Partial Victory Against New York Curfew
But the details are less important than what we're beginning to see, that what I've predicted will be a long legal and political battle to get back to ordinary life is gaining traction, and it appears that it's having more success in rhw US than in many other parts of the world. That the New York skirmish should be over a curfew is, I think, significant. Commentators have been asking snce they became popular late last year why curfews do anything to prevent the spread of COVID, and they have a point.
Actually, I don't think COVID is the reason for these curfews. I've been saying all along that curfews amount to a de facto ban on fornication, and I'm not just being cute. I said last week that the agenda behind COVID restrictions is an inchoate, not fully articulated set of policy objectives stemming from radical environmentalism, radical feminism, old-fashined Stalinism, eugenics, and a great deal else, but the practical tendency of emergency COVID decress has been to create an environment more or less satisfactory to advocates of this agenda, and they'll fight to maintain the New Normal.
I asked last week if anyone's aware of a single manifesto for this agenda, and so far, I haven''t learned of any. But the pieces are out there. One part of the agenda is radical environmentalism, and that definitely includes not just population control, but population reduction. For example,
In all the talk of tackling environmental problems such as climate change, the issue of population growth often escapes attention. Politicians don’t like talking about it. By and large, neither do environmentalists – but former Greens leader Bob Brown has bucked that trend.
Brown recently declared the world’s population must start to decline before 2100, telling The Australian newspaper:
We are already using more than what the planet can supply and we use more than the living fabric of the planet in supply. That’s why we wake up every day to fewer fisheries, less forests, more extinctions and so on. The human herd at eight billion is the greatest herd of mammals ever on this planet and it is unsustainable to have that growing.
Research suggests our species has far exceeded its fair share of the planetary bounty, and Brown is right to call for the global population to peak. It is high time others joined the chorus – not only other environmentalists, but those concerned with international development and human rights.
But this will take baby steps. One important development has been not just to normalize, but to privilege transsexualism. While I can't imagine Dr Rachel Levine becoming Playmate of the Month anytime soon, clearly the idea in principle is to seed sterile females into the population to control the birth rate. Given the likelihood of success with that strategy, we can't rule out bans on fornication as a potentially more effective plan. Acording to the Brookings Institution,
When the public health crisis first took hold, some people playfully speculated that there would be a spike in births in nine months, as people were “stuck home” with their romantic partners. Such speculation is based on persistent myths about birth spikes occurring nine months after blizzards or major electricity blackouts. As it turns out, those stories tend not to hold up to statistical examination (Udry, 1970). But the COVID-19 crisis is amounting to much more than a temporary stay-at-home order. It is leading to tremendous economic loss, uncertainty, and insecurity. That is why birth rates will tumble.
It's not a bug, it's a feature. Baby steps.