If a one-child policy comes to America, what will it look like?

I've long believed that at some point in the  not-too-distant future, the population control movement will become a force in American politics. We haven't seen any serious policy proposals for this yet, but it seems likely that we will in the years to come.

That's led me to contemplate what coercive population control would look like in America. I doubt it would look like China's one-child policy of forced abortion and sterilization. "Softer" forms coercion are a little bit more palatable to the electorate. Here's how a vigorous population control campaign might look:

1. The campaign to implement population control will begin with a crisis.
   Remember when the Newtown shooting tragedy of last December was shamelessly used by gun confiscation advocates to promote gun control policy under the slogan, "If it saves even one life, it's worth it!"?
   
   
   Imagine a freak category five hurricane that tears through Miami before crossing the Gulf of Mexico and slamming into Houston. It isn't too hard to envision politicians tripping over each other to blame carbon emissions and calling for climate change policy that can "save even one life." A few years ago, Financial Post writer Diane Francis offered her prescription for offsetting carbon emissions: "A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate."
    
2.  The state will continue to try to erode the dignity and the integrity of the natural family.
   
   The Scottish government has been pushing a proposal to assign a state guardian in the interest of "preventing child abuse." Now as creepy as this is, what does it have to do with coercive population control?
   
   Establishing the notion that children belong to the state or to society erodes the truth that authority over children properly and naturally belongs to their parents. And if children belong to the state, it's the state that has the power to determine whether they come into existence. This mentality to raising children explains why some academics and policy analysts espouse the opinion that there is no right to have children, except under license of the state.
   
   
   
   "[W]e have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to their communities." --MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry


3. There will be heavy economic incentives to limit children.Families with children--particularly many children--benefit from the $1,000 per child tax credit. Rather than cutting wasteful government spending, we could inch closer to covering the deficit by ending the child tax credit for any children after two. For a family of six, that could mean a loss of $4,000--a significant hit.
   
   Taxes aren't the only way to discourage having children. Earlier, I cited concern for the environment as a pretext for population control. As policymakers deliberate the implementation of carbon credits that can be bought, sold or traded, the idea has been floated to offer financial incentives families that choose to have fewer children. It might also be possible to impose confiscatory taxes for each subsequent child after one or two. 


4.  Your insurance won't pay for more than two babies.Of course your Obamacare insurance plan will cover birth control, sterilization and abortion. All of these services supposedly benefit the state by reducing federal spending. But next year, when we're required by law to purchase government-dictated insurance plans that are already going to cost the government a fortune, there's going to be pressure for cost control.
   
   One way to save money is to limit the number of births covered by insurance plans--especially when a C-section can easily run $30,000. I could see the government agreeing to cover two births. After that, you're still technically allowed to have kids. But if you need a C-section or have any complications, you had better be prepared to declare bankruptcy.

Do all of these points sound absurd? Absolutely. But only a few short years ago, who'd have thought that the government would levy crippling fines to businesses that refuse to pay for their employees' birth control?

Note: This post was edited to reflect the first commenter below--who pointed out that the costs of Obamacare are not projected to double the original estimates over the first ten years of the law. For additional information, see my comment below.

Msgr. Pope: Some thoughts on the five stages of religious persecution.

It is rare that a respected segment of American life would become vilified and hated overnight. The usual transformation from respect to vilification goes in stages which grow in intensity. And hereby the Church, once a respected aspect of American life, along with the Protestant denominations has become increasingly marginalized and hated by many. It may help us to review these stages of persecution since it would seem that things are going to get more difficult for the Church in the years ahead. Generally there are distinguished five basic stages of persecution.

By way of giving due credit I want to say that these stages were recalled to me by Johnette Benkovic, of Women of Grace EWTN. She spoke at a recent fundraiser here in DC for WMET 1160 AM, Our Catholic Radio Station in the Guadalupe Radio Network. She gave a wonderful talk and a summons to courage. And among the things she set forth was a sober vision of how we have come to this current place where the culture is increasingly hostile to Christians and to Catholics particularly. The stages are from her talk, the commentary is my own.

Here then are the Five stages:

I. Stereotyping the targeted group -
II. Vilifying the targeted Group for alleged crimes or misconduct
III. Marginalizing the targeted group’s role in society
IV. Criminalizing the targeted group or its works – Can someone say HHS mandate?
V. Persecuting the targeted group outright

continue at Arch Washington

The donkey has bucked and killed its rider.

When the Catholic faith was outlawed

I wrote last year about how much I enjoyed the movie "Of Gods and Men". If you haven't rented it yet, do it!

On June 1, "For Greater Glory" will be released in theaters. I find the parallels between present-day U.S. and 1920 Mexico thought-provoking. (Ie... what would you do if it came to this in the US?) 

