Reply #106: human beings are not livestock

[Two Americas]

And you have no moral authority to judge a mother with 3 children.

What is especially disturbing about these remarks is the complete estrangement from you own humanity they represent. It is just as though a farmer were talking about his hogs.

This betrays your view that there are in fact two classes of people - although you deny that this is a significant factor in social problems in other threads. There are those who can make determinations about the "breeding" of other human beings, and about what the "acceptable losses" might be in the pursuit of social goals that appeal to you, and then there are those who will be the subject of your experiments and control.

There are people like you, who by virtue of some arcane tests, are the controllers and the deciders, and then there are others whose behavior you disapprove of and who need to be controlled.

So this "sacrifice on everyone's part" you propose because "we can't continue to indulge our 'wants' as much as we'd like to" is not really true, is it? Some must sacrifice more, and the least among us are held to a higher standard of accountability than those who are actually responsible for the problems, who caused the problems, who profited from creating the problems. They are not mentioned. They get a free pass, and this is accomplished by shifting the burden downward - somewhere far below your status and importance, your image of yourself.

There is no sort of honest liberalism that can be based on the contempt for the people you are displaying here. No planet will be saved, or could ever be saved, with your attitude and approach. It is an excuse for and urge to control and dominate people, for dismissing them and holding them in contempt. That is the cause of environmental destruction, not the solution.

It is not possible to have reverence and respect for the earth and the creatures on the earth and simultaneously have such contempt for your fellow human beings. It can only be that pretending to embrace the first is merely an excuse for indulging the second.