License to breed- Do you think yes or no?

Thanks for humoring me, and you're right weve gotten off topic.

The issue with the forced sterilization thing, other than the blatent violation of human rights, is who makes the decision? The government? And when does it stop? We all know how the government tends to overstep its bounds. Soon there after you have licences to breed, and a maximum number of children you can have etc etc.

The other way violates no rights, and all people are forced to live with their decisions.

Sorry for not providing a more detailed response, its been a long day. I got up at four to work around my place and get things ready for the influx of people that are in town for the rodeo, then pulled twelve hours at work.

I don't think people should be limited to how many kids they could have. I'm just a strong supporter of forced sterilization for people who are clearly carelessly bringing people into this world without any concern for their well-being. Like people like my sister. Why on Earth should she be having more kids (2 in less than a year miraculously), when she has 4 that she should be working on getting back? Not meaning to bring up my family again, just using my sister as a quick example. If someone has kids in someone else's custody, they should not be allowed to have another child in their care until they are able to get the other ones back. Or if they have had a history of recurring child abuse and neglect, they shouldn't be allowed to have kids at all. And at some point, I don't think its inhumane for a judge to order forced sterilization. It's reversible if they so want it, but maybe they should be through extensive classes, counseling, and meeting requirements of the government.

Realistically though, if the government ever did anything, I could see them rewarding those who were smart about their actions and punishing those who weren't. Like allowing tax deductions via your children if your income is deemed suitable for your household size. But if one person had a kid that year when they already require government assistance and are of low income, they need some sort of slap in the face for thinking that they could or should be bringing another life into this world. Or if a parent has been dealing with CPS that year due to an incident of neglect or abuse, they shouldn't be allowed to legally claim the kid as their own. That could be something like not allowing them to claim the children on their taxes for a deduction.

But no matter what I don't think religion, personal morals, or rights should ever be an excuse or defense in this kind of situation. I remember once hearing "Yeah you have freedoms and rights, but that all goes out the door the second you interfere with someone else's." Sounds like a good concept to me... a little too good to be true, but that's sort of how I view idiots carelessly getting knocked up. It isn't fair for the kids they're bringing into this world. They may not be on the verge of dying, not trying to sound melodramatic here; But they're innocent. They didn't ask to come into the world to stupid parents. So, the best way to avoid this is to start from the very beginning. Don't even allow people to be brought into this world by the stupid people who are not able to properly provide and care for them.

If they want to put it up for adoption, that's fine. But they're delusional if they think they can care for a kid.

Sounds a lot like China.

Yeah that is what I was thinking. But China is also a predominantly atheist country... so they don't have religion and morals necessarily getting in the way. I don't think our government would ever do what China's doing. But punishing those who carelessly bring kids into this world and then neglect and/or abuse them do need some sort of punishment.

No.
There's better ways to handle this issue.
First off, create a legal method for men to not have to pay child support or have any liability to an unwanted child. As it were, men have no legal say when it comes to an unwanted child. If the woman wants it, it's her choice to abort, give away, or keep it. In the process, she's deciding whether the man is bound to the child as well (be it sticking around or paying child support, amongst other things).
Second, limit tax incentives. As it were, there's no cap to tax credits given for having children on your return. I personally like two. I also personally like zero, but I doubt that'd settle well with most people.
Third, quit glorifying single parents and teenage pregnancy. Most people, when they make a mistake, don't gloat about it. When it comes to single parents (read: mothers), it's a mistake that they chose to keep running with. And with the above two options given, it can be quite beneficial to have a child with no intention of taking care of it. Given the amount of abusive mothers there are, it seems many do take advantage of the system we have in place in the states.

So you effectively create a strong incentive to create family units instead of single mothers wanting to get tax breaks and support checks, increase tax revenue, lower some social support costs (which is funny because I strongly support bigger government), and people have less reason to have a child when they don't want one. Add further that this has extremely beneficial aspects to a society as a whole when they have family units (i.e. a mother and father), which I don't really want to link to the list, but I can if asked for it, and you've got yourself a lot of benefits without a lot of fuss.

