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A license to have children [W:81]

A license to have children?

  • Yes

    Votes: 22 20.6%

  • No

    Votes: 79 73.8%

  • Undecided

    Votes: 6 5.6%
  • Total voters
    107
I hate when this issue is raised, but what the hell...
Not no, but hell no, no way, no how.

So many valid reasons to object, but the #1 reason is: How would you enforce it? Ban people from having sex without a permit? Phfft, good luck with that.

What happens when... and many will... have a kid without a permit? Do we take the kid(s) away? Who pays for that? Prison time? Really? Talk about a draconian society. Sorry, no. While there most certainly are parents who shouldn't be, the mere suggestion is counter to everything that our society is supposed to stand for.

FTR: I don't think government should be in the hunting and fishing license business, either. Driving only to establish competency, then the license is your's to lose.


Gipper said:
Yup, I'd require it. Income and intelligence would be 2 immediate factors I'd use as criteria.
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Whose intelligence? Yours? Some government bureaucrats? Would partisan politics and political correctness be the only allowable answers?


Neomalthusian said:
Some people are serious about it and trying to do something about it. Exhibit A: Sterilize for Cash: Paying Drug Addicts to Not Have Kids - TIME
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I'm ok with paying people for voluntary sterilization. Would cause a serious uproar, of course, as many do-gooders would claim coersion and taking advantage of the poor and less fortunate, but I disagree with those points-of-view.


Gipper said:
They can die in the street, for all I care. I'm sick of being robbed, and I'm tired of subsidizing stupidity.
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That's really what it comes down to, isn't it? Example #1,023,693 that the most ardent libertarians are only jaw-jackin' when they prattle on about freedom and the individual. When push comes to shove they'll throw anybody and everybody else under the bus if anything... especially money... is asked and/or required of them.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
Yep, it's an unfortunate turn of events that being a parent, like just providing the basics, is no longer a requirement.
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This is precisely my point. Standards have become non existent. So the question is: should there be standards? And if so, how would those standards be enforced? The problem is, anyone can spread their legs since that is the only requirement for pregnancy, and if one cannot provide for their children, survival and even luxuries are provided.

Personally, I voted no on the poll because I do not believe in government interference, but not because I oppose the idea in principle. However, I do think that mandatory sterilization should be required for people receiving welfare. If they want the check, it needs to be a requirement.

Also, people with certain genetic diseases shouldn't breed. Huntington's, cystic fibrosis- absolutely not. Those people are selfish for even considering it. Why condemn a child to that life?
 

I read that article. THe man had 9 children with 6 different woman.
The families collecting benefits have an average of 1.9 children.
So it seems to me offering BC to welfare moms seems to working for the most part.
Maybe is time to Find a type of long acting BC option that is implanted and removable by a doctor that we offer fathers of the children who recieve benefits.
 

Sounds like someone thinks freedom = security.

I have no use for you.
 
We would actually do better to re-introduce the stigma of shame.

It wasn't all that long ago that an unwed pregnant teenager essentially hid in shame and downplayed the whole thing. This shame, IMO, kept many other girls of the same age group thinking about the ramifications and led them to think ahead and make better choices.

Today, unwed pregnancy and inability to support the coming child(ren) is literally celebrated.

That's where we as a society fell off the boat.
 
Gipper said:
Sounds like someone thinks freedom = security.

I have no use for you.
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Sounds like someone read the words, but completely missed the meaning. Narrow-minded selfishness will do that to people. Carry on.

ETA: It is ironic that, out of all the varying points I addressed in my post, the only one that meant enough to you to elicit a response was the one calling you out regarding the monetary motivation. The bell must have been louder than I thought. :lol:
 
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ThePlayDrive said:
Okay, so if my plan is just "rainbows", what research/studies do you have to demonstrate the effectiveness of your plan?
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Gipper, I'm still waiting for a response. You responded to every single post I made to you until I asked to for the research that demonstrates the effectiveness of your plan.

I'm disappointed.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Gipper, I'm still waiting for a response. You responded to every single post I made to you until I asked to for the research that demonstrates the effectiveness of your plan.

I'm disappointed.
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You have the luxury of knowing that society won't allow for a "real plan" because of liberal bullcrap.

The real answer would hurt feelings, and thus we'll never see it implemented - regardless if it works or not.

We're a nation of bitchy liberal ******s.
 
Paschendale said:
The net result of that kind of policy ends up punishing the children, rather than discouraging the parents.
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I don't like to see anyone suffer needlessly, kids or adults, but I'm tired of the "...think of the children" mantra. A set of standards needs to be established somewhere, and adhered to, and by "not punishing the children" you are actually encouraging the parents... which only serves to create MORE kids in crappy circumstances.
 

Who, in this great world of gov't provided welfare, is allowed to "set standards" for when welfare it is granted? I personally detest the idea that Medicaid/PPACA are given to all "poor" folks with children but not to ANY non-disabled, non-elderly, single poor folks. When we have social policy that requires producing children to get gov't rewards, it should not shock anyone that they are produced. The poor may be lazy and uneducated but they are not so stupid as to turn down a hand out and many have learned just how to play the welfare system.
 
