Saturday, March 25, 2006

If you don't like Mergeright, Get F^KED

I love my Mum. She grew up in country NSW (Bourke), and made us kids her first priority. She has often said that all she ever wanted to be was a Mum – and she succeeded admirably at her primary goal. I hold her in high esteem, as in consequence, am disposed to similarly maternal women.

It has been hard finding the ‘right’ woman, as the women I meet are usually city types, who do not share the outback NSW values system that I’ve inherited. The good news for folks like me is that women like my mum will be in better supply in the future – the reason being that non-family oriented ones will, quite simply, die out.

This and that will be said about rebellion from family values, and other factors that will keep the women’s movement alive, but the facts are as compelling as the cliché’s. Meet an Australian family with 10 kids and you’ll meet a family that’s tired of jokes about their Catholicism – but that takes their Catholicism seriously. And their kids are Catholic’s too.

Or perhaps the family are Muslim; or evangelical protestant Christians; or perhaps they just love kids. All kinds will be found, but the stats suggest that they are more likely to be on the conservative side of politics. The high water mark for liberalism has passed – the simple reason is that the high priests of flower power did not ground their dynasty. They died, and those they vanquished ignored the slogans, reproduced, and left their kids to fill the empty posts.

The conservative movement in the US is evidence of this. According to Phillip Longman, fertility rates are 12% higher in the Bush states, than the Kerry states. Bush took 25 of the 26 states with the highest birth rates; Kerry took the 16 with the lowest birth rates. The Bush states are also the pro-gun, anti-abortion, evangelical protestant states. They oppose positive discrimination, UN membership, gay marriage, north-east intellectuals, and the rest of the democratic / liberal agenda.

If they reproduce republicans 12% faster than the liberal states reproduce democrats, the republican increase will be 300% of the democratic increase by the 2016 election – which suggests that the democrats will be pitching for the middle ground with someone to the right of George W Bush.

In policy terms, this means no abortion, no gay marriage, no to welfare, no to the UN, no to public education, and yes to unilateralism, the military, and the church. This isn’t necessarily the Mergeright consensus, but it is closer than the Democratic agenda.

This is the case the world over. Conservatives are having kids in the suburbs, while liberals are having latte’s in the inner city. Australia’s birth rate is 1.76 pre female – we’re only kept afloat by immigration. The bulk of the new kids are coming from large families produced by old fashioned, religious, folks. By sheer weight of numbers, they’ll become the majority.

The cultural clash between the West, and Islam, will also intensify – as western nations fight rear-guard actions aimed at preserving their nations from changing demography. Europe will die, and Islam will rise. The global top 3 reproducers are Islamic: Somalia (6.91 kids per woman), Niger (6.83), and Afghanistan (6.78). By comparison, old Europe is dying: Germany and Austria are 1.3, Russia and Italy are 1.2, and Spain is 1.1. In the past 30years Islam has grown from 15% to 20% of the world population – while the West has shrunk from 30% to 20%.

And these people like Liberal feminism a lot less than George Bush’s republicans – so you can forget about international law or treaties protecting liberal institutions.

The bottom line is, if you don’t like Mergeright, you’d better get busy having kids, because the conservative side has an army of kids who are about to transform the agenda.

12 comments:

Matt Canavan said...

I think that the youth swing to the right is definitely evident in the US but I'm not so sure that it is being replicated here. (Even over in the US youth conservatism is different from the older kind, they are more accepting of homosexuals and different races - good outcomes from the 60s that I think will stay with us.)

There is not as good data in Australia as in the US but there doesn't appear to be any general trend to conservatism. Indeed, recent analysis suggests that the electorate has moved to the left on many issues (Howard has just followed them).

Secondly, I don't believe there is a direct link between the conservatism parents and those of their kids. If any link probably an opposite link perhaps. Indeed, some analysis of the US trend suggests that it is a reaction to the established liberal elite.

And thirdly, I am always wary about extrapolating using fertility rates. This has unstuck many since Malthus. Remember 30 years ago demographers were the fifth horsemen, screaming about the perils of overpopulation largely coming from Africa. Then AIDS hit.

#12 TBONE said...

Don't be such a wet blanket.

I was o/s for the race riots and didn't see any real footage until a fortnight ago on an ABC Four Corners special. Whatever the ends were, tens of thousands main stream youths weren't exactly out there celebrating diversity or protesting against American unilateralism.

There is a strong conservative movement among the youth in this country. The economy is booming and as such kids today have lost the taste for revolution. They've figured out that with opportunities available, they can make something of themselves, and therefore, so can everyone else.

And while no, the relationship between a parents beliefs and their childrens, is not one for one. There will always be black sheep- but they're called black sheep for a reason no?

Matt Canavan said...

There were only 5000 people at the Cronulla riots and only a fraction of those were against diversity. (I'd say most were just fed up with a lack of police enforcement.) Meanwhile tens of thousands of young people (but still a small number relative to the total) have campaigned against Iraq and IR. Simply put protests aren't a good indication of community wide views. Also if your defining moment of the coming future conservatism is the Cronulla riots, then God help us.

What we really need is data on voting trends, however, I can't seem to get Australian Electoral Survey data on the net. But in the absence of better data, I'm wary about declaring a community (or youth) shift towards conservatism. We have 8 labor governments in this country and have basically had no reduction in the size of government for some time.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe you are having trouble meeting women Matt. If you are, how about putting up some hot pics of you guys on the site. Me and my girlfriends fantasise about hooking up with an economic liberal/social conservative piece of man candy.

Love

Alyeesha

xoxx

Matt Canavan said...

Here's a graph of Newspoll Coalition voting intentions since 1996. It's not the complete story but it hardly shows a youth shift to the Coalition. Indeed, all the age groups appear to move pretty much in step and all trend marginally down.

Matt Canavan said...

Alyeesha you gave me more hugs and kisses last time.

#12 TBONE said...

I had no idea of the figure- it was a guess.

My point was more, that the cronulla protest was a grass roots backlash by real youths. This is a group that we never hear from- and the fact that we did says something.

I'm unconviced by your chart (I know you said it was not the whole story). In the mean time, the ALP has become more conservative so your point of reference is moving.

Anonymous said...

A couple of comments:
First: - you said:
"If they reproduce republicans 12% faster than the liberal states reproduce democrats, the republican increase will be 300% of the democratic increase by the 2016 election... "

You should be careful with that statistic as you have to be 21 years to vote. So what it should say is that if Republicans were breeding 12% more between 1985 - 1995, then by 2016, holding voting patterns roughly constant, the Republican vote should increase by 300%. Note that having 12% more kids now wont translate into actual voters until 2027.

Second: - I am always bemused when people talk about population growth in the Islamic world, whilst ignoring that Christians make up a far bigger proportion of the world's population. More to the point that proportion is growing. People always tend to forget or discount that Central & South America is overwhelmingly Catholic and is growing rapidly, both in terms of population and prosperity.

If your message is that Europe's and the liberal's clout is weakening, then I would agree with that. But I wouldn't suggest for a second that countries (nor their official relgions) like Nigeria and Afganistan are going to run the show anytime soon.

Matt Johnson said...

True, i conceed the points to Mr Corkery. It was a school-boy error with the voting. A lot of things must be assumed to make this work - i just wanted to give a flavour for how much difference the divergence in fertility rate will make over time.

As for the other points, i think they amount to saying: net necessarily. Of course this is the case, we couldn't have got the 60's if the evolution of social views and values was linear.

We can, however, be reasonably confident that biograhpy and family matters. If conservative, and religious, are genetic: selection appears to favour these traits.

Anonymous said...

Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother's womb. Shortly thereafter he grew a beard.

Anonymous said...

You always were 2nd rate chucky boy!

Anonymous said...

I am convinced by Matthew Johnson's arguments; the question now is what to do about the problem. One possible solution would be to introduce a progressive reproduction tax. Another solution would simply be to have a minimum IQ standard for voting. Another would simply be to leave Dubya in power a while longer; the response when the Islamists get their hands on some nukes will totally obligerate any adverse affect that current reproductive trends might have on the society via the expansions in conservatism.