And for any single mothers reading this, please no taking personal offense to this.

Honestly I didn't read any of the other responses but simply: yes.

I think it would do a great number of things. Like stop children from being abused by unfit parents, kids growing up in families who canny support their lives, and most of all the spread of stupidity. But I've got some extreme views, and I don't expect anyone to agree with me.

I need a lisence to do most other things that effect the people around me: guns, driving, etc. so why not reproduction? Because I can honestly say that many people are not fit to raise children, and they are the ones who have 7 or 8 kids they can't afford to take care of because they're too busy drinking their money away or injecting themselves with drugs.

This also would mean my best friend would never had been born. However, she and I ha this discussion and she completely agrees with me.

Now, a license to breed seems like it would be a major problem. That would indicate a level of government control that is both unfeasible and extremely invasive. However, I DO beleive that a punitive sterilization would be a much more reasonable system. Those who are deemed not fit to have custody of a child, those living in a place deemed unfit for children, those convicted of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse of a child, possibly those with multiple drug-related convictions, possibly those with the genetic markers for severe mental illnesses. These people get a procedure to render them sterile, sometimes permanently, or possibly just until they can pass a reasonably strict set of standards.

Unless we're able to move & colonize space, There will come a day when the Earth gets overcrowded, and Governments WILL have to crack down on population control.
It'l be very unpopular, People will hate being told they can't have as many children as they want, And they'l hate having that 1 outcast child taken from them.
Its the China situation. It'l be ugly, No one in the middle class will prob agree with it, But the sad truth is it'l have to be done to ensure our survival.
So yea, I Believe there will be a license sometime in the future. And some people will use it as a rallying cry for civil war, and it'l just become an all-around dark day in Humanities history.

There are a lot of myths that FAR TOO MANY believe just because some form of the media say something about them.

In my lifetime, the media has talked about "garbage threatening to buried us" (it didn't), how if we didn't get completely off of fossil fuels we would all be living in domed cities, wearing breathing masks to go out of our homes, or both (never happened), and so forth. The population explosion has YET to happen like they say, so I don't think that will factor in.

I DO think that they are going to start not allowing certain kinds of people to have kids... such as criminals, the insane, the terminally stupid... hopefully people like the Kardashians... those kinds.

There seems to be a correlation of stupidy and the number of kids. Its always the dumb rednecks that have like five or seven kids. I'm convinced one day things will turn out like in the movie Idiocracy.

I don't think there should be a limit on the kids I think that people should make more LOGICAL and more FINANCIAL decisions when it comes to them. People use welfare (the ones I know) as an excuse to breed and say that the gov't will take care of them and there ha-billion children. I think that sound decisions need to be made when opening ones legs or not using a condom on some stranger. Maybe I am just mad because I can't have them and I see people everyday who don't deserve them or see them as a check.

Yeah I think I am just bitter.

I'm all for population control; while I wouldn't say a license to breed would work (in fact, I think the very idea in and of itself is flawed) let's play the equality card:

Everyone gets this for ONE (count 'em, ONE) child and ONE child ONLY:
- Money for diapers
- Money for food
- Money for health care
- Money for other miscellaneous items that go towards caring for the kid
- All money is earmarked in the form of checks for these items (like WIC checks)
- Health care payments for kid stop when child reaches 25 years of age

Everything else is on them, as in the gov't won't give you a single damn extra penny. What better way to get the ball rolling than this? While I agree it's far from a 'fix-all' solution, it will definitely help. So yeah, they can have as many kids as they want still, and if they can support 'em, more power. But at least this way the idiots can't have an out if they're too fucking blind to keep it in their pants.

This is one of those ideas that sounds good on the face of it, but collapses rather quickly when one does a deep dive into the particulars.

Of course, anyone who has watched any of the daytime dramas like Maury or Jerry Springer and sees some of the parents out there thinks of the whole "license to breed" concept. Some idiots just shouldn't be parents. I think most folks would agree, at least on a conceptual level, that the human race would be better off if a certain 10% or so of its members chose not to pass on their genes to the next generation.

It's selecting (or de-selecting) that 10%--the process by which that is to be done--where the complications arise. Who decides? And on what grounds? An IQ test? Which one? And is that measure of intelligence a reliable arbiter of fitness to parent? It's a very slippery slope, a poorly defined line between weeding out bad parents (people who would do a crummy job at raising kids) and eugenics--that latter being a place I don't think most of us want to go.

And then we have the question of who administers the program. The state? Can anyone imagine how awful and mind-numbing an experience dealing with a souped-up version of the DMV would be? And that sidesteps the very appropriate question of whether we should even give government that power in the first place.

So I say "no thanks."

10%? Try closer to 90.

Why do you oppose the idea of eugenics?

Trygon said:

10%? Try closer to 90.

Why do you oppose the idea of eugenics?

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For starters, show me where anything good ever came out of it. It seems to bring out the worst in humanity (Nazis, Japanese secret units, etc.).

But the same question comes up: who decides? Hitler and his henchmen had their own criteria. What would yours be? And on what basis? And why should we accept your criteria? By what right? By what standard?

In the end, something like that would turn into "whoever has the most gold and the biggest guns makes the rules."

Man, if we wrote off every idea just because a madman once had a similar one...

I think the idea is simple. Hormone dispensers, implanted at birth. Pass a 'parenting exam', much like a drive test, to have a cost-free surgery to have your implant removed.

Of course, it wouldn't stop unlicensed birth - I'm sure there's some people stupid and crazy enough to cut the dispenser out themselves. But most people would be pretty content to have lifelong birth control for free. Teen pregnancy would -end-, overnight. Birthrates in general would drop precipitously. And all the children born would be born of people who passed a basic exam for suitability, ensuring a certain level of intellect and emotional maturity in their genes. That's eugenics - Just controlling the genes that get passed on. I'm not advocating the idea of Ubermensch - I just think we should quell the Untermensch.

Trygon said:

Man, if we wrote off every idea just because a madman once had a similar one...

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Eugenics is a sine qua non of Nazism. Enforcing racial "purity" at gunpoint is not a concept Hitler just happened upon.

I think the idea is simple. Hormone dispensers, implanted at birth. Pass a 'parenting exam', much like a drive test, to have a cost-free surgery to have your implant removed.

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The idea is simple, the implementation is anything but. What about parents who don't want their kids implanted? Right there, you'd need a state with powers comparable to Nazi Germany to enforce it. Not to mention that the effects of hormones on babies and toddlers are starkly different from their effects on adolescents and adults.

Then there's the parenting exam. Exactly what would be on that exam? Sorry, you can't just gloss that over. It loops right back to my original questions: who decides, by what criteria, by what standard?

Of course, it wouldn't stop unlicensed birth - I'm sure there's some people stupid and crazy enough to cut the dispenser out themselves.

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You call them "stupid and crazy," they would call themselves freedom fighters. One man's terrorist...

But most people would be pretty content to have lifelong birth control for free.

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Your opinion. Some people would also take up arms for the right to reproduce without State consent.

Teen pregnancy would -end-, overnight.

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Perhaps. I think teens--like the rest of the population--would find a way around it. Or simply revolt.

Birthrates in general would drop precipitously. And all the children born would be born of people who passed a basic exam for suitability, ensuring a certain level of intellect and emotional maturity in their genes.

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And there would be equality, and peace, and a global brotherhood of man, and the State would wither away...oh wait a minute, that's someone else's pipe dream. How well did that one work out, by the way? Utopias have never worked out worth a damn.

And genes don't have "intellect" or "emotional maturity." They're code, nothing more.

That's eugenics - Just controlling the genes that get passed on. I'm not advocating the idea of Ubermensch - I just think we should quell the Untermensch.

