From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: soc.men,alt.feminism
Subject: Re: family"* than Pro-Choicers!
Date: 31 Dec 92 04:51:33 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

The Gordon Fitch alternatives to unfathering, with a 
rather decorative border:

| >| GF>They are (1) to communize (or if you prefer, socialize)
| >| GF>child support; and (2) to use the method used by (I
| >| GF>believe) the Navahos, who allocate certain communal
| >| GF>resources to mothers with children (in the case of the
| >| GF>Navahos, arable land).

[ Note -- I've been tentatively corrected on the Navahos;
the land is inherited through the female line per stirpes,
according to a correspondent. ]

Hillel Gazit:
| Gordon, I asked you that following question several times,
| and so far you refused to answer:
| "Do you think that a woman should have a right to have as many kids
| as she wants regardless of economic considerations?"
| 
| If the answer is "yes", please state how much of the GNP you want to
| allocate to support such women; if the answer is "no" then please
| present your own criteria for deciding when and how to stop a woman
| who keeps having kids that she can't support.

I can't answer senseless questions.  This is like asking
"Do you think a woman should have the right to fly to the
moon, regardless of the consequence to green cheese?"  No
doubt there are women who simply produce children in a
psychopathic manner and leave them in dumpsters, but they
seem to be few in number and their reproductive careers
are often cut short by jail or other restrictive insti-
tutions.  For the others, having a child is an act laden
with heavy economic consequences even if someone foots
all the external bills -- because there's something 
called child care that turns out to be a lot of work.  A 
lot of work means a lot of economic consequences.  The 
women have the work exacted from them by means of 
biological or cultural forces whose effectiveness cannot 
be doubted: you need only observe the world.
  
In other words, the question -- which alludes to the 
mythical welfare queen -- is empty of content.  It's a 
piece of propaganda, and not very good propaganda, at 
that.

That's why Ms. Ashmore's story is dumb, and your constant
repetition of it is dumb.  Since you're actually supposed
to be a fairly intelligent person, I take it you've been
clowning for some of the less intellectually talented in 
the audience.  Why not roll for higher stakes sometime?

gf:
| >...
| >The effect of even _present_ mechanisms of support, or
| >rather, the lack of them, have apparently brought the 
| >birth-rate below the population replacement level.

hg: 
| Before the industrial revolution *most* of the population grew food.
| Today 3% of the population grows enough food to feed all of us.  Now
| we enter a new industrial revolution, a robotic one.
| 
| More and more work is done today by robots.  We will probably be able
| to keep the same GNP even if the population will shrink by adding
| more robots.  And if there will be a real shortage in workers,
| then we can always "import" more immigrants (it actually happens
| today in engineering because the Politically Correct public schools
| just can't "produce" enough students who can do math).

Fascinating.  Robots and foreigners are going to pay your
social security.  Why?  What about all the criminals and
barbarians you've proposed we raise?  Maybe they'll want
your check.

| So, what are you *really* worried about?

I'm not worried.  As I said, I'm fifty-three.  I'll almost
certainly be gone by the time the philosophy of unfatherhood,
unmotherhood, and total irresponsibility for social 
consequences reaps its full reward.  If I were twenty I'd be 
worried. 
--
ps/ Why was the followup line set to soc.men for this
thread?  Feeling the chill breeze or something?
-- 

 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )