PRI Review
News from Washington, London, Beijing, Ankara, and Manila
June 30, 2016
First, the worst news: the Supreme Court has just struck down a Texas law that required that women seeking abortions should have access to the same medical care as women undergoing any other form of surgery. With this travesty, given the death of Justice Anthony Scalia, the stakes in the coming presidential election have never been higher.
The next president will fill from one to four seats on the Supreme Court, as well as hundreds of lower federal court positions. Hillary Clinton has made clear her choices, since she was in charge of judicial appointments during her husband’s presidency in the 1990s.
Supreme Court appointments during that presidency included Justice Breyer, who wrote the pro-abortion decision issued this week, as well as Justice Ginsburg, a thinly-veiled eugenicist who believes that poor people should have abortions, not babies.
That view reminds us of the attitude of population controllers abroad as well as those at home. With three or four more Justice Ginsburgs, every unborn child in America will be in danger – remember that Blessed Paul VI warned us that governments would attempt to control the family and childbirth if the contraceptive mentality were enthroned. It has happened in so-called modern countries like China, and there is nothing except the United States Constitution to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness here at home. Unfortunately, for the past hundred years, positivist judges have conferred upon themselves the right to decide what the Constitution is, ignoring its text and installing their own superior and progressive views in its place.
A note on Mr. Justice Breyer: in 1980, with the coming victory of Ronald Reagan becoming ever more likely, Ted Kennedy, Sen. of Massachusetts, made a deal with Strom Thurmond, also in the Judiciary Committee. There were no Supreme Court seats on the line, but some 30 to 40 Lower Court appointments were being held up, as is usual during an even-numbered year before presidential election.
Mr. Kennedy made a deal: let my staff director on the Judiciary Committee, one Stephen Breyer, get confirmed to the US Court of Appeals that includes Massachusetts, and we Democrats – who were in the majority of the time – will not complain.
That is how Stephen Breyer got to be a federal judge – through the usual manipulation of the Kennedy machine. Today, while Kennedy is gone, the left-wing legal machine grinds on.
That’s why, in approaching the coming presidential elections, we need to bear in mind and compare as well as contrast the kinds of justices the candidates will appoint. Mrs. Clinton will choose more Ginsbergs, while Donald Trump has publicly endorsed the appointment of justices in the mold of the late Antonin Scalia.
More history was made this week, when the British people decided to leave the European Union. Other member countries may follow.
There is a lesson here.
It has long been clear that the secular, aggressive, intolerant EU bureaucracy has been pushing a radical social agenda on its members, including abortion, same-sex ‘marriage’ and gender ideology.
Those who believe in Christian values should celebrate this “Declaration of Independence” by the British people.
But independence from what?
In the preamble of the European Union charter adopted in Nice in the year 2000, we read that Europe’s “spiritual and moral heritage” are fundamental to its character. Nonetheless, in devising a Constitution for the EU five years later, the bureaucrats in Strasbourg refused altogether to acknowledge the Christian roots of Europe. In fact, the President of the Czech Republic at the time told me that he viewed Athens, and not Rome, as the foundation of Europe. The Constitution was never adopted because several countries refused to ratify it in national referendums.
If anyone is independent, it is the secular socialist bureaucrats who run the European Union. These unelected apparatchicks are truly untouchable – which is why so many millions of Europeans applauded the vote of the United Kingdom to leave.
On the ground, European nations, with a few notable laudable exceptions, abandoned their Christian foundation long ago. We must recall that the two great men who first perceived the possibility of a united Europe after a disastrous Second World War were Konrad Adenauer of Germany and Robert Schumann of France. These men were sterling Catholics, not the fatuous secular socialists who are running Europe today.
Those working in huge bureaucracies, wrote James Burnham 75 years ago, are more loyal to their fellow bureaucrats than to their employers. They consider themselves experts, and are more interested in networking to assure their future careers than to serve the people who pay their salaries.