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"Uber" and "Unter" by what standard?

I want you to understand, even though you are BADLY in violation of Godwin's Law, I'm going to continue to engage you in discourse.

Nazi comparisons are a sure sign of a weak mind - Every horror has been conducted a thousand times, and nazis are a lowest-common-denominator grab basket. That's all BESIDES the fact that the Nazi concept of Ubermensch was to create a superior man - 'Create' being operative there. I don't seek to enforce my own ideals of perfection on nature, just to prevent the degradation of our 'code' through overbreeding of idiots.

I never said my suggestion was feasible - Just that it was a good one. Once I've established Ecotopia, I'll send you a border pass and you can come see my utopia for yourself, yes?

(That's my way of saying arguments about state power to make my vision a reality are useless to mention - I already know, and you're just flaunting your inability to make a better comparison then Nazis - Perhaps China, who already has legislation on the books re: family and children? My god, I'm better at arguing your side then you are.)

I'm really confused and kind of concerned that you equate my idea to 'racial purity', though. Do you just assume 'Are you in an interracial relationship?' would be on my parenting exam?

The rest of your post is mostly substance-less playing of devil's advocate. If I've failed to address any point that you'd like a response on, please bring it to my attention and I'll happily strike down that misconception too.

Alright, I feel I have to step in here regarding Nazism. Yes they were horrible......But they were by no means original. Genocide had been happening LONG before Hitler rose to power, and if I might say, good ol' Josef Stalin (just a few years prior and even during Hitler's regime) was just as bad and in some cases, even more unforgiving than Hitler ever was (and yet no one seems to mention him at all). Just by the numbers themselves prove this alone. But just for fun, I'll even prove my point with stats along with a few other cases:

Ottoman Armenian Genocide: Three-quarters of the Armenian population slaughtered (modern estimate of about 1.1-1.8 million)
Source

Hitler and the Holocaust: 11-17 million
Source 1
Source 2

Josef Stalin and the Purges: tens of millions (estimates range widely on this, from about 15 - 60 million people)
Source 1
Source 2

Mao Zedong's Communist Regime: 34-60 million people
Source

Rwandan Genocide: 80k-100k in about 100 days
Source

And just to clarify something, the Nazis didn't even come up with the Ubermensch concept. They stole it from Frederich Nietzsche (though you probably already knew this, Trygon; I'm just making sure that no one misunderstands where it came from) and mutilated it to fit their own agenda, who merely sought for man to elevate himself above petty restrictions, accept his successes/failures in their entirety and live his life to the fullest (putting it very simply, I know).

Sorry, ending rant; just gets me riled when people compare everything that seems dictator-like to the Nazis.

Back on point.....

No one's claiming by any stretch of the imagination that these plans are feasible. They're arguing the simple fact there are people who shouldn't be allowed to breed and that some form of control needs to be implemented. And yes, that will mean virtually dropping cinderblocks on a lot of toes, but at some point it does need to happen.

Whether we follow China's model with population control or implement a screening procedure for deciding who would be a better parent and who should be allowed to reproduce, that's something only time will tell, but EVENTUALLY the human race needs to step up and recognize this fact. And we don't even have to include an all-encompassing model to make it happen; rather, we can implement certain things to discourage those of weaker constitution and mentality from having a kid.

Trygon said:

I want you to understand, even though you are BADLY in violation of Godwin's Law, I'm going to continue to engage you in discourse.

Nazi comparisons are a sure sign of a weak mind - Every horror has been conducted a thousand times, and nazis are a lowest-common-denominator grab basket.

