When advocating the glorious aspects of long life spans to people, one of the objections I am often first offered is the ‘over population’ problem. But despite the doom and gloom rhetoric the modern fear based media and special interest groups promulgate, there is little to worry about. I’ll cite an excerpt from one of Michael Chricton’s excellent speeches

In 1960, Paul Ehrlich said, "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergoe famines-hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." Ten years later, he predicted four billion people would die during the 1980s, including 65 million Americans. The mass starvation that was predicted never occurred, and it now seems it isn't ever going to happen. Nor is the population explosion going to reach the numbers predicted even ten years ago. In 1990, climate modelers anticipated a world population of 11 billion by 2100. Today, some people think the correct number will be 7 billion and falling. But nobody knows for sure

http://www.matus1976.com/blog/2004_feb.htm

The cause of these incredibly wrong and dire predictions comes primarily from the tendency of people to draw linear projections out indefinitely of short term trends and of the population doomists to perpetually ignore *why* populations grew so rapidly since the mid 1800’s. Instead they just pointed out that they had, and that they would continue to. However, the populations in post-industrialized western societies continue to drop. When immigration is taken out of the equation the population growth of most post-industrialized nations is negative. The tremendous booms are occurring in previously impoverished societies that are now industrializing, like India, China, etc. But they will go through the same trend that the west went through. Children in those countries are a source of income now, a manner of helping to ensure your own survival. But in the west, children are costly burdens, and the wealthier and more industrialized a nation becomes the fewer children are born, unfortunately. Indeed, once the entire world industrializes the population growth of the world will likely go into the negatives. Hopefully longer life spans will neutralize this trend, and humanity will start to spread out among the starts.

Defusing the “Population Bomb” -
http://www.cato.org/dailys/10-15-99.html

Population Reference Bureau
http://www.prb.org/
http://www.prb.org/Content/NavigationMenu/PRB/Educators/Human_Population/Population_Growth/Population_Growth.htm

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“The people that hug trees are the same ones that complain there isn’t enough housing.”

From – The Open Space Mentality
http://www.solohq.com/Articles/Mouhibian/The_Open-Space_Mentality.shtml

Indeed…

The people who chant ‘sustainability’ are the same ones who impose zoning restrictions on building height and mandate X number of acres per dwelling. The people that scream about the population bomb are the same ones opposing globalization, the only humane manner to slow population growth. Instead of letting more people live longer healthier lives, they would have the worlds poor die from malaria, malnutrition, dysentery, better off dead than to burden the earth any farther! The same people who profess reproductive rights are strangely silent on China’s 1 child policy, where millions of abortions are brutally enforced as a government mandate to curb population growth. The same people who cry the ends never justify the means are completely silent…

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Emphasizing the need for an insurance policy for humanity and intelligent life, and the threat posed by pure accident or stupidity, a 50 year old killer flu was sent to thousands of labs.

Scientists Scramble to Destroy Flu Strain
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20050413%2F0431560760.htm&related=off&floc=NW_1-T

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From a www.solohq.com discussion

Well, the question is the why there are insurgents now and not when Saddam (who was also secular and not best friend with Islamists) ruled the country?

There were plenty of insurgents while Saddam was in power. Saddam did his best to capture and torture and kill them, and their families, to keep them at bay. It is much easier to maintain civility when you enforce it with the methods that murderous tyrants use.

Aaron has it right. The 100,000 number first appeared in an article in the British medical journal, Lancet

Right, and the authors were on record as being against the war and they also designed the survey questions and chose the locations the surveys were to take place. This is not how science is done, that it was published in a scientific journal is absurd. They also made no distinction between those killed by the US and those killed by insurgents. The worst part was that they extrapolated the number of killed from 44 families to the entire country of 20 million people to arrive at that 100,000 number. Even that grossly exaggerated number is still less than the number of people Saddam would have killed had he remained in power. (5,000 - 10,000 per month)

- Michael

www.Matus1976.com
Philosophy, Science, Politics, 3D Animation, Motorcycles

3D Animation - http://www.matus1976.com/3d/3d_index.htm
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Politics - http://www.matus1976.com/politics/index_politics.htm

