to have kids.” On the individual level, these passing comments may sound fine, but when everyone adopts this kind of attitude, you get a baby-less society.
So maybe we’re just shifting to become an older society? Not quite. Let’s speak in mathematical terms: culture of not wanting to reproduce plus year-after-year of declining population equals national extinction. The “youngsters” of today don’t want to have children, either. “Generation Y” (the generation born between 1980 and 2000) is marrying less, marrying later, divorcing more and not having kids.
This trend correlates with the pattern of behavior in a secularizing nation. An interviewee in a website I recently discovered put it best, “As people adopt family and sex codes in tension with religion they tend to leave it; and as people leave religions, they often lose the discipline and motivation to direct and channel sexual behavior in ways that benefit the next generation. They marry less, have more sex outside of marriage, cohabit more, divorce more, and have fewer children -- and more of them out of wedlock.”
They continue, “Every developed country is experiencing a family crisis: first is ‘family fragmentation’ difficulties in getting parents to get married, stay married and raise their children together. Second is a collapse in birthrates to levels insufficient to sustain the population. In the US, 37% of children are now born outside of marriage and close to half of all marriages end in divorce.” In New York City, abortions fluctuate between 40-60% of total births, coming to 40% in 2010.
The myriad results of a society adopting such lifestyles and habits are unquestionably destructive. In fact, this childless trend is bankrupting the European, Anglo and Japanese welfare states. Take the following example: Grandpa Ed only fathers three children who in turn only produce one child. Grandpa retires at age 65 and lives 20 more years without working. His two grandchildren go to college for 15 years, then they go into the workforce at the age of 30 for 25 years. The grandkids go to college forever, and Grandpa stays retired forever. Who’s paying for retirement? Who’s paying for college?
Living off of social security when you get old is like living off of everyone else’s grandkids. As of a few months ago, social security officially went in the red in the United States. What happens when nobody has grandkids anymore? Even the most backwards tribal peoples know that you have children so they can take care of you when you’re old. It’s a retirement plan that requires zero financial savvy, and it guarantees caretakers that actually care about the person they are housing.
When the number of abortions equal the number of live births, and the only people who don’t have apathy about marriage are gay, you know your society is in trouble.
The biggest and most obvious repercussion of a declining population involves the nations that aren’t declining. The only nations that are growing in today’s world are Islamic! If demographic trends continue, about a third of the world will be Muslim by 2040. Almost all of the Muslim nations today are poor, politically unstable, dangerous and oppressive. To fully digest the dangerousness of this proposition, consider the nature of the five largest Muslim countries: Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Egypt. Iran ranks number seven on the list, and Afghanistan ranks number 10. Could you imagine a world dominated by these countries?
The only Muslim-majority country (there’s 47 in total) that has a semblance of political freedom, economic prosperity (not from oil) or cultural contribution is Turkey. That’s 1-in-47, and Turkey still has a long way to go.
In conclusion I return to the question I posed in the title of the article. Will Western Civilization fall? That question is up to the mothers and fathers of this great nation.
Apart from his unique ability, as president, to be a self-fulfilling prophet, he might be more right than he knows.
The tragic dilemma that defines our times is the “birth dearth”. The developed nations of the world, borrowing from a European playbook, are now competing in the greatest competition the world has ever seen: they want to see who can go into extinction first. The method of choice in this competition involves vehemently contradicting the purpose of the second strongest physiological urge of the human race: reproduction.
European, North American, Australian and Japanese families have decided that having children is no longer worthwhile, despite millennia of evidence that the contrary is advantageous. This anti-children approach to civilization has resulted in the native population decline of several of our world’s leading nations, including France, Germany, Italy and Greece. (And by native decline, I mean decline of the “native peoples” of the country, ie everyone but the immigrants.) Some of the developed nations have not even been able to stave off population decline through immigration, resulting in a decline of the entire country’s population.