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Except that you support eugenics. Not just big government or elitism or some of the other conservative social positions that get the "Nazi!" label erroneously slapped on someone in a debate. State-enforced eugenics. That certainly does not make you a Nazi. However, you must admit that eugenics was a core concept of Nazism, that Nazism drew inspiration for many of the horrors it created from eugenics theories, and that it's not that long a step from sterilizing "undesirables" to eliminating them entirely. And Nazism and its outcomes are a valid example of eugenics in play. Yes, you can argue that Nazism (or a similar horror show) wouldn't be an outcome of your brand of eugenics, just like Marxists can argue that Stalinism wouldn't have been the outcome of their brand of Marxism. But it's a rather thin argument. It's one of those ideas that's gone sideways so many times on implementation that anyone proposing it does, to a limited extent at least, own its previous failures.

That's all BESIDES the fact that the Nazi concept of Ubermensch was to create a superior man - 'Create' being operative there. I don't seek to enforce my own ideals of perfection on nature, just to prevent the degradation of our 'code' through overbreeding of idiots.

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I see what you're saying...but it's a rather thin line there.

I already know, and you're just flaunting your inability to make a better comparison then Nazis - Perhaps China, who already has legislation on the books re: family and children? My god, I'm better at arguing your side then you are.)

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Apples and oranges. China's restriction is entirely quantitative. Whether you're an idiot or a genius over there, you're only allowed to have one child. What you're proposing is entirely qualitative: those who are deemed "worthy" by the Powers That Be can have as many children as they want. Those who are found unworthy can have none.

I'm really confused and kind of concerned that you equate my idea to 'racial purity', though. Do you just assume 'Are you in an interracial relationship?' would be on my parenting exam?

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You haven't yet come out with exactly what criteria you would use, even though I've repeatedly posed the question. So out with it, please. What standard do you propose using to decide who is fit to have children and who isn't.

If I've failed to address any point that you'd like a response on, please bring it to my attention and I'll happily strike down that misconception too.

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See above.

Razgriz said:

Alright, I feel I have to step in here regarding Nazism. Yes they were horrible......But they were by no means original. Genocide had been happening LONG before Hitler rose to power, and if I might say, good ol' Josef Stalin (just a few years prior and even during Hitler's regime) was just as bad and in some cases, even more unforgiving than Hitler ever was (and yet no one seems to mention him at all). Just by the numbers themselves prove this alone. But just for fun, I'll even prove my point with stats along with a few other cases:

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Point taken. But I never argued that Nazism was the sole source of mass killings. And two of the examples you provided (the Ottomans and Rwanda) also involved the killing of people based on their ethnicity. Genocide. Eugenics in action. The elimination of those deemed unfit to live because of their genetics. The implementation of eugenics there was crude rather than refined, granted, but it did occur.

Sorry, ending rant; just gets me riled when people compare everything that seems dictator-like to the Nazis.

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And let me reiterate: I'm not saying anyone in this thread is a Nazi, or even a Nazi sympathizer. I'm pointing out that Nazism was an outcome of state-enforced eugenics.

No one's claiming by any stretch of the imagination that these plans are feasible. They're arguing the simple fact there are people who shouldn't be allowed to breed and that some form of control needs to be implemented. And yes, that will mean virtually dropping cinderblocks on a lot of toes, but at some point it does need to happen.

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Which people? By what objective, empirical standard? This is the question I've posed that thus far no one on the affirmative side of this debate has answered.

Whether we follow China's model with population control or implement a screening procedure for deciding who would be a better parent and who should be allowed to reproduce, that's something only time will tell, but EVENTUALLY the human race needs to step up and recognize this fact. And we don't even have to include an all-encompassing model to make it happen; rather, we can implement certain things to discourage those of weaker constitution and mentality from having a kid.

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So is this about numerical population control, or eugenics? Because those are two very different ideas (as I said in my previous post).

I think there shouldn't be standards. I think it should be a series of tests. Make them like drivers liscenses. Once a kid hits puberty get them some type of birthcontrol, make it uniformly covered by the federal government or whomever is implementing this. We will go with them. And that's when they would be taught about sex, reproduction, childcare, etc. And every few years they would test them, until after an age that is deemed 'acceptable' (maybe 23? That sound decent for starting to have kids if you wanted to?) then have a final set of tests that take maybe 6 months to complete we'll say. They would then test them to see if they would be a fit parent. If they kept the child/pet/whatever alive, fed, warm, loved, etc, etc. and if they passed then they could have the birth control taken away if they so wished. Allowing them to reproduce if they'd like but giving them the choice.

