This is what bothers me about the Duggars

[Haole Girl]

And it has bothered me for awhile now.

Why do they - two people - have the right to burden planet earth, and consume so many resources, with that many offspring? Why do they think they are so special that they should introduce so many people, into society, with their genes? You know - you just KNOW - that many children are planned.

It just irritates me. It's pure ego. I mean... do they even have a farm? :crazy:

I'm sorry, but I had to get that out of my system.

Call me judgmental, and perhaps I am, but I just saw a documentary on India last night, and trust me when I tell you this: Planet Earth has no shortage of people!

:grr:

[Deja Q]

1. And as a self-proclaimed church, or so I'd read, they don't pay taxes either.

Sodding wretched leeches...

Still, if they get the herd to enlist I'll call it even. :)

[Haole Girl]

2. AAACK!

Just read some more about them (http://www.duggarfamily.com/aboutus.html). Honestly, my stomach is turning.

:puke:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

3. judging people's choices is what we all do and to a degree should do

how can we have a sense of right and wrong, without judgment? Just because i am a liberal and an atheist, doesn't mean i don't have a sense of right and wrong.

I don't believe in legislating personal morality but i think its highly irresponsible, selfish, and self absorbed behavior to have so many children, especially for an educated person. In India only the illiterate breed in this way and that makes sense, they don't know better. Here, they do know better and just don't care.

Its bloody awful.

[Haole Girl]

6. Very well said

Late last night, at hubby's cousins, we watched the blue planet documentary about the Ganges river. It was amazing, but also sad, how many people depend on that one source of life. I'm still haunted by some of the sights... even this morning. I think that was his family's way of trying to prepare me for India. lol Even though I've been to Asia many times, and spent summers in Indonesia (which, at the time, was the most densely populated place per square mile on earth) I still don't understand why some people (and people like the Duggars) don't THINK about the consequences of overpopulation. :-(

[Common Sense Party]

18. So what is the "acceptable" number of offspring I may "breed?"

I want to know when I have exceeded my limit.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

19. look at your Du name "common sense" and think of the environmental impact

and then make a decision.

just dont expect me to applaud you for not beign able to use contraceptive

[Common Sense Party]

22. Oh, I have every ability to use a contraceptive.

It just seems that if you're wise enough to know that 18 is too many, you must have a number in mind of what is acceptable, and what is allowed. Is two children too many? Three? four? What's the cutoff?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

23. do you think the earth is sustainable if everyone of us had 18 children?

[Common Sense Party]

28. Nope. And I never even hinted that I did.

I just want to know where YOU would make the cutoff.

Simple question, really.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

29. am i making a law about this or expressing an opinion that multiple children

are harmful to the environment?

your responses seem to indicate that i am proposing a law to limit children, which i am not.

to answer your question, i think one kid per person is adequate and more people should adopt.

[dynasaw]

4. It's Not Just the Duggars

There's a sub-culture in America that glorifies mindless breeding. The so called celebs are now at it. It's rather frightening to see the dysfunctional types proudly displaying baby bumps. Their kids are going to be at the mercy of people who are in no way fit to parent anyone. Was talking to a friend who told me that because of all the pregnant celebs teens are emulating them by having babies who are now regarded as the latest accessories. . . Paris Hilton's accessory last year was her yappy rat dog. Right now some teens look at babies the same way.

I'm not sure if this breeding thing is a proxy for a statement about one's great sex life . . . if so it's yet another of those narcissistic displays. Come to think about it there is something narcissitic about having children without careful thought about what it either means or entails.

[Haole Girl]

7. That is a scary thought...

having a child as a kind of accessory. :-(

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. Religious fundamentalists fight "war" through reproduction - outbreed the enemy.

That's one reason so many fundamentalist Christians, Jews, Muslims, and so forth keep calling for their people to breed as much and as often as they can.

To their credit, though, I do believe that in all truthfulness the Duggars sincerely and seriously love having a large family, and derive much fulfillment and pleasure from it. Large families can be an awful lot of fun, and there are relationships there that can be quite wonderful.

So I don't think the Duggars are doing it specifically to try to outbreed the Muslims; but they ARE part of a Christian heritage that teaches such things, and so there could quite definitely be some social imprinting.

And you are right - it's incredibly selfish and irresponsible in this day and age to have that many children, until we as a worldwide people figure out the whole air/land/water/food thing. One can easily fault the Duggars for the environmental damage they are doing with their large family; but on the other hand, what's the environmental footprint of a smaller family that flies to Europe every year, spends their winters zipping around on snowmobiles, travels 200 miles every weekend hauling their boat and jetski and camper to go to their second home that remains empty most of the year but still has to be heated and maintained and whatnot; who don't make their own clothing, who don't homeschool their children (what's the cost to society and to the environment to rip up good land to pave over with schools, heat them, bus kids around, buy materials, pay salaries for teachers and administrators and janitors and counselors and security, and so on), and who buy out-of-season fruit, vegetables, and flowers that are flown in by great gas-wasting and pollutant-spewing airplanes every day from Colombia and New Zealand and Brazil.

