Best nations to have kids, as ranked by "Save the Children"

[earthJoker]

Those where old, we speak about children now, or do you suggest the article in the starting post is wrong?

[']['ear]

So your point is that politics is about self-interest, or that the vast majority of people are hypocrites? Got anything else from the "old as the hills" category you think we should be aware of?

Try this one: it's a philosophy based on idealism and naivete (a word not recognized by the spell checker: FAIL) Are these really different things? Sort of like religion.

Alternately, witness the hoards of anti-demonstrators who are nowhere to be seen now that it's a Democrat running the war.

Please. What a massive straw man. 1) He didn't start it, so why should somebody protest him? They are Bush's wars. 2) He's working hard on Afghanistan, which is justifiable to the vast majority of Americans of any stripe. In fact, I'd be that many, like me, are relieved that the president finally takes the important war seriously, as opposed to squandering all of our resources on the war that had no justification whatsoever. 3) He's trying to get us out of Iraq, which was the only war that most people were fussy about. Of course, the country will probably slide into anarchy when we leave, but that's not his problem either. It was practically predestined the second Bush thought of that particular fiasco. The only way to avoid that is to stay there, and that's not tenable.

Just politics. Like practically every other issue, it's only bad when the other guy's doing it (or not doing it, as the case may be).

And this was your example? Unimpressive.

[Nessus]

On the balance, European mothers are being coddled and given large stipends to just have an average of one kid. You folks aren't as frenzied about the babies as we sometimes are.

Or maybe children aren't viewed as a commodity that you purchase with loads and loads of dollars via fertility treatments and shit, and society instead invests on giving the best care, education and life as is possible to the kiddy-winks that are produced? Maybe? No? Alright then.

[CitizenCain]

Try this one: it's a philosophy based on idealism and naivete (a word not recognized by the spell checker: FAIL) Are these really different things? Sort of like religion.

Please. The naive philosophy is the statist one - if we give government more power over us, they'll use their new power to help us, and not blind rob the population and send heavily armed para-military shock troops to enforce moralistic laws against victimless "crimes."

Please. What a massive straw man. 1) He didn't start it, so why should somebody protest him? They are Bush's wars. 2) He's working hard on Afghanistan, which is justifiable to the vast majority of Americans of any stripe. In fact, I'd be that many, like me, are relieved that the president finally takes the important war seriously, as opposed to squandering all of our resources on the war that had no justification whatsoever. 3) He's trying to get us out of Iraq, which was the only war that most people were fussy about. Of course, the country will probably slide into anarchy when we leave, but that's not his problem either. It was practically predestined the second Bush thought of that particular fiasco. The only way to avoid that is to stay there, and that's not tenable.

In other words, war's only bad when a Republican is leading it.

And this was your example? Unimpressive.

No, this was your example. And another case where you're so myopic you can't even see how a big whore you are for the DNC.

Or maybe children aren't viewed as a commodity that you purchase with loads and loads of dollars via fertility treatments and shit, and society instead invests on giving the best care, education and life as is possible to the kiddy-winks that are produced?

Exactly. And that's not the only way you Euros are wrong about economic issues.

[Hazir]

Yes, it's that in the US mothers actually have children at replacement level. Law of small numbers-ish.

Netherlands too AFAIK.

[Hazir]

On average! The thing is, that those couple that have children (in Europe) usually have more than one. It's just that a lot of couples don't have any kids at all.

Also true, in my extended family it's either no children at all or 3 or 4. We're well above replacement, I've got over 20 nieces and nephews.

[']['ear]

I was wondering how long it would take you to resort to ad hominems, Cain. Tsk.

[GGT]

What's the best nation to be a good father? Or men's attitudes toward women and children. There's probably a correlation.

Put another way, in the countries where it sucks to be mothers or babies, where are the fathers?

[Nessus]

Exactly. And that's not the only way you Euros are wrong about economic issues.

[Dreadnaught]

I should clarify that I was only being half serious. What I'm saying is that we're arguing over relatively small numbers clustered around a very high rate of maternal survival that is almost effectively nil compared to what it was a few generations ago.

