Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Policy Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (9637)	3/11/2010 1:53:00 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 15994

You continue to stray from the point. I'm directly replying to the statements you make. If my posts aren't on point, yours aren't either. In any case all of the comments are related to either the assumptions behind the justification for the idea, or their implications. If your going to seriously consider tradeable citizenship and/or charges for births, it pays to consider these things, not just how you are going to implement the plan. each additional birth does not tend to reduce wealth Even if it were true is would not lead to your assertion that additional births are a net positive to society. Your correct, it would only imply they where not a net minus, which is all that is needed for my overall point. Also one particular point or premise not proving or strongly supporting another point hardly implies the 2nd point isn't true. By recognising that citizenship is a privilege rather than a right More like by deciding it is. it might discourage the people who are negative net producers from inflicting more disruptive citizens on society. To a small extent that might be the case, but its not as if anyone plans to produce disruptive citizens. Bad parents typically overestimated their parenting abilities before they became parents, or just became parents carelessly. That later point about careless sex/pregnancy/becoming parents, might give us reason to think that imposing a cost on births would result in a larger percentage of bad parents, as careless people continue to have kids while more careful people are, at the margin, discouraged from doing so. Even if such a policy doesn't tilt the population towards being the kids of careless parents; unless it strongly increases the percentage of responsible parents (and I see no reason to think it would do so) it isn't a net positive. And that last point about it not being a net positive, is ignoring liberty in the calculation. Charges for births reduce liberty. Presumably to suckle from the teat of society one would have to be a citizen. That's possible, but in the real world, in this country, it may not be likely. Non-citizens can and do receive government benefits. In any case merely existing in a country does not amount to suckling from the teat of society.