Demography, Destiny, and Dumbasses
by Jonathan Reisman
One of my favorite courses was demography, the study of human populations. Demographers draw on statistics and a broad swath of both the natural and social sciences, including economics, sociology, geography, political science, biology, psychology, and medicine. Demography starts with a deceptively simple mathematical identity: Change in Population= Births-Deaths+ Net Migration. Therein lie some of the most sensitive and freedom consequential policy areas: fertility, mortality, and immigration/emigration.
Fertility. Policy areas and social factors that affect fertility include contraception, abortion, marriage, education, age, and gender, just for starters.
When I first taught Demography in the 1980s, China had implemented a one-child policy to slow their birth rate and encourage economic development. One of the consequences was an increase in abortions, including for gender preference reasons. As a result, a whole generation of now adult Chinese males were first/only children. A generation of men without siblings (and the lessons, both hard and heartwarming, of sharing) and a shortage of women is not a prescription for peaceful coexistence.
The one-child policy was rescinded to a two-child policy in 2016 and most recently to a three-child policy, as China struggles with an aging population and historically low birth rates (sound familiar?). I used to tell my students that fertility policies were a threat to freedom, regardless of whether they sought to boost or decrease fertility.
It looks like the Democrats and Kamala Harris hope and plan to make abortion as big an issue as possible, accusing Trump of planning a nationwide mid- and late-term abortion ban as proposed in Project 2025, a vision from a prominent group of right-of-center think tankers. The fact that the Dobbs decision reversing Roe v. Wade specifically returned abortion policy to the States and that Donald Trump has endorsed that return to federalism because it allows for diversity in America cannot be allowed to get in the way of good old fashioned demagoguery, fertility fascism, or the effort to make abortion a sacrament. It is not hard to understand why Kamala would rather talk about abortion than the border.
Mortality. Policy areas and social factors that affect mortality include health care, euthanasia, nutrition, public health and safety, energy, age, and gender, just for starters. I would probably throw climate change in there as well, just so as not to be labelled a Dumbass Denier. After all, if carbon dioxide can cause bad weather, it surely could and should be listed as a cause of death. Maybe we could list our China and open southern border policies as the reason for fentanyl overdose deaths.
It turns out that in 1976 Blue Oyster Cult was on to Demography and Destiny with Don’t Fear the Reaper:
All our times have come
Here, but now they're gone
Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain
(We can be like they are)
Come on, baby
(Don't fear the reaper)
Immigration/Emigration. If delving into fertility and mortality policy was not sufficiently stimulating, a trip through immigration/emigration history, policy, and political impacts should solve the problem. At least in this context, aliens refers to humans as opposed to extraterrestrials, so we can at least discount, if not completely ignore, Project Bluebook. UFO can be (greatly) reset from unidentified flying object to unnecessary fentanyl obituary.
I have yet to hear a convincing explanation as to why so many people, many of them oppressed minorities, seem so anxious to immigrate to a systemically racist cesspool of inequality and privileged white deplorables. I probably need to take an indoctrination Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion course. I understand there are some excellent examples at the Secret Service, the Pentagon, the FBI, the Blaine House, the Maine Department of Education, and just possibly at a friendly non-profit near you.