The Duggars are an easy target; and in some ways, deservedly so. But truthfully, I think there are far better targets to aim at.

[ogneopasno]

8. I agree with what you said, and you said it well.

Each of us makes decisions that can be judged as harshly as the Duggars have been judged, reallly.

[Haole Girl]

9. Never thought about it that way

Thank you for easing my "trigger finger" in a way. :hi:

[seemunkee]

10. I have 2 co-workers that feel this way

my boss has 9 kids with #10 to drop in a few weeks. He is a lay pastor at his church.
The other is a contractor that my boss hired and belongs to the same church, he has 5.
I don't talk to my boss much but I share an office with the contractor and he has out and out declared that the Muslems are going to out breed the Christians. He sees France as a disaster because of the drop in native French population and the rise of immigrants.

[NYC_SKP]

11. Duggars are a symptom of the greater problem of institutionalized promotion

of breeding, is what I think you're saying.

I agree, it's why abstinence is promoted over other forms of protection from disease.

And why masturbation has been frowned upon by the church as a waste of seed.

It's sickening.

[MountainLaurel]

26. Building an army for god

That makes me just a bit twitchy.

[Schema Thing]

12. I agree about the much better targets. I met the Duggars once

in a restaurant back when they were at about number 11. I can report that there are many people I come across every day with only one or two children whose parenting could take a lesson from the Duggars (or at least seemingly, from the impression one can get watching a family interact at a restaurant).


I think in the end, the Duggars are just sort of freaks of nature and belief, who aren't really that likely to influence society much beyond the value of the freak show.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

13. Yes. n/t

[Ellen Forradalom]

20. The Duggars are statistical outliers

Yes, they have 18 kids but very few families are that large. They and the Quiverfulls are not a large enough group to overcome the larger trend towards smaller families. This results from social forces, such as lengthy schooling, that tend to make kids (from an economic point of view) into the ultimate consumer durable.

[ConcernedCanuk]

25. America Alone By Mark Steyn - your comment - "outbreed the enemy" -is supported by amazing stats

.
.
.

I'm reading this book online

and the reproduction rate is described in the USA as just barely "replacement" numbers,

and a way below replacement in Canada ,

and some Muslim and Arab countries as much as 4X our Western replacement birth rate

Read the link

it's thought-provoking for sure - -

[TZ]

14. There is a whole group of people who think that fecundity

is something to be proud of. They are generally the fundies who take the bible literally and believe the earth is man's to do with as they wish as God gave them dominion over all other creatures. AND that God told them to be fruitful and multiply.
Remember the freeper comments about the reason feminists hate Sarah Palin is because they are *jealous* of her fertility?

[mr blur]

15. Where the hell do they get all the money?

Just looked at their house. They have a "video editing suite"! Are they paid to breed or smething?

[TZ]

16. Donations.

From like minded people.

[tabbycat31]

17. TLC must pay them a pretty penny

to pimp their family on TV.

[azmouse]

21. Plenty of us are infertile. I guess it balances out somewhat.

But I don't see why anyone would want that many kids either.
I'd have been happy with just one but it wasn't meant to be.

[pitohui]

24. they don't care about us, they don't care about the earth

you know, the whole reason we have to have laws and politics is because of the sociopathic 5 %

the duggars are the sociopathic 5 % -- we need to have laws that restrict the number of kids you can have

otherwise democracy dies because the people who don't care and/or don't control themselves out-breed the people who do care about the earth and can control themselves to plan their families

as far as the duggars go, look they're sociopaths who want to promote an evil ideology and cheat the earth and america while doing it, but what bothers me MOST about the story is that good people are too cowardly to stand up and say, "this is wrong and we need to put a stop to it"

when the best lack all conviction, there is no hope for the future of the earth -- the beautiful creatures of the earth will be made extinct and the hateful blinkered ideologues will continue to breed, it's dispiriting

[Witchy_Dem]

27. I was working on my family's genealogical website for years.

On the Scottish side. For a bunch of generations our families had upwards of 14 kids. The only thing is that in many of those families they had half their kids die before they were 10. And yes, most were land holders with farms or were farming families. In the last couple of generations the numbers of offspring have been dramatically reduced with less infant mortality to boot.

The Duggars are behind their time. Not ahead of it. Even if they had a farm, the fact they've had 18 live births and a 100% survival rate is not something indicative of the huge families of generations past.

She reminds me of the mice we used to farm for our corn snake. Every three weeks we had 13-15