Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

internetworkers - Re: [internetworkers] Population [was Representation [was Candidate Match for Pres]]

internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Diana Duncan <dianaduncan AT contentdb.net>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Population [was Representation [was Candidate Match for Pres]]
  • Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 14:37:44 -0500

OK, since I'm in the mood for controversial topics, this one occurred to me. WARNING -- WARNING -- WARNING: don't read this if you aren't in the same mood! I'm going to write some probably offensive things!

On Thursday, Feb 12, 2004, at 05:41 US/Eastern, James Dasher wrote:


IIRC, the Constitution originally mandated one Representative for every 60,000 people. Today, the number is capped at 435. Thus, each citizen matters less as the population grows. It ain't quite taxation without representation, but it's certainly taxation with less and less representation.

I'm familiar with arguments against removing the limit, and they all boil down to "it wouldn't work". But telling citizens that they're too dumb to figure out how to manage to govern themselves is hardly worthy of a government supposedly of, by, and for those same citizens.

With almost 300,000,000 people in the U.S., we'd have almost 5,000 Representatives. North Carolina, with roughly 8,000,000 people, would have more than 100 Representatives. Socialists, Greens, Libertarians, Conservatives, Reformists, and others would all have a chance to elect someone to represent them.



Why don't people talk about Zero Population Growth and Negative Population Growth any more? Overpopulation contributes to so many of the problems on our planet today. The world used to be able to rely on periodic massive wars or plagues to control the population, but we seem to have curbed their effectiveness. (At least for now...the overuse of antibiotics may come back to kick us in the ass, and it seems viruses are mutating pretty darn fast lately).

As a personal choice, I prefer to limit my offspring. However, what worries me is that it seems that only stupid people have lots of children nowadays. Most educated people are concerned with careers and with providing safe, happy upbringings for their children, and rightly conclude that smaller families make this more likely. Uneducated or extremely religious folks make the opposite choice. So what worries me is...should educated folks have more children to combat a population explosion of idiots? Not that idiots necessarily beget more idiots (or vice versa with the non-idiots) but you can probably understand my concern.

Have at it.

Diana





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page