Lee Kuan Yew Quotes

In Burundi, family land is divided among the male children of a family. The average Burundian woman has 6.3 children, nearly triple the international fertility rate. With this fertility rate, the plots of land for each person inevitably get smaller and smaller over time. At 10,745 square miles, Burundi is slightly smaller than the U.S. state of Maryland, but it holds nearly twice as many people: about 10 million. The small plots of land are inefficient to farm and provide subsistence. So the nation was in a crises as there was little industrialization and land was essential for existence for most Burundians. See {35808} and {35809}.

His data was from the last three decades of the 20th century. The larger a country’s population gets, the more economic growth it takes to improve or even maintain the standard of living. If this and land and other resources are in short supply relative to the population, there is more dissatisfaction and the probability of civil conflict increases. See {621892} for a similar view.

Critics of Roberson observe that he had made much of his $100 million personal fortune evangelizing against abortion and communism, and yet he was willing to tolerate the Chinese government controlling procreation and using abortion as one of the methods. Then it was revealed that Robertson had large investments in China. If the Chinese had not reduced their birth rate, the huge increase in the Chinese standard of living that has been achieved would have been much less. Robertson did think that the abortion policy would hurt the Chinese but he was advising a foreign policy of non-interference.

The reference to early bed time is to Daylight Savings Time which is controversial in Colorado.

This was the first issue of the publication. Population shortages vexed governments as much as population surpluses.

Both the United States and Canada had laws regulating the sexual behavior of citizens in the privacy of their own homes. It was not just homosexuality that the state attempted to control. Even the specific positions and methods of heterosexual intercourse were controlled by some states. Oral sex, certain positions of intercourse and other “details” could put a person in jail. Canada, a parliamentary nation, changed this by legislation. In the United States, it was the Supreme Court decisions protecting privacy that invalidated these old sexual role restrictions and prescriptions. For example, just 4 years before this quotation was made, 1963, the state of Connecticut was ordered (Griswald v. Connecticut) to release a pharmacist for the “crime” of filling a doctor’s prescription for condoms for a married couple where the wife would likely die if she became pregnant and carried the baby to term.

One of the most contentious activities in all political history is a government trying to regulate the number of children which its citizens can have. When a government tries to do this, they run into opposition by some religious people who oppose birth control in general or some birth control methods (eg abortion). In addition it is opposed by many people who do not want the government involved at all in a decision that is so personal. Yet many governments, under the press of perceived overpopulation, or in an effort to limit mental retardation, have attempted such regulation and that includes the United States where 40 states have at one time or another practiced forced sterilization of people who the state believed were unfit to bear children. China and India—the largest nations of the world—have both maintained government policies and practices to control population with China making it illegal to have more than 1 child. These programs have reduced the population counts, but at a terrible ethical cost and resentment of the affected people.

3rd Earl Russell of Kingston

Many people contest his 40 million number as being exaggerated. Even if true, opponents argue that they would be no more likely to take jobs that most Americans do not want at current wages or whose education does not make them qualified for the high tech jobs that are available. They argue that with 40 million additional American we would not replace many immigrants but would greatly increase the unemployment rate. Later, DeLay was convicted and sentenced to jail for money laundering and illegally spending and raising campaign funds. He was also reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee for unethical methods of fund raising for other earlier actions.

At the time most people did not realize that the ability of a nation or land area to support a population was dependent more on agricultural and industrial productivity than on population size. In the most affluent and developed countries, land outside of the cities is quite affordable and available, whereas in poor, underdeveloped nations, land distribution and reform is still a factor. The majority of citizens of many developed, affluent nations do not own any land.