From: gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: family"* than Pro-Choicers!
Summary: The alt.feminism edition.
Date: 31 Dec 92 20:57:33 GMT
Reply-To: gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel)
Organization: Nefolet shel nemushot (Fallout of Wimps)


| 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?"

In article <1992Dec30.225121.17075@panix.com> gcf@panix.com 
(Gordon Fitch) writes:

>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?"  

Depends who pays for the ticket...

As you know pretty well, there are several rights which are usually
defended regardless of the question if it is "good" for society; 
free speech for example.

I ask you if you see the right to have as many kids as you want,
regardless of the price to society, as one of those rights.

>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.  

If the deal is so bad then why so many women take it?
(About 1/4 of the kids born in poverty out of wedlock.)

This is not a rhetorical question, and I'm interested in your answer.
An explanation why the phenomenon is much more common today than
40 years ago will also be nice.

>In other words, the question -- which alludes to the 
>mythical welfare queen -- is empty of content.  

Why the people who claim that there is no "mythical welfare queen," 
object to any law that will cut her benefits?

Something just does not fit.

>That's why Ms. Ashmore's story is dumb, and your constant
>repetition of it is dumb.  

The point in the story is that the same women who fight so hard to
preserve a woman's rights to decide not to have an abortion, not
to put the newborn to adoption and take the father to cleaners will
not support her if they will be taken to the cleaners.        

>Why not roll for higher stakes sometime?

Describe the model of the society you suggest, and I'll try to look
for bugs.  If you can point out some working models that can be
checked, and show stability, then it will be even better.

BTW The failure of the kibbutz system in Israel convinced
me that no socialism can survive for too long.  I wonder if 
you ever tried to understand why this failure has happened.

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?  

Because they like the deal.

>What about all the criminals and
>barbarians you've proposed we raise?  Maybe they'll want
>your check.

There are three basic things that can be done:
1) Trying to educate them.  That could be the best solution, but
   I don't think that it is going to happen.  The NYC education
   system that cost more than $6,000 per year per student, and
   turns out kids who start to multiply before they can add, is
   an example of how a public education system which is governed
   by politicians look like.  

2) Paying them some ransom so they will not have to be criminals.
   Welfare works like that, to some extent, but I think that even
   NY (the state with highest state taxes in the nation) has run
   out of ransom money.

3) More security.  Making crime so unprofitable that the criminals
   will decide that it does not worth the risk.  

>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.  

"All the criminals and barbarians" are already here, you know...
Look what happened in L.A., and see how the system that your 
generation created "works."  If you still miss the point 
take a ride uptown in a NYC subway.

>If I were twenty I'd be worried. 

I don't think that things will get much worse.  The public money
starts to dry up, and so people are going to learn much faster
about the consequences of total irresponsibility.

> )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(

Hillel                                             gazit@cs.duke.edu
Newsgroups: alt.feminism