April 30th, 2005 marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, and the start of the brutal oppression of the 100 million people who have lived and are living in Vietnam. Even as an atheist and a libertarian I never the less applaud US President George W. Bush and his administration for demonstrating their resolve in the just cause of supporting freedom and liberal democracy in the world. I wish that the people of the United States had the same resolve 30 years ago. But 30 Years ago the people of America turned their backs on a just cause, confused and disheartened by sensationalized violence, bias reporting, and good intentions gone horribly awry. They cried for peace and for a stop to the killing. They thought we were the enemy to the people of Vietnam, and they thought that when we left, peace would come, and the killing would stop. But they were wrong, and the killing grew far worse. Tens of thousands would die in land reforms and murder quotas handed down by the leaders of the Vietnamese communists. Over a million people would flee the communist oppression and take to the sea, hoping for a better life somewhere else. Hundreds of thousands died at sea, some by pirates; some by the failure of make shift rafts, and some by foreign navies who prevented the refugees from landing, against UN agreements. The future the realists had so ominously predicted came to pass, and the domino theory proved true enough. After the dictatorial communists were finished imparting their brutal oppression on the people of South Vietnam, and with western opposition willingly derailed, they moved onto Laos, inflicting brutal revenge upon the valiant mountain people. They then moved their guns, bombs, and chains onto Cambodia and subsequently armed and brought to power the perpetrators of the worse genocide the world has ever seen. A democide the world had cried "never again" about and completely ignored, ignored again in Rwanda, and is ignoring again today in the Sudan.
The North Vietnamese communist governments and its proxies killed 7.5 million people since 1975. In the four year period starting at the fall of Saigon, more people were killed in Indochina then Americans have been killed in all their wars combined. The western world is the freest, the richest and the most militarily powerful, yet most of it stands idly by while murderous regimes like that of Saddam Hussein, Kim John Il, and the communist party of Vietnam rack up bodies by the millions, while the west's populations justify their own inaction by appealing to moral relativism; a questionable philosophy steeped high in body counts. On April 30th of this year, thousands of people will be marching in Washington, they will be marching in honor of the millions of Indochinese people, to bring attention to the sad fate that befell them, and to remind us of what could have been. April 30th marks an astounding opportunity for the Bush administration and the American people to deal another blow against the tyranny of the world and start down the path of making amends to one of the greatest transgressions of the United States of its entire existence. That transgression was the wanton abandonment of the people of Indochina to murderous and brutally oppressive communism. Even today, the 80 million people of Vietnam live under one of the worst regimes on the planet, a regime which actively suppresses democracy and political dissent with swift and brutal violence. I implore everyone to grant these forgotten heroes and victims an audience, and to speak out against the continual inaction of the west in the face of these murderous regimes, and show some support for these forgotten victims. We can bring international attention to the plight of the people of Indochina, to the murderous hypocrisy of the peace activists and anti-war protestors, who since 1975 have been as silent as the 7.5 million murdered by the Vietnamese Communist government and it's proxy regime's, and to the consequences in lives of running from just causes when the going is rough at a time when that lesson is more important than ever. 57,000 Americans lost their lives defending the people of South Vietnam, and many thousands more were injured. But history has proven their cause just. How many more would have been killed continuing to defend the South? Likely none, since South Vietnam stood on its own for two years with no help, a modicum of material support would have likely been enough for them to defend against aggression, just like South Korea has for nearly 50 years. But we will never know, and 7.5 million people died because we did not continue to help defend the South. Every politician who supported the war, labeled as 'hawks' by the 'peace activists' warned of the dreadful blood bath that would ensue if we abandoned Indochina to the communists and sadly they proved to be correct. If there is a lesson to be learned from the Vietnam War that is applicable today, it is to not abandon a people in their darkest hour.

Visit www.april30.org for more information.