How would that sound?

My standards would be simple.

IQ of at least 100 on both sides

Annual income of at least $50,000 per parent.

Parental relationship exceeding five years.

And a waiting period just long enough for the bureaucracy to turn.

I'm actually not interested in people's genes so much as I am in their demonstrated ability to care for themselves successfully.

And... This makes me a nazi. According to a reactionary girl who started throwing around the names of the worst people in history just because I used a word they used once.

Trygon said:

My standards would be simple.

IQ of at least 100 on both sides

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By which test?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ

Annual income of at least $50,000 per parent.

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Which excludes much of the population, for reasons they mostly have no control over. What about the spoiled brat of a trust-fund baby who shouldn't be in charge of a lemonade stand let alone another human being? Or the tireless, ethical hard worker who puts in 50-hour weeks but who just doesn't have an occupation that pays highly? What if I make $50,000 a year cooking meth or stripping? Am I a better parent than someone who makes $35,000 a year as a supervisor at a factory?

Parental relationship exceeding five years.

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So two people who get married should have to wait five years to have a baby? Why?

And a waiting period just long enough for the bureaucracy to turn.

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Yes, because what America really needs is another multibillion-dollar bureaucracy.

I'm actually not interested in people's genes so much as I am in their demonstrated ability to care for themselves successfully. And... This makes me a nazi. According to a reactionary girl who started throwing around the names of the worst people in history just because I used a word they used once.

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You're the one who stood up for the concept of eugenics. Eugenics means genetics. I'm not responsible if you used the wrong word in conjunction with your proposed system.

This thread is about population control, but most will agree statistically, those who are multiplying like rodents are more often than not the rodents of society. But this also isn't limited to people who have big families. Having a big family doesn't mean you're white trash or unable to provide. The Duggards are a good example... most may think they're religious nuts, but they DO take care of their kids. Although, my sister for instance, who has birthed 8 living humans and only has 2 in her care... she is most certainly a leech to society. Even a mother with one child can be a leech. It's all circumstantial.

First, I think we need more open and cheaper access to birth control and abortions. Suck up all religious and moral beliefs, it's like the theory of evolution, we're all entitled to our beliefs and there shouldn't be a law placed on it. If one don't want one, don't get one, but if someone else wants one, what's it to the other person?

Second, a minor should not have any rights to their unborn child UNLESS they are emancipated, independent, and financially stable. That means the second a medical professional is aware of the pregnancy, they should contact CPS. Custody can be offered to the grandparents, but if they cannot provide, the infant will be put up for adoption.

Anyone who has a case open with CPS should be forced to get a birth control shot (or whatever male equivalent there will be) so no child can be conceived while the parent is being investigated. Anyone who has child neglect or abuse on their record and/or a children permanently taken out of their care should receive forced sterilization. They should not be allowed to have another child until they have met the requirements to get their already existing children back into their care.

I think they should also consider making the procedures all around cheaper. If someone voluntarily wants to be sterilized, then they should have access--- especially if they're in financial need. Would the government rather give these people various benefits, using tax payer money to keep them afloat for years? Or likely spend less to help them avoid such troubles?

I am very passionate about this topic, obviously. My sister has been nothing but a menace to everyone in her life, and for almost 6 years she popped one out every year, and in the end her life ended up being too stressful for her and she turned towards drugs (despite the support she received). She could've gotten on birth control, but she didn't. She could've used condoms, but she didn't. She could've gotten her tubes tied, but she didn't. And in the end, the kids are the one's suffering.

It's little stuff like this that may help out with population. But I think the first world countries aren't necessarily the ones most guilty of population growth. But since this is our society we're talking about, we should do our part as well.