As Michael Novak put it many years ago, the average bureaucrat, on the day he assumes his first government position, considers his IQ to have risen some 15 to 20 points.
This is not idle speculation, but the fruit both of experience and, now, science.
The dismal performance of these bureaucracies, magnified by their arrogance, is as familiar to Americans as they are to Europeans. A recent study by the Government Accountability Office – a federal bureaucracy itself – reveals that 99% of federal employees rate each other as “fully successful” or even higher – superior, excellent, etc.
In their own opinion, less than one half of one percent of our government bureaucrats are either “minimally successful” or “unacceptable” in performing their assigned tasks.
Of course, this laughable assertion tells us that federal bureaucrats have a very high opinion of themselves – much higher than the opinion of them held by the people that they are supposed to serve – namely, us.
The mere mention the IRS, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Veterans Administration, or the Environmental Protection Agency Does not conjure up a sense of confidence and pride in the mind of the American taxpayer – quite the contrary.
Of course, if someone proves to be consistently incompetent, they can be fired, right?
Sorry, wrong: it is no secret that a federal employee is virtually impossible to fire. Too expensive, too labor-intensive, and ultimately to hopeless. After all, no manager is held responsible for his performance either. Bill Rickenbacker suggested 40 years ago that we just send them all home with full pay – they will be much happier, and so will we.
The same observations hold true in the European Union. Like the bureaucracy in Washington, the Strasbourg bureaucratic establishment is full of well-paid untouchables who are not accountable to anyone.
Why did jolly old England want out of the European Union? Well, the United Kingdom had precious little influence in the governing of the EU, and the only way that they could recover that lost influence was to reclaim those governing powers for themselves.
And like us Americans, the English are accustomed to governing themselves. After all, England is the oldest parliamentary democracy in the world. And the United States is founded on the principles of English law that have taken over 1000 years of history to mature.
When we come back, will take a look at similar developments right here at home. You’re listening to PRI review from Pop.org.
Segment Two
As the national and international bureaucracies in Europe and the United States have gained power, who has lost power? The answer is simple: us.
A generation ago, sociologist Robert Nisbet wrote of the “Quest for Community.” Communities began collapsing throughout the United States, as a bureaucratic superstate began to intrude like a virus into every traditional institution – schools, hospitals, neighborhoods, even – and perhaps especially – our churches.
Is that once observed that in 1913, the year of his birth, the only connection that the average American had with the federal government was the Post Office. My, how things have changed.
In a campaign that is in some ways quite similar to the successful Brexit effort in the United Kingdom, Donald Trump has
brought out of the shadows the mystic chords of memory of what makes America great: it is her people, and not her government – it is simple as that.
His success can be attributed to the fact that he praises those virtues that made America great, while the bipartisan establishment has done everything it can to erode them or even oppose them outright – always embellished by a little lip service, of course, for the masses.
In spite of the best efforts of entrenched establishment parasites to attack him, they have not managed to disarm Trump: he has opened the door to a conceptual restoration of what it is to be an American.
His vision of America is profoundly in contrast with the three propositions posed by the bipartisan establishment and its standard-bearer, Hillary Clinton.
First, the threat from the south: Americans do not want walls around every home, criminal gangs ruling every neighborhood and perverted political and business elites bleeding the economy and driving us all into a corral of poverty and dependence and perpetual war. They will not bow to a foul and destructive un-American corrupto cartel that has plundered our neighbors south of the border for over a century.
Second, Americans do not want Sharia law. That central ingredient of Islam sounds the death-knell of American liberty. It offers a future where mosques and imams determining the social, political, cultural, and, yes, religious character of our society.
Yet these two alternative Americas – the destructive corruption south of the border and the totalitarian instinct at the heart of Islamic terror – are all that we are offered by the establishment and its poster girl.
And these meager alternatives lead to the third proposition, which represents the constant goal of the Nomenklatura.