The figures I cite for death tolls are moderate estimates and based on the investigations done by Rudolph J Rummel, a retired political science professor from the University of Hawaii who has authored 24 books and was a runner up for a Nobel Peace prize. Mr. Rummel's book "Power Kills" is one of the most cited books in history. There is probably no man alive who knows more about how and why governments kill people, and their death tolls, than Mr. Rummel. Be sure to visit his web page at http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/ Among tremendous information on Vietnam, R.J Rummel's site: Power Kills says…

"Perhaps of all countries, democide in Vietnam and by Vietnamese is most difficult to unravel and assess. It is mixed in with six wars spanning 43 years (the Indochina War, Vietnam War, Cambodian War, subsequent guerrilla war in Cambodia, guerrilla war in Laos, and Sino-Vietnamese War), one of them involving the United States; a near twenty-one year formal division of the country into two sovereign North and South parts; the full communization of the North; occupation of neighboring countries by both North and South; defeat, absorption, and communization of the South; and the massive flight by sea of Vietnamese. As best as I can determine, through all this close to 3,800,000 Vietnamese lost their lives from political violence, or near one out of every ten men, women, and children.1 Of these, about 1,250,000, or near a third of those killed, were murdered."
And that 3,800,000 figure of course does not include the 3,000,000 in Cambodia.

Killed in Vietnam:
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB6.1B.GIF
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB6.1A.GIF

Between 1975 and 1987 the Vietnamese Communist government killed 2.5 million people (these are moderate estimates). The last US soldier had left Vietnam in March 1973. The war was over in April 1975. 500,000 people died at sea (10 times the number of American soldiers killed) The Vietnamese Communist government killed ANOTHER 1.5 million people in Cambodia and Laos in the same time period. That's 4.5 million dead, killed by Vietnam Communist government since 1975. The Khmere Rouge, a government put into power by Vietnamese Communist government and armed and supplied by them, would kill another 3 million people That's 7.5 million people since we left Vietnam. Not surprisingly this is not a statistic you hear very often.

Where were the peace activist when Hanoi rolled through Saigon? Where were they when it crushed Laos? Where were they when it brought the Khmere Rouge to power? Where were they when 500,000 vietnamese people died at sea? They were as silent as the 7.5 million people murdered by the government they helped bring to power.

- Michael

[Nobody in particular] wrote:

"He's not citing it so that we may not be excited about the Iraq election, but to just be cautious and let us know there is a very long road ahead. If we can look back at past events we can hopefully know what to do next so as not to fail."

The lesson to be learned it to not abandon a people or a country in their darkest hour. That 80% of South Vietnamese people voted in that election and that they lasted for two years with NO US help against the Soviet Union backed North communists, and that 1.5 million fled in rafts after the fall of Saigon makes it clear and unequivocal that the people of south Vietnam wanted to be their own country, and would have been a successful country.

"Millions died during the Vietnam war. Why do you never mention that?"

And millions died during world war II, and millions died during the Korean War, does that make the war wrong? If we had not have fought them, millions still would have died. If we had kept fighting, millions fewer would have died. By citing the number of dead you are obviously presenting that as a utilitarian consideration either for or against war. If we can expect war to result in fewer dead, than we should undertake it, If we expect it to result in more dead, then we should not. Obviously, at least to you, the 'number dead', is not the only consideration, so lets not pretend it is. It is of great concern to me, and clearly fewer would have died if we continued to support the south.

From Rummel's site.

"Perhaps of all countries, democide in Vietnam and by Vietnamese is most difficult to unravel and assess. It is mixed in with six wars spanning 43 years (the Indochina War, Vietnam War, Cambodian War, subsequent guerrilla war in Cambodia, guerrilla war in Laos, and Sino-Vietnamese War), one of them involving the United States; a near twenty-one year formal division of the country into two sovereign North and South parts; the full communization of the North; occupation of neighboring countries by both North and South; defeat, absorption, and communization of the South; and the massive flight by sea of Vietnamese. As best as I can determine, through all this close to 3,800,000 Vietnamese lost their lives from political violence, or near one out of every ten men, women, and children.1 Of these, about 1,250,000, or near a third of those killed, were murdered."