The incentives to have kids are many.
 
Alyssa said:
foodstamps, wic, free healthcare, free housing, and EIC to name a few.
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LOL

I've never heard anyone say "I'll have a KID to get a HOUSE"

:rofl

Having kids is the #1 reason to not be able to secure these things for most people . . . duh - if someone wanted **** like that they'd instead just not have kids and be able to support just their self and never be tied to supporting another human for the next 18 years.
 
Alyssa said:
foodstamps, wic, free healthcare, free housing, and EIC to name a few.
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Yup, good point. We need to discourage procreation from a financial standpoint.

This way, the poor can't reap the benefits, and more affluent people will think that having a child offsets any negatives involved.
 
What about the child tax credit on the IRS forms?
Are the middleclass Families having more than 1 child so they can take take avantage of the tax credit?
The average family ( on welfare or not on welfare ) has 1.9 childen.
 

18 years....at the very least. My younger sister is 36 and my folks are still bailing her ass out financially....shame on them for doing so, but still.
 

that's what is happening whether or not you want to face that fact. If people were required to freakin provide for themselve, they'd breed much less. Or maybe they wouldn't, but the problem would eventually take care of itself.

Gipper said:
Yup, good point. We need to discourage procreation from a financial standpoint.

This way, the poor can't reap the benefits, and more affluent people will think that having a child offsets any negatives involved.
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Children equal poverty. They are costly, time consuming, and a burden worse than terminal illness. I can think of few things more likely to pin a person down to a life of mediocrity than having children. And yet people keep having them. My hypothesis is that people would have less children if there were incentives like not receiving public funding for instance. And if people do have children anyhow, when they go to receive aid for them, sterilization should be a requirement.
 

100% agree...and now you can stand with me and fend off the arrows shot your way from the bleeding hearts who think that stupidity and irresponsibility being subsidized by taxpayers should continue as planned.
 
Everyone's always focusing on the kid's parents and not the kids when they talk about these things.

I don't care what hte parents have done - I don't feel it's moral to allow kids to suffer without food and clothing for their parent's poor decisions... the only thing I Might agree on is the housing thing but that's actually not extremely common. Most of the time the gov provides financial assistance for housing and other basics.
 

Yes, there is definitely a pre-crime element to this and that is what I'm objecting to. We have a history of abusing the reproductive rights of people deemed unfit to have children. It's destructive to our rights to go down this road. Who can we trust with that power?

I can't begin to contemplate who I would think I have the right to deem unfit for parenthood, before the fact.
 
Exactly the opposite is happening. The reason these programs keep getting expanded is precisely because there is so much emphasis on the kids, and virtually none regarding the parents.
 
radcen said:
Exactly the opposite is happening. The reason these programs keep getting expanded is precisely because there is so much emphasis on the kids, and virtually none regarding the parents.
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I don't care - I'm much more concerned about the welfare of the children than I am about the parents . . . I don't forget that's the only reason why we have any of these programs.

We could restructure the programs and such - I support altering how my state does things, for example - but it won't take away from general belief that we need them. We're not a 3rd world country and i refuse to suggest we should let kids live as if we are.

Studies have proven that if children are adequately cared for they'll turn out better off - right? Better educated means more likely to support their selves - and so far it's proving to be very true.

And also take into consideration that a lot of people were doing fine - until the recession hit - and we're still climbing out of that hole . . . you want to 'punish' people for carelessly having children when in reality the majority of people now needing help are seeking it out for reasons outside of their decisions in life . . . you want to shut them out, too?

Hoovervilles all over again - my my how little have some learned from history?
 

I'm sickened too. I can't believe that in light of demonstrable evidence of abuse of such power in our own history, it's being openly contemplated here that we have a right to force sterilization on our fellow citizens.

For me, it's the hubris that anyone could believe that power couldn't be turned on them, or theirs.
 

When I taught school for 33 years, I would do this exercise from time to time. I would place a line on the board as a continuum and on one end place the words COMPLETE GOVERNMENT REGULATION and on the other end NO GOVERNMENT REGULATION. Then we would take things like you just mentioned - driving a car, truck, cutting hair, hunting, selling real estate, practicing medicine, teaching, practicing law and others and place them on the line somewhere in between the two depending on how strictly they were regulated or licensed. Then the last thing we would place on the line was creating a human being.

It always got kids to think.

The point of the exercise was NOT to advocate for the government to license having children. It was to get people to think about how damn little one needs to be prepared to have children and the consequences that then flow from that reality.

I wish you luck in this thread and on this topic.
 
Is it true? If so, then why are we "needing" to keep expanding the programs? Shouldn't people doing better mean fewer and/or smaller programs necessary? (This is an ever-increasing issue, and is not really tied to economic trends of a given moment in time,btw)

Some programs, such as school lunches, are being expanded to the point that even some of the most ardent supporters admit they're 'helping' kids and families that honestly don't need help, but they're being expanded so all kids are as 'equal' as can be.

I'm not in support of eliminating these programs entirely, but I do believe that have expanded way beyond their legitimate need.
 
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