He had NINE kids???

[Photographer]

Dear God, WTF?

Past two or three it gets difficult to understand, but at nine, it starts to enter the competition realm. This was a sicker MFer than I realized.

[valerief]

1. Fucker was in Duggar territory. nt

[kairos12]

2. He was on the mini-Duggar track.

[potone]

3. He was a devout and old-fashioned Roman Catholic.

Be fruitful and multiply.

[pinboy3niner]

4. And 28 grandkids. nt

[Gregorian]

5. I understand, but everyone is different. I was furious Santorum had six. But hey, we're humans.

because when I start doing that, I harbor resentment against Dick Gregory and his ten; Robert F Kennedy who I think had more than ten? I have none. I can't imagine making breakfast for 8 people, let alone anything else. I love solitude invaded by noise of my own choice.

I've ranted and raved on this forum for years, and earth will let us know if we're doing the right thing or not. I'm supposed to be outside on a walk!!

[ffr]

30. Earth will alright

From today. What makes this interesting news is that scientific organizations that study fresh water supplies having been saying the humans will run into shortages by 2045. I take that to mean it's going to get really bad by 2030. Looks like Earth is knocking on our door with something to tell us.

More than half the world suffers from 'severe' water scarcity, scientists say


-nola.com

[LeftyMom]

48. Ethel Kennedy had at least six of them by caesarean, which would be medically inadvisable NOW.

Building a big Catholic family takes a disregard for the health of the mother.

[Avalux]

6. Italian, Catholic. Enough said. n/t

[meow2u3]

7. Two words: Opus Dei

From 2013:
http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18379-pope-francis-has-anton-opus-dei-scalia-s-undies-in-a-bunch

[LiberalElite]

12. Just about the same as

Irish Catholic in this regard. (I'm Irish American raised RC.)

[Avalux]

15. Yep. Plus Scalia was Opus Dei.

They're hardcore, absolutely no birth control allowed.

[LiberalElite]

16. Yep. More Catholic than the Pope -

especially the current one.

[meow2u3]

37. Plus, a wife wasn't allowed to say no to her husband

Opus Dei is a cult that denies what it's really doing--even to the Pope!

[Warpy]

33. Exactly, I had an uncle who was a true believer

and he produced ten kids until his poor wife talked her doctor into a hysterectomy, over the objections of the parish priest.

The fertility rate then dropped like a rock in the next generation.

[NobodyHere]

8. Why is having 9 kids sick?

[Photographer]

9. Let us just say it is unusual and...

well, if you don't know...

[Marengo]

45. Unusual is synonymous with sick?

You have yet to adequately explain why you used the work "sick".

[Kittycat]

53. It wasn't unusual for his age and religion.

Absolutely NOT a fan of him, and I can't imagine life with more than the two I have, but I won't knock a 79 year old for having 9. It was far more common back then.

My grandparents weren't particularly religious at all when I was young, and they birthed 6, 5 survived (one passed at age 4) and they adopted one more at age 13. It's just the way it was back then. its not like today where we're just settling down around our 30's.

[Gregorian]

39. I'll swap you consciousness please.

I dearly wish I didn't know the answer to that. It has plagued me for 45 years. If you don't know, you don't want to know. Be grateful.

The answer: because it is the very kernel of all ecological problems we face. Not the corporations, but multiplicity of users. Your eyes see it, but your brain doesn't want to accept the truth.

[MH1]

42. Yes. It isn't what each person does, but that there's so dang many of us.

For the most part.

Whether or not I recycle a particular item,or drive a Prius vs a Hummer, has a vanishingly minuscule effect on the problem, directly speaking.

Of course, that I choose to recycle, drive a Prius and take public transportation can encourage others to do the same, so there is a ripple effect that is positive and makes it better than not doing it. (Slows the bleeding slightly.) But until we get the population to a sustainable number, individual actions won't do the job.

(I'm not in favor of rapid drastic depopulation. I just think that decision will be taken out of humanity's hands at some point, and I don't want to be around then, I don't think. I would much rather humanity took voluntary steps to avoid it.)