There are a number of reasons for the discrepancy, and given similar levels of prosperity it's really doubtful that Europe or America is a "better" place to mother a child because of this.

[Nessus]

I'm sure it brings you contentment to believe that

[Dreadnaught]

I'm sure it brings you contentment to fawn over differences in already-low maternal mortality rates. How scientific of you.

[Nessus]

You win five Internet Points for trying to get at someone's profession while you're projecting

[CitizenCain]

I was wondering how long it would take you to resort to ad hominems, Cain. Tsk.

Because you were too dumb to see it coming, huh? Not exactly a surprise, given what you try to pass of as "arguments," though.

[']['ear]

Because you were too dumb to see it coming, huh?

Meaning that you invariably turn to insults when you haven't made strong points rhetorically, or you simply have irreconcilable opinion differences with somebody? Yeah, we're all familiar with that. Oh, and you don't care. Right. Gotcha. Contras, anal rape, blah blah blah. Can we consider this conversation had already?

[earthJoker]

There are a number of reasons for the discrepancy, and given similar levels of prosperity it's really doubtful that Europe or America is a "better" place to mother a child because of this.

It would actually be very interesting to have the scored values instead of only the ranks. Usually (as you said) the so called "western" countries are very close to eachother compared to the developing natrions.

[EyeKhan]

I wonder what they attribute as the cause.

The United States tends to have more kids per couple then a lot of European countries. Risks for pregnancy go up after the first child which can skew it some. In addition the United States has a lot of illegal immigrants, are these factors in? There is a perverse incentive to quickly get pregnant and have an "anchor baby" in the United States.

I'm curious what the numbers are if they take out illegal immigrants, count only first child vs. first child as well as drop out all the voluntary self abusing potential mothers (ie crack heads) what the results would be.

Yeah, because it can't be that socialist yuropean countries beat your shiny god blessed country right? There has to be a catch.

Our numbers would be better if they filtered out women who die in childbirth too. Seems pretty unfair to include them, especially since they're usually poor and uneducted. Stupid fucking stats manipulations.

<shrug>

It's only really a consideration if you ignore basic natural laws and give a shit about the left side of the bell curve. Which, apparently, we are. Frankly, they really should just be grateful to be alive at all, considering how nature handles that side of the graph, but whatever. Yippie, democracy - where 10 mentally retarded wards of the state are worth tens times more than someone with a functional brain. Weeee!

Which basic natural laws are you talking about? Just curious.

It really baffles me as to why you've yet to find the glories of National Socialism

Well, there's believing and supporting what they believe, then there's calling yourself a dirty fucking Nazi bastard. Labels are important.

Because I don't give a shit about the strength of the group, obviously. I'm about individual rights -).

Funny, the group is always more fit than the individual in every way, except hiding maybe. Call it a natural law, if you like. (Note: Rambo movies excluded.)

Cain, the problem with your philosophy is that it rarely survives contact with the enemy. Percentage of people abandoning libertarianism after hitting hard times dwarfs deathbed conversions. It's a luxury of those born with a certain amount of privilege and whom have yet to be tripped up.

If you have a source to back that, I'd be interested to see it.

[Nessus]

Well, there's believing and supporting what they believe, then there's calling yourself a dirty fucking Nazi bastard. Labels are important.

This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don't think it's a marvellous moral, I simply
happen to know what it is: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we
pretend to be.

My personal experience with Nazi monkey business was limited. There were some vile and lively
native American Fascists in my home town of Indianapolis during the thirties, and somebody slipped
me a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Toon, I remember, which was supposed to be the Jews'
secret plan for taking over the world. And I remember some laughs about my aunt, too, who married
a German German, and who had to write to Indianapolis for proofs that she had no Jewish blood. The
Indianapolis mayor knew her from high school and dancing school, so he had fun putting ribbons and
official seals all over the documents the Germans required, which made them look like eighteenth-
century peace treaties.