In order to maintain a stagnant population (neither growing nor shrinking), a country must have a replacement rate of 2.1. In other words, you need a Total Fertility Rate of 2.1 live births per woman to maintain a steady number of people in your society from generation to generation. Europe as a whole has a rate of 1.38; Japan is at 1.32; Russia trails at 1.14. Canada weighs in at 1.48. (Source: America Alone, Mark Steyn)
Where does America stand? Right on the edge: at 2.11.
In my opinion, white Americans might as well be grouped with the Canadians. It is a widely known fact that Hispanic peoples in America have the biggest families, as do other non-white ethnic groups. Most white Americans would rather have one or two designer-babies after finishing graduate school at the age of 32 than have four or five starting at the age of 19 or 20.
Motherhood has become the career of last resort. According to many modern thinkers, anyone with brains, talent or initiative isn’t going to worry about having a family when they can be pursuing a career. “Oh, I’m just a mom.” “If you get married now, you’ll be barefoot and pregnant for the rest of your life.” “I’m waiting until I get my career off the ground to have kids.” On the individual level, these passing comments may sound fine, but when everyone adopts this kind of attitude, you get a baby-less society.
So maybe we’re just shifting to become an older society? Not quite. Let’s speak in mathematical terms: culture of not wanting to reproduce plus year-after-year of declining population equals national extinction. The “youngsters” of today don’t want to have children, either. “Generation Y” (the generation born between 1980 and 2000) is marrying less, marrying later, divorcing more and not having kids.
This trend correlates with the pattern of behavior in a secularizing nation. An interviewee in a website I recently discovered put it best, “As people adopt family and sex codes in tension with religion they tend to leave it; and as people leave religions, they often lose the discipline and motivation to direct and channel sexual behavior in ways that benefit the next generation. They marry less, have more sex outside of marriage, cohabit more, divorce more, and have fewer children -- and more of them out of wedlock.”
They continue, “Every developed country is experiencing a family crisis: first is ‘family fragmentation’ difficulties in getting parents to get married, stay married and raise their children together. Second is a collapse in birthrates to levels insufficient to sustain the population. In the US, 37% of children are now born outside of marriage and close to half of all marriages end in divorce.” In New York City, abortions fluctuate between 40-60% of total births, coming to 40% in 2010.
The myriad results of a society adopting such lifestyles and habits are unquestionably destructive. In fact, this childless trend is bankrupting the European, Anglo and Japanese welfare states. Take the following example: Grandpa Ed only fathers three children who in turn only produce one child. Grandpa retires at age 65 and lives 20 more years without working. His two grandchildren go to college for 15 years, then they go into the workforce at the age of 30 for 25 years. The grandkids go to college forever, and Grandpa stays retired forever. Who’s paying for retirement? Who’s paying for college?
Living off of social security when you get old is like living off of everyone else’s grandkids. As of a few months ago, social security officially went in the red in the United States. What happens when nobody has grandkids anymore? Even the most backwards tribal peoples know that you have children so they can take care of you when you’re old. It’s a retirement plan that requires zero financial savvy, and it guarantees caretakers that actually care about the person they are housing.
When the number of abortions equal the number of live births, and the only people who don’t have apathy about marriage are gay, you know your society is in trouble.
The biggest and most obvious repercussion of a declining population involves the nations that aren’t declining. The only nations that are growing in today’s world are Islamic! If demographic trends continue, about a third of the world will be Muslim by 2040. Almost all of the Muslim nations today are poor, politically unstable, dangerous and oppressive. To fully digest the dangerousness of this proposition, consider the nature of the five largest Muslim countries: Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Egypt. Iran ranks number seven on the list, and Afghanistan ranks number 10. Could you imagine a world dominated by these countries?
The only Muslim-majority country (there’s 47 in total) that has a semblance of political freedom, economic prosperity (not from oil) or cultural contribution is Turkey. That’s 1-in-47, and Turkey still has a long way to go.
In conclusion I return to the question I posed in the title of the article. Will Western Civilization fall? That question is up to the mothers and fathers of this great nation.