[Gregorian]

44. It IS what each person does, times billions.

Of course what I do individually, as one, does not make any measurable difference. However, billions of single actions do add up, and that's exactly what we see. One car drives out of a garage, yet millions of cars all do the same. That's millions of cars; not just single individuals now, but seas of them.

There is no other way of solving the situation other than individually. Each person having fewer children than required for growth.

There is no magic answer which will allow billions of people to do what they want, and still fix the mess population has caused. It will only happen when each person decides to change.

Multiplicity is a bottom up situation which can only be solved through bottom up responsibility.

[MH1]

56. Yes, but I think your answer is overly optimistic.

Your answer seems to assume that there is some lifestyle that we could all live, whereby the sum of our impacts would be sustainable, even at the current population or around 9 billion, where we will be soon.

I do not believe that is true.

I can't point to any mathematical calculation that proves it, but I know a bunch of people feel the carrying capacity of the earth is much less than 7 billion.

Also, if that magical lifestyle exists, it would take a whole lot of mindset changes among people who can afford to do whatever the hell they please. I don't see that happening.

I do agree that those of us who "get it" should do what we can, for reasons like you're saying, BUT I feel very strongly that that alone will not be sufficient.

The other thing is the "quiverfull" paradox. They people who don't get it are spawning more, so guess what.

Sigh.

(Or, shorter version: MH1 is even more depressingly pessimistic than Gregorian.)

[Gregorian]

58. Absolutely. I completely agree.

Oh, you can't be more cynical then me. I've been in a state of disbelief since 1972. It was an epiphany which I would have rather not had.

I was thinking about carrying capacity after posting my reply. My thought was, "Well if everyone were to be living within nature's equilibrium, there would be a lot less than 7 billion". There would probably be much less than a billion. I've spent most of a lifetime focused on this, sadly. I've owned farms. I have walked my properties wondering just how many people could be supported. We have such a limited amount of fresh water. And in a natural environment, it doesn't take much to mess it up. One person upstream.

What we've done is supercharge our species. By the use of petroleum, mostly, we have pushed the natural equilibrium away from where it normally resides. There is no way a billion people could live on this planet. I don't remember how many native Americans were here, but I've heard a few hundred million. And they were living on Turtle Island, which is all of the Americas and northern lands.

Like a friend says, I'm a sentinel. A few of us are. I've had to be strapped down to watch. It has been like pulling teeth, all while most people are blissfully unaware of it. So now I just watch, like a sentinel.

The good thing is, on this forum I have found several kindred spirits. Life does throw difficult things at us. The longer I live the more I feel that we all try to understand each other. I see no other alternative in terms of actually accomplishing big solutions. From a life of rage, to one of understanding. That's at least what I'm trying to do.

I've had some correspondence with Paul Ehrlich over the years, and it does help to see how much he is still distraught by this. We are not alone in our concern, even if it does seem to be a topic without voices. It's to primal to condemn. Life gives us dilemmas.

[LeftyMom]

49. It shows a disregard for the health of his wife, and by extension his children.

Even for the healthiest of women pregnancy is tough on the body. Most medical bodies suggest that women space their pregnancies by 2-3 years to allow them to fully recover before conceiving again, reducing that spacing increases the risk to both mother and child in subsequent pregnancies.

And of course a career like his wasn't exactly conducive to being an equal partner in child-rearing, even if he wasn't the sort of Neanderthal he was, so it's a safe assumption his poor wife had to manage NINE children without any significant help on his part, while being nearly continually pregnant.

[Odin2005]

10. He was Opus Dei, litterally more Catholic than the Pope.

[Renew Deal]

11. There's plenty of more substantive things to criticize him about.

[LiberalElite]

13. Please let us have our fun for a while...nt

[Photographer]

14. Many more things.

But this is just one of many.

[elleng]

28. Yes, THANK you!

I MET him once, years ago, late '70's, he and I and another took a cab from O'Hare airport to downtown Chicago and we chatted, he asked for my resume, never heard from him after that. He was human, like it or not.