After a while the war came, and I was in it, and I was captured, so I got to see a little of
Germany from the inside while the war was still going on. I was a private, a battalion scout, and,
under the terms of the Geneva Convention, I had to work for my keep, which was good, not bad I
didn't have to stay in prison all the time, somewhere out in the countryside. I got to go to a
city, which was Dresden, and to see the people and the things they did.

There were about a hundred of us in our particular work group, and we were put out as contract
labour to a factory that was making a vitamin-enriched malt syrup for pregnant women. It tasted
like thin honey laced with hickory smoke. It was good. I wish I had some right now. And the city
was lovely, highly ornamented, like Paris, and untouched by war. It was supposedly an "open" city,
not to be attacked since there were no troop concentrations or war industries there.

But high explosives were dropped on Dresden by American and British planes on the night of
February 13, 1945, just about twenty-one years ago, as I now write. There were no particular
targets for the bombs. The hope was that they would create a lot of kindling and drive firemen
underground.

And then hundreds of thousands of tiny incendiaries were scattered over the kindling, like seeds
on freshly turned loam. More bombs were dropped to keep firemen in their holes, and all the little
fires grew, joined one another, and became one apocalyptic flame. Hey presto: fire storm. It was
the largest massacre in European history, by the way. And so what?

We didn't get to see the fire storm. We were in a cool meat-locker under a slaughterhouse with our
six guards and ranks and ranks of dressed cadavers of cattle, pigs, horses, and sheep. We heard
the bombs walking around up there. Now and then there would be a gentle shower of calcimine. If we
had gone above to take a look, we would have been turned into artefacts
characteristic of fire storms: seeming pieces of charred firewood two or three feet long
ridiculously small human beings, or jumbo fried grasshoppers, if you will.

The malt syrup factory was gone. Everything was gone but the cellars where 135,000 Hansels and
Gretels had been baked like gingerbread men. So we were put to work as corpse miners, breaking
into shelters, bringing bodies out. And I got to see many German types of all ages as death had
found them, usually with valuables in their laps. Sometimes relatives would come to watch us dig.
They were interesting, too.

So much for Nazis and me.

If I'd been born in Germany, I suppose I would have been a Nazi, bopping Jews and gypsies and
Poles around, leaving boots sticking out of snowbanks, wanning myself with my secretly virtuous
insides. So it goes.

There's another clear moral to this tale, now that I think about it: When you're dead you're dead.
And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you.
Iowa City, 1966

[GGT]

[CitizenCain]

Meaning that you invariably turn to insults when you haven't made strong points rhetorically, or you simply have irreconcilable opinion differences with somebody? Yeah, we're all familiar with that. Oh, and you don't care. Right. Gotcha. Contras, anal rape, blah blah blah. Can we consider this conversation had already?

I was actually referring to fact that you'd inevitably grow wearing of trying to defend an indefensible position, and would choose to opt out of the whole conversation under the pretense of vaginal itchiness getting your feewings huwrt.

[']['ear]

Vaginas!

[GGT]

Penii!

Seriously, you two guys need to knock off the whole thing, kiss and make up. Or say Yo, Dude, you da man. Or get a room, or something.

Around here you can BOTH be man bitches.

[']['ear]

I haven't done anything, have I? Cain's just bored and wants to pick a fight. I'm not interested.

[littlelolligagged]

I haven't done anything, have I? Cain's just bored and wants to pick a fight. I'm not interested.

Takes two to make a baby, dear.

[']['ear]

Yup. I haven't hurled any insults, so I don't think we're close to insemination.

[littlelolligagged]

Which of you is going to be impregnated, though?

[']['ear]

I'm too old.

[GGT]

Viagra! Cialis!

(now what's the deal with the two separate tubs there?)

[littlelolligagged]

Viagra! Cialis!

(now what's the deal with the two separate tubs there?)

Here, I'll feed your google conspiracy.

I was teasing a friend about a future of alcohol induced impotence if he didn't cut back a bit. My gmail spam is now overflowing with alcohol treatment options and erectile dysfunction med-spam.

[GGT]

I still don't understand the two tubs. Do you?

Unless it's just to make us go, huh? and remember it's Cialis and not Viagra....?