Down with people

Sure, just the other day Sen. Barack Obama uttered the questionable assessment that a "crisis pregnancy, as I read it euphemized today, which is left, er, unterminated, is punishing a young lady with a baby. But have you heard the one about Ted Turner…? By now of course you have caught Turner's latest inanity, including a rant about how “We have global warming because too many people are using too much stuff. If there were less people, they’d be using less stuff.”

Reading the transcript I see how with a minor clarification of the punctuation Turner could be simply stating the apparent mindset of most of those whose ideology he was parroting for Charlie Rose’s amusement.

“We’ve got to stop doing the suicidal two things, which are hanging on to our nuclear weapons and after that we’ve got to stabilize the population. When I was born-”

 

(Rose interrupts)

Yes, it does seem that most environmentalists adhere to P.J. O’Rourke’s interpretation of their faith, that there are just enough of them, way too many of you and me. So it seems almost natural were Turner saying that we've got to stabilize the population when (he) was born (1938), meaning either the typical “I’m here, we can stop now” or go back to those levels (appx. 130 million). Naturally, this is a silly interpretation. If Turner believed that – well, any of it – he wouldn’t have had 5 children (or 3 residences at once).

I suppose it is forgivable for people with large families to convince themselves on occasion that there are too many people in the world – or, say, if you live in New Jersey…now, now, just saying it’s got the most condensed population in the country – but shouldn’t the fact that all of these down-with-people types like Turner and Gore have so many houses mitigate that somewhat?