181–190 of 455 posts
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Democracy is typically a thing that is grown at home, not a thing that is "given".
It should be that way. But some cannot understand that some countries do not want Democracy. Its not that they don't matured - they just don't want it. Even in some European countries we can see the move to shift much more power to presidents (Hungary, Slovakia, Poland).
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The policy itself isn't cruel or brutal, but the enforcement can be terrible. Brutal and cruel acts include: * Killing of child immediately after birth * Killing of child whilst being born, e.g. in birth canal during birth * Termination of pregnancy as late as 8.5 months * Forced abortions (incorporating kidnapping and assault) All of these things have happened routinely as part of enforcement of the "one child" poli…
Just to make it clear, these types of enforcement are not norms. The law never suggested such enforcement. The law is that you get a financial fine if you have more than one child, that's it. It's actually against the law to force any kind of abortion. That being said, in some rural area, some officials maybe so greedy to make achievement for their "career" that they "enforce" this policy by breaking the law. Some of…
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> "If so, I totally support the idea of licensing human breeding." That sort of licensing is ripe for abuse. What would happen if someone in power took that license away from you just because they didn't agree with your political views?
Not just political views. Most people would agree that mentally ill people should not have children. But what constitutes mentally ill? The line is fuzzy - perhaps someone is just a bit "quirky", but still could be a good parent? In order to have a license the criteria would have to be crystal clear and added to the Constitution (sorry, US-centric). And even if in the Constitution, someone could abuse it (see: NSA, s…
Huh? They would? Are you sure about that?
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Hans Rosling has a documentary about it, check it out via Google, it's on youtube of vimeo or something. It's not so much that overpopulation isn't an issue, of course it is (that's why it's called 'over' population), but rather that the trend line is that population growth is very rapidly slowing, that people tend to overestimate population growth, are unaware of big population centres that are shrinking, that the a…
I think the issue is much more what will happen to the world's numbers before the population numbers decline (IF indeed EVERY ethnic groups starts reducing numbers. God help us all if there is one that doesn't) Numbers of fanatically religious people will double, relatively speaking. Mostly Catholics and Muslims. This is under the assumption that the current rates of conversions remain roughly the same. Trouble is, p…
Protestants are the minority and they're viewed as the "fanatically religious people", people would say they're always talking about their religion, they don't party a lot, they don't drink alcohol and usually they have a lot of children, Mexico is a Catholic country and the average family has 2.2 children, but protestant minorities usually have more than 4-5 children.
I've noticed Americans apply some stereotypes to Catholics that would fit pretty well to the stereotypes protestants have in Mexico.
Maybe there's a correlation between minorities and the attachment to their ideas (not only religious ideas) and that could be interpreted by the majority as "radical" or "fanatic" positions.
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The policy itself isn't cruel or brutal, but the enforcement can be terrible. Brutal and cruel acts include: * Killing of child immediately after birth * Killing of child whilst being born, e.g. in birth canal during birth * Termination of pregnancy as late as 8.5 months * Forced abortions (incorporating kidnapping and assault) All of these things have happened routinely as part of enforcement of the "one child" poli…
i've lived in China for a few years, and no one's ever seemed to care much about the one child policy. i just asked some people, and they said it depends on where you grew up, but that it hasn't ever really been a big deal for at least their lifetimes (~30 years). you have to understand that laws here usually range from completely unenforced to strong discouragement with possible financial implications. it wouldn't s…
"A Christian Manifesto" by Francis A. Schaeffer gives a reason why. Our creator inspires freedom and love. When we follow him we seek to spread freedom to not only ourselves but to others as well. A population willingly adopting the new testament Biblical principles will spread freedom willingly. The humanist world view on the other hand has no moral absolutes and must enforce the popular or elected rules onto the ma…
I think you need to specify which principles exactly one wants to adopt in a society. All the european states were devoutly christian for 2000 years and I would not call e.g. 15th century Spain the epitome of human rights and freedom.
"America has been slowly transitioning from a Bible believing nation to a humanist world view. The result is predictable, the loss of individual freedom and the increase in the use of force to preserve the lack of these freedoms."
At what point in time would you say america was more respectful of individual rights? It's not long ago it practiced genocidal policies towards the indigenous people of the continent - nor is it that long while ago it abolished slavery. If you go much back the colonies will not have been even established.
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No matter the history, using communist as a synonym for totalitarian is lazy.
Communist governments, in order to function, pretty much have to be totalitarian - unless you can think of another way to have a one party system with complete control over the economy.
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Not just political views. Most people would agree that mentally ill people should not have children. But what constitutes mentally ill? The line is fuzzy - perhaps someone is just a bit "quirky", but still could be a good parent? In order to have a license the criteria would have to be crystal clear and added to the Constitution (sorry, US-centric). And even if in the Constitution, someone could abuse it (see: NSA, s…
> Most people would agree that mentally ill people should not have children. It is vastly oversimplifying, and prejudicial, to say something like that. Many more people than you seem to think have experienced, or will experience mental illness in their life. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-men...
> Most people would agree that mentally ill people should not have children.
Turns out the definition of mental illness covers far more than the most extreme/visible cases so it will be unclear where to draw the line since "mental illness" is too broad a set
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China managed to succeed in increasing people wealth and loosening laws (still bad for Western standards, but huge step comparing to China 30 years ago). Only because West thinks this is "brutal and cruel" dosent mean our laws would ever worked there. Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it and most of the dictators were much better alternative (still bad, just better…
>Same with China - imagine them exploding with an extra 1 Billion people over next 20 years. Who will feed them? What would be social implications of such a move? Well for one thing, you'd have a billion more potential farmers... Population growth is a pretty old problem, and if recent developed nations' demographic reports show, it solves itself once you reach a certain level of development. China's success is not n…
Please enlight us then; Knowing that in china government is present in EVERY aspect of a life (religion, state, education, internet) I cannot see how their success is not because of the policies of the government. Any place that has an exploding growth is in deep shit just look at the whole africa. better off countries with exploding growth, turkey or maghreb countries are also in deep shit with big parts of the population immigrating to europe to survive this.
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China managed to succeed in increasing people wealth and loosening laws (still bad for Western standards, but huge step comparing to China 30 years ago). Only because West thinks this is "brutal and cruel" dosent mean our laws would ever worked there. Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it and most of the dictators were much better alternative (still bad, just better…
Yes, forced abortions and drownings of infants are sometimes necessary in some cultures. We shouldn't judge.
Not saying the law is just, but the parents did it to themselves.