[Music Man]

17. He had nine kids so there wouldn't be any tie votes.

[phylny]

19. OMG you win. You win every prize imaginable tonight! :) n/t

[hifiguy]

21. DUzy! and welcome to DU.

[JonLeibowitz]

27. Not THAT is a great way to start out at DU! What a DUzy. Welcome welcome welcome. n/t

[neverforget]

35. Ok. that is funny!

[Arugula Latte]

18. Can we satart a GoFundMe drive to get all offspring & progeny spayed and neutered?

[meow2u3]

38. Which vet clinic will we use?

[cyberswede]

20. My parents had 8 kids.

They weren't sick MFers.

[Marengo]

47. I wouldn't take this too seriously...

This one, the OP, seems to like to "hit all the rights notes", if you know what I mean.

[Nye Bevan]

22. How many kids exactly does it take to get to "sick motherfucker" territory? (nt)

[olddots]

23. no wonder he was such a turd maggot

[TeddyR]

26. What number of kids

Doesn't make you a turd maggot?

[Waldorf]

24. And, whats the deal about that? A lot of older people had large families. When I was growing up

there were a couple neighbors down the street. They each had 8 kids (one had 5 boys and 3 girls, the other the opposite). I have three brothers, I guess I'm in the difficult to understand category.

[alp227]

25. From the Washington Post...

“We didn’t set out to have nine children,” Justice Scalia told Lesley Stahl on the CBS show “60 Minutes.” “We’re just old-fashioned Catholics, playing what used to be known as ‘Vatican Roulette.’?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-justice-antonin-scalia-dies-at-79/2016/02/13/effe8184-a62f-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html

[DJ13]

29. hmmm

[demtenjeep]

31. he was true catholic

all true catholics have large families

its that birth control thing

[Manifestor_of_Light]

32. So that means most American Catholics are going to hell.

98% to be exact. I believe that's the figure I read in a study asking Catholic women how many of them had used birth control, not Vatican roulette, in their lives.

[applegrove]

34. I wonder if it was conservative catholism? We're not the GOP

afraid of JF Kennedy being owned by the pope?

[CBGLuthier]

36. I am pretty sure he supported them all and raised them to adulthood along with his wife so

what business is it of yours or anyone's.

[hunter]

40. My own parents, and my wife's parents were Catholic that way...

... but then they looked around at the world of the 'seventies and decided birth control, and teaching their kids about birth control, was a pretty good idea.

But they already had a big mess o' kids, enough to make them admirable in the eyes of more conservative church members. None of my siblings, none of my wife's siblings have had a big mess o' kids

You know, the 'seventies were probably the last stop on the train to hell. Humanity chose to stay aboard the train, shoveling more coal into the engines, faster, faster faster!

Here in the U.S.A. we tossed aside Jimmy Carter for Ronald Reagan and the devil has been partying ever since.

[DFW]

41. Nove bambini

Although we don't have much grounds for levity. Bobby Kennedy was just as prolific.

[Efilroft Sul]

43. In Italian, he was known as Il Reproduce. n/t

[SoLeftIAmRight]

46. and he wanted more

sick fuck - indeed

[rusty fender]

50. Stephen Colbert comes from a family of 11 kids

Are his parents sick MFers

[annabanana]

51. Good old "Vatican Roulette"..

Birth control is a tool of the devil, doncha know

[Kip Humphrey]

52. Damn! What a fucker!

[jg10003]

54. Pro-choice includes the right to choose how many children to have

I didn't like the guy, but this criticism is unfair and out of bounds. How many children someone has is no ones business.

[CBHagman]

55. You think no one on DU is from a large family?

Do you think no one on DU has friends or relatives who came from families with many children?

And why choose John Lennon, who represents peace and life, as an avatar and then post such a gratuitously nasty message?

[Betty88]

57. he did not have 9 kids, his wife did....

I really hate when some guy says I had so many kids grandkids etc. No you hung out while your wife had the kids. Pass a watermelon and we can talk

[lame54]

59. Colbert was the 11th kid in his family...

kudos to his parents

[Octafish]

60. It's the poor man's opera.

Foolin' aroun'.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

61. Who cares how many kids he and his wife had?

No one else's business.

[Warren DeMontague]

62. what bothers me more is that he wasn't pro-choice about other peoples' reproductive lives.

I'm not sure why I'm supposed to be outraged or even care how many kids he had.