During the Cristero War, Catholics were hanged by the Mexican government along railroad tracks near Zapotlán el Grande (City Guzmán), in Jalisco. The media fallout from this photograph was so negative that President Calles later ordered the Secretary of War to hang people away from the train tracks in the future.

Doom and gloom is a common theme in my movie choices, apparently.

Movie review from Catholic World Report:

After decades of seeing their Church maligned in cinema, Catholic moviegoers have enjoyed a smattering of pro-Catholic movies in recent years. The latest of these, For Greater Glory starring Andy Garcia, will be released in the United States on June 1. The movie tells the story of the Cristero War in Mexico (1926-29), a peasant uprising against the stridently anti-Catholic policies of the Mexican government under President Plutarco Elias Calles. Garcia portrays General Enrique Gorostieta, a retired federal general hired by the Cristeros to be their leader.
“It’s a fascinating story, and one I previously didn’t know anything about,” Garcia said about the Cristero uprising.
The war erupted in 1926, after Calles implemented the “Law for Reforming the Penal Code” or “Calles’ Law,” which severely restricted the free practice of religion in Mexico. Among other regulations, the law levied a 500-peso fine (nearly $5,000 in the U.S. today) on priests or religious wearing clerical garb in public, and clerics who spoke out against the government could be jailed for five years.
The Mexican bishops suspended public religious services in response to the law, and supported an economic boycott against the government. Violence soon erupted, as bands of Catholic peasants battled federal forces. Priests were shot and hung, Church property seized, and many religious institutions closed. Ninety thousand would die over the next three years. The Cristeros’ battle cry was, “Viva Cristo Rey!” (“Long live Christ the King!”).

On persecution of Catholics: Pray for our Holy Mother the Church!

My guest-posting stint will be starting today, a little early. Matt will be on vaca for the next week. Here's hoping the Temple Police hit up a Brewer game or two!

I have been after Matt forever to watch "Of Gods and Men," recently released on DVD (or maybe he just didn't like it and doesn't have the heart to tell me...) I don't have the technical know-how to imbed the trailer for the movie in this post, but you can watch it on YouTube here.

Movie Synopsis:

Eight French Christian monks live in harmony with their Muslim brothers in a monastery perched in the mountains of North Africa in the 1990s. When a crew of foreign workers is massacred by an Islamic fundamentalist group, fear sweeps though the region. The army offers them protection, but the monks refuse. Should they leave? Despite the growing menace in their midst, they slowly realize that they have no choice but to stay... come what may. This film is loosely based on the life of the Cistercian monks of Tibhirine in Algeria, from 1993 until their kidnapping in 1996.

I came across this article from Catholic News Service today and it reminded me of that movie:

Franciscans in Tripoli holed up in home as battle rages

Church sources who could be contacted said some Catholic leaders remained holed up in Tripoli as the battle for control of the capital raged around them.

Late Aug. 22, three Franciscan friars were barricaded in their home in a Tripoli neighborhood, where there was heavy fighting, the source told Fides, news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

"No one dares to walk in the street because people are shot on sight, even if it is not clear who shoots whom. Of course, it is dangerous for civilians to leave the house," said the church source, who requested anonymity.

"Currently, the phone lines are cut and we cannot contact the friars," the source said, but the last thing the friars said was that they could not leave the house because of the shooting nearby.

In February, a Franciscan priest who has worked in Libya for seven years told Catholic News Service that Christians were afraid Islamic fundamentalists would take over the country if Gadhafi fell. He said that, under Gadhafi, Christians had been protected.

If you have an opportunity to rent "Of Gods and Men," do so. It will make you think about your faith, what you would do in the face of uncertain danger, and thank God for those who serve the Church in trying times such as these.

I recently had a fascinating conversation with a person who was in China in the mid-1990s for his job. Strongly Catholic, he would attend Mass at one of the "underground" Catholic Churches (as opposed to China's state-sponsored "catholicism"). He left China under duress after the Chinese police found out he was attending Mass at one of the underground churches. The police confiscated all his belongings and were waiting to arrest him at his apartment. Thanks be to God, his landlord warned him not to come back to his apartment. He took a night train from mainland China into Hong Kong, which was a British territory at that point (so it was considered a "safe" zone for U.S. citizens.) When the train pulled into the station, the Chinese police boarded the train to do a search and seizure, and he started running for the Hong Kong border. The British guard saw him running, saw the Chinese police running after him, pointed his gun at the Chinese and yelled, "Run, Yank!" He made it across the border in the nick of time. And judging from the Vatican's recent criticism (and excommunication) of Chinese bishops, not much has changed.