It represents a combination of two devices long condemned and Christian history: superbia vitae, the desire for fame and glory, and the libido dominandi, the desire for power that constitutes the driving force of what Augustine identifies as the City of Man, whose ruler is Satan.
In both Europe and the United States, the momentum of socialist gradualism is designed to erode – sometimes slowly, sometimes with breathtaking speed – the friendship, community, independence, and religious faith that bind countless American communities in a unique celebration of freedom and responsibility. They, and not intrusive hordes of insolent federal apparatchiks, have the right to govern themselves and their communities with values that the power-lusters have targeted for destruction.
When the average American sees these dangers, his immediate goal is similar to that of the average European: to protect our uniquely blessed country from these forces – the savage chaos south of our border, the burning hatred of the Islamic totalitarian, and the unprecedented corruption of the bipartisan political establishment.
These are the negatives. But we must also look at the positive values and realities that need protecting: communities throughout America that have been looted by economic internationalists; neighborhood schools that have been bureaucratized and tyrannized by oppressive government edicts and incompetent but powerful establishment unions; churches that are threatened with the loss of their religious liberty by preening lawyers gleefully peddling their pathetic perversions that are designed to destroy not only our families, not only our morality, but to destroy our souls.
The realities of American community are not government values, they are American values. Yes, their restoration requires first a strong domestic defense. But, once our country is protected, it will be Americans, and not the government, who will restore in peace and freedom their communities, their traditions, their institutions, their faith, and their families.
For the past quarter-century, a bipartisan claque of politicians has subverted the very notion of patriotism itself. Derived from the Latin patria , which refers to our Fatherland, patriotism means love of country, of our forbearers, of our national family. But a generation of political self-dealers has told us that patriotism actually means love of government – and that, if we are not with them, we are against them – even as they pretend to identify themselves with what is best about America, when in fact millions of people consider them to represent what is worst in our beloved country.
Regardless of politics, it is Americans, not government, who will make America great again. A government which allows people the freedom to restore our liberties and encourages us always to form a more perfect union is the antithesis of a political monstrosity that demands that only politicians can make us happy, so we had better behave.
Americans can make America great again, on their own terms and without tyrannical interference, whether from home or abroad. Government cannot.
Here is a curious story that indicates how powerful the massive establishment population control lobby really is. In spite of the lower birth rates among Americans, a reputable pollster tells us that that Americans now fear OVER- population.
Yes, last year produced the lowest U.S. fertility and birth rate on record, according to Rasmussen Reports, but Americans still are far more concerned about the population growing too fast.
A new national and online survey finds that 52% of American Adults think a population that is growing too fast is a bigger problem for the United States than one that is growing too slowly. Just 21% think a too-slow population growth is a bigger problem, but 27% are not sure.
These figures indicate how the Malthusian template that has dominated America’s public school curriculum for years still bears its imprint on the American subconscious, in spite of all the facts that are easily available.
Two forces have dominated the so-called “health” courses in government-funded grade and high schools for years. First is the combination of the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood, both of which have hammered public school districts nationwide and inserted end of the classroom and into the curriculum the anti-life message. Second is the success of the homosexual and feminist lobbies to piggyback on Planned Parenthood in the ACLU to get into schools, those schools’ curricula, and some 90% of our children’s minds – that 90% is an estimate of the portion of American children in public schools (the rest are in private and parochial schools; the Department of Education does not publish information on homeschoolers, and that’s just fine with a lot of homeschooling parents.)
In spite of this indoctrination that is worthy of the most onerous of reeducation camps during the Cultural Revolution in Communist China 50 years ago, Americans are becoming more pro-life all the time, as they look left and right and realize that, if they are under the age of 43, one third of the children of their generation have been aborted.
Which brings us back to Mrs. Justice Ginsburg: she has remarked on occasion that she doesn’t want too many of the “wrong kind” of people being born – she wants them aborted. As a former ACLU attorney, Mrs. Ginsberg represents the mentality that to this day is being forced on 90% of American schoolchildren.