That 3,800,000 figure does not include the 3,000,000 in Cambodia.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB6.1B.GIF

Between 1975 and 1987 the Vietnamese Communist government killed 2.5 million people (moderate estimates). The US was nowhere near Vietnam since March 1973. The war was over in April 1975. 500,000 people died at sea (10 times the number of American soldiers killed) The Vietnamese Communist government killed ANOTHER 1.5 million people in Cambodia and Laos in the same time period. That’s 4.5 million dead, killed by Vietnam Communist government since 1975. The Khmere Rouge, a government put into power by Vietnamese Communist government and armed and supplied by them, would kill another 3 million people That’s 7.5 million people since we left Vietnam. Not surprisingly this is not a statistic you hear very often.

How many people were killed during the US involvement in Vietnam? Rummel estimates 1.75 million war dead. How many more would have been killed continuing to defend the South? 1,000 ? 10,000 ? 1 million? We will never know, but 7.5 million people died because we did not continue to defend the South.

"By what right does our government have to tax it's citizens and send our military to fight for foreign nationals of a non-democracy in a region that posed no threat to American security? In Greece it's close proximity to Western Europe and NATO allies made sense to support their effort against the minority communist party trying to take over Greece. "

You are being contradictory. As if the communist party in Vietnam wasn’t a minority. As if it wasn’t close proximity to Japan, China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Tawain, etc. As if we didn’t sign a treaty agreeing to protect South Vietnam. As if 30 nations of the UN hadn’t recognize South Vietnam as a sovereign state. As if South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, and the Phillipines were not also allies during that war. As if 80% of South Vietnamese didn't turn out to elect their leader. As if 1 million didn’t flee South before the war ended. Johnny's foreign policy is clear, never fight wars in other nations unless it was against the Greek communists in the 1950's. Either we go and fight communist insurgency in other nations during the cold war or we do not.

"Allowing Greece to fall to communism would have been disastrous to our national security by giving the Soviet's a warm water port and strategic bases to launch attacks against NATO."

Oh that's ridiculous. Unlike Indochina, which has no warm water ports, right? The people of Greece, by every standard of your attitude on foreign policy should be rotting in a communist hell whole just like the people of Vietnam are. You have perpetually asserted that the vast majority of the conflicts of the cold war were wrong, and that the Soviet Union would have collapsed on its own anyway, and its not right to use tax payer dollars to fight wars in other nations that are not critical to our self defense. Oh, but low and behold, Greece circa 1950 was absolutely critical to our national defense!!

"Sorry but Indochina war made no sense other than the general theory that all communist aggressions in any country ought to be stopped by the U.S. So ask yourself, by what right does our government have to ask its citizens to give up their wealth and blood for the only benefit of helping a charitable cause?"

You'll have to go a lot farther than the to prove there was no strategic interest in Vietnam, except of course by stalling communist aggression, which in this statement you simultaneously cite as a legitimate reason but then casually disregard by asserting it to have been a charitable cause. Was Vietnam a charitable cause or was it a legitimate act in stalling the spread of communism? Additionally, you'll have to go a lot farther proving that Greece was strategically in our best interest and Vietnam was not (and why Greece wasn’t in our best interest in 1975) and whether Korea was. I seem to remember you asserting that we had no right to interfere in the growing democracy in Greece. Say it was in our best interest to instill a puppet regime in Greece in 1975, all of the sudden your criteria for foreign policy leaves you with a dilemma. The well being of other peoples rights are irrelevant when it comes to our self defense, so you assert, and it is not our responsibility to assure they have those rights, or any rights, anyway. Yet we cant sacrifice tax payer's dollars taken by coercion for charitable causes. Fostering a democracy in Greece is charitable, setting up a puppet dictatorship was much more in our self interest, and is easier and costs fewer tax payer dollars, and especially given the strategically critical nature of Greece as you present above, we would be morally demanded to setup a puppet dictatorship in Greece. Last I heard, you thought Kissinger was a war criminal, you should be lauding him for his actions as Greece as a true self interested American libertarian!

Michael