…that there are more of them than there are of us? The world’s tragically poor or unprivileged underclasses, I mean.
I’m at the moment in Cancun, one of the more well-known cities of Mexico. As in many, maybe most or all, larger Latin American cities, the differences between the “wealthy” and everyone else is striking…and by local standards, virtually every American able to travel widely would be wealthy.
What is truly alarming is that, alongside the world’s poorest slums (in Haiti and India, for example, maybe even some inner cities in the States), even locals here are “wealthy.” My question is, again, “How long before this great mass of poverty and hunger and deprivation finally realize their power in numbers?” We’ve spoken in the States of the privileged one-percenters, and of the remaining 99 percent. On the world stage, I wonder if the poor don’t number even more than 99 to one? Regardless, it means there are (at least) 99 of them for every one of us.
Consider that: What happens when they realize that and somehow begin to act on it? It is only one more reminder of the fragility of this protective bubble we so blithely call civilization.
I have actually heard people from the Third World say that “there are no poor people in America.” I understood instantaneously and agreed completely. That is precisely why they must be kept out of America. I see them in the Walmart with 4 or 5 children in tow whom the parents are raising on a Lone Star card. There is more at issue here than poverty: a debased conception of human life is at work when people who cannot support even a single child have a half dozen. The Earth is groaning under the increasing weight of the human biomass and these people of whom you speak have virtually no sense of responsibility when reproducing. They make me shudder. My greatest negative achievement—something I did not do—is not beget even a single child. You can just imagine my loathing at the spectacle of those who beget repeatedly without any resources.
Your comment is a bit tangential to the intent of my post, but it points to a couple different issues. The first is a political discussion, which I try to avoid on this site. But I will say I agree that a substantive discussion of our open immigration policies and “welfare and education for all, regardless of social contribution” is long overdue. Having said that, I stress that I am a political progressive and do not identify with the conservative, anti-immigration wing in today’s American political arena.
The second is our current state of what I call “negative selection,” or “negative evolution” (or maybe “devolution?”). The safety net of civilization has long done away with the driver of classical evolution, “survival of the fittest leading to a homogeneous population of universally fit and hardy individuals most suited to reproducing.” Instead, in the West, at least, we defend the right of each individual to reproduce, however poorly they’ve demonstrated their suitability. This even includes individuals displaying known genetic defects. The movie, “Idiocracy” speaks to this…a poorly acted and produced movie, but the introduction is priceless, as is the theme. But then, what’s the alternative? Who gets to decide the winners and losers? The question obviously calls to mind the Nazis, and it should. But in any case, the Earth will eventually have its way, and will toss us off like a dog shaking off water.
Now, on to other points.
My post was really just to comment on the last line of it i.e., the fagility of our civilized veneer. The French evolution comes to mind, also the slave rebellion in Haiti, the Watts riots, and the riots after the killing of MLK and beating of Rodney King. Short of mass slaughter, a true uprising of the lower and middle income populations across the race spectrum would be impossible to quell. And if the one-percenters did employ mass slaughter, who would mow their lawns and clean their toilets and cook their food after it was over?