And here’s a question for another day: what is being taught to our Catholic kids? Does anybody know?
When we come back, we’ll hear from Jonathan Abbamonte on the latest from the Philippines. You’re listening to PRI Review from www.pop.org. We’ll be right back.
Segment Three
Next comes this report from our own Jonathan Abbamonte on the proposal of the incoming Philippine president to establish a three child policy for the country.
Philippine president-elect Rodrigo Duterte caused a media firestorm recently after proposing a three-child policy to stem “overpopulation” in the Southeast Asian nation.
“I only want three children for every family,” Duterte said, “I’m a Christian, but I’m a realist so we have to do something with our overpopulation. I will defy the opinion or the belief of the Church.”
Only a few days before, Duterte had mocked the Catholic Church of being the “most hypocritical institution” and called Philippine bishops the “sons of whores.” During the election cycle, the president-elect had even called Pope Francis a “son of a whore.” After initially promising to apologize to the Holy Father for his comments, Duterte has since refused to.
Confirming his status as the hyperactive bad boy of Philippine politics, Duterte has also bragged in public about having had multiple adulterous affairs.
He is famous—or rather, infamous—not just for his foul-mouthed public statements and personal peccadillos, but also for his rough politics. As the long-time mayor of the city of Davao, Duterte established a reputation as being not just tough on crime, but death to criminals.
Since being declared the winner of the presidential election, Duterte has repeated his call for the police to execute suspected criminals. During his campaign, he promised that he will eliminate crime in the Philippines within three to six months. He has publicly vowed that tens of thousands of criminals will die. His call for extra-judicial killings has already been echoed by the incoming mayor of Cebu, who is offering a bounty of 50,000 pesos for every criminal killed.
Joining this never-ending litany of controversies is a new one: Duterte recently endorsed the assassination of allegedly corrupt journalists who “deserved it.” He claimed that journalists are not “exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a [expletive].”
He has also drawn the ire of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak for reigniting a land dispute over territory on the island of Borneo claimed by the Philippines. On the other hand, he has indicated that he might be willing to concede Philippine claims in the South China Sea to his country’s giant northern neighbor.
Duterte framed his election campaign as a referendum on the Catholic Church. After securing a landslide victory over his closest rival by winning 40% of the popular vote in a multi-candidate race, Duterte taunted the bishops saying “Look, were you able to stop me?”
A number of issues important to the Duterte campaign, such as expansive reinstatement of the death penalty, loosening laws on divorce, extra-judicial killings, and vastly increasing the provision of contraceptives, are in direct opposition to the teachings of the Catholic Church. An overwhelming majority of Filipinos (80 percent) are Roman Catholic, but, like their fellow Catholics in the United States,
they apparently do not constitute a solid voting bloc.
Here is a curious irony : Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the increasingly powerful President of Turkey, recently called for all Turks to have at least three children. Meanwhile, Duterte calls on Philippine families to have no more than three. What does this tell us about Filipinos and Turks? We all know that the Philippines is a Catholic and family-friendly country. Throughout the United States, Filipino immigrants are among the most active members of Catholic parishes. In cities throughout the country, they sponsor cultural and charitable activities that are truly amazing. They truly reflect the virtues both of assimilation and maintaining the best of their traditional national identity.
Mr. Abbamonte reports that, while Duterte has backpedaled on his demand for a three-child policy, he continues to vigorously promote contraception. He has vowed to strictly implement the controversial Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012. This imposes sex education in the schools and requires health clinics to distribute contraceptives. Even before the 2012 Reproductive Health (RH) law, Duterte, during his tenure as mayor, implemented policies that made Davao one of the first cities in the Philippines to distribute contraceptives free of charge.
Ernesto Pernia, Duterte’s nominee for secretary for economic planning, has confirmed that Duterte is pushing for a “rapid and sustained implementation” of the RH law. And Duterte’s party believes that a robust implementation of the RH law is necessary to deal with “overpopulation” in the Philippines.
