OK, one more election thing, then I'm moving on. Today I heard something on NPR (an advertisement for something upcoming on Day to Day) that confirmed what I suspected. Conservatives have more babies. Now, barring the kind of religious and political diversity that exists within my own family--we have Libertarians, Democrats, Republicans, liberal and conservative Christians, agnostics, Wiccans-- usually that certainly improves one's chances to eventually produce voters in concert with one's own ideology. I thought it was just a goofy notion of my own, but apparently someone else checked it out , and it is so. Now, I am pretty much out of that loop at this point, but young liberals: have more babies!! No more of these two-child, environmentally, socially responsible families.That's just cutting off your nose to spite your face. Even if one or two of your kids turn, surely you'll keep a few of them within the fold.
Here's my other idea. There was (still is) a sub-group of Libertarians who support something called called the
Free State Project who got people to sign up and pledge to move within a certain number of years to a state on which they would vote, and therefore create a political majority in that state. ( They eventually voted for New Hampshire.) Now, considering the Electoral College, that's the wrong way for liberals and Democrats to go. The blue states are too concentrated. The red states must be infiltrated. It seems the best strategy would be to go where margins of victory were narrow, and move in enough blue population to create an electoral majority. What made me think of this is that my husband and I have been thinking for some time about moving to one of the red states once he retires. In recent weeks, this has seemed like a horrifying thought, until it occurred to me that some of my like-minded friends are also in various red states.
As Linus Pauling said, you have to have a lot of ideas for a few good ones to show up. I'm not saying this is a good one. (It will probably turn up that I'm not the only one it occurred to.) I'm just working on having a lot of ideas.
1 comment:
I once had a bio-anthro double major, Democratic, liberal boyfriend basically try to get me into bed by arguing that it was my biological duty as an intelligent person to reproduce, preferably with him. It didn't work, poor guy, but I do ocassionally think back on his argument. I also think of my grandmother's crotchety campaign for mandatory sterilization of the chronically stupid. She's gone beyond pro-choice into the true realm of being pro-abortion, and proud of it.
You might have more luck by pointing out to nice young liberal prospective parents that they can support zero population growth and still raise many liberal children by adoption. Think of all those nice future-Communist babies in China.
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