William F. Buckley Jr. Quotes
There is only one question to ask a presidential candidate that makes any sense. It is: What do you propose to do about the rate of illegitimate births?
William F. Buckley Jr., Political Columnist and Author, Conservative party candidate for New York Governor, Interview, PBS Firing Line, December 16, 1989, Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist, 1993
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This proposal totally violates the freedom of many women who may be poor. Yet they may be orthodox Roman Catholics and birth control would be an anathema to them. Women’s freedom to control their own bodies requires that they have the right be decide whether to use birth control or not. This abuse of women’s freedom however is not unexpected from KKK members whose program advocates the denial of religious freedom and any rights to Blacks.
The logic is that communities and areas—even countries have finite resources. Since we have a welfare society in which we will not allow people to starve, society must provide for children whose parents cannot. Therefore, individuals ought not to be allowed to breed beyond their ability to care for the children for if many would do so, the capacity of the community could be overwhelmed. A middle ground is that while the final decision should be left to the individual family, the society ought to educate and persuade members to limit their breeding.
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.
At the time, the Mormons allowed and practiced polygamy.
William Frank Buckley Jr. was an American public intellectual and conservative author and commentator. In 1955, Buckley founded National Review, a magazine that stimulated the conservative movement in the late-20th century United States. Buckley hosted 1,429 episodes of the public affairs television show Firing Line (1966–1999), the longest-running public affairs show in American television history with a single host, where he became known for his distinctive Mid-Atlantic idiolect and wide vocabulary.