But is the Philippines in fact as “overpopulated” as Duterte claims?
It is true that, over the past several decades, the population of the Philippines has grown tremendously. For the past half century, this growth has far outpaced the rate of world population increase. The Philippines is currently home to over 102 million people from a variety of different backgrounds and cultures.
More than a third of Filipinos live in poverty, including millions of rural farmers and fishermen. Urban areas are surrounded by slums with inadequate housing and poor sanitation.
At the same time, the Philippines have experienced what other formerly impoverished countries have. Techniques from the Green Revolution such as chemical-based fertilizers, pesticides, and mechanized agricultural technologies have allowed crop yields in the Philippines to skyrocket over the course of the last fifty years.
Like so many other places in the world, poverty in the Philippines is not due to a lack of essential resources like food and land.
The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that daily calories per capita in the Philippines has been increasing steadily since at least the early 1990’s. The percentage of people who are undernourished has also declined by more than 40% over that same period. The amount of food available per capita is enough for every Filipino to live an active lifestyle by American standards. [i]
The amount of food produced in 2013 would have been sufficient to feed the entire projected population of the Philippines for the year 2060. [ii] As is the case in many countries, hunger in the Philippines is the result of lack of access, not “overpopulation.”
While the Philippines does continue to import wheat, soy, milk, and dairy products from the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, it is self-sufficient in rice. As in other East Asian countries, this is the main staple crop that in the P.I. provides about 46% of daily caloric intake. Domestic production of food is up, and imports are down, reaching their lowest level since 1994.
What this means is that the Philippines suffers much less of an agricultural deficit than other East Asian nations like Japan. Wealthy, densely populated Japan, of course, is not considered to be “overpopulated.” It suffers from the opposite problem: rapid aging and demographic decline.
Total agricultural self-sufficiency is not necessary in the modern globalized economy. Specialization both increases productivity and drives down prices for consumers. In exchange for agricultural products and other commodities, the Philippines exports billions of dollars worth of integrated circuits, computers, electronics, and nickel every year.
The Philippines is not lacking in living space either. In 2015, there were nearly 1,000 square meters of agricultural land per person in the Philippines. Compare that to less than 400 square meters per capita in Japan. Subtracting the 9.3 million hectares used for agricultural activity, there are over 20,000 square feet of land per capita in the Philippines, plenty to cover everything from housing, roads, markets, and public spaces to unaltered wilderness.
Fertility rates in the Philippines are already falling, and are set to drop below replacement levels by 2050. Reflecting this, the population growth rate has decreased from 3.5 percent a year down to 1.5 percent, and continue falling. As a result of improved standards of living, better healthcare, and greater food security, infant mortality has declined by nearly two-thirds since 1980. Unemployment is also at its lowest levels since 1990. If the Philippines was outstripping its resources, such gains in human development would not have been possible.
President Duterte is wrong. The Philippines does not suffer from overpopulation. Like many other countries emerging from poverty throughout the world, it does suffer from corruption and from excessive government intervention in the economy. If the people were granted the right to own property free and clear, and to appeal to the rule of law in conducting their affairs, that corruption would be severely limited in the prosperity of this very productive people would be guaranteed.
Enforcement of Duterte’s proposed three-child policy, or even the vigorous imposition of rigorous Reproductive Health programs, will lead to tragic human rights abuses. Population control programs always rob people of their privacy, their freedom, and their rights. Ultimately and intentionally, they rob the in unborn of their very lives.
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Notes:
[i] The number of calories for persons over the age of 5 as recommended for daily consumption for leading an “active lifestyle” as defined by the USDA. Children under the age of 5 generally allowed more calories per diem than USDA standards to account for extra energy that may be required to recover from fighting frequent infections in the context of developing nations.
[ii] Food supply is adequate even after accounting for food not allocated for human consumption and food loss due to processing, packaging, storage, transportation, consumer waste, and other factors. Includes allowances also made for increased caloric consumption required for women who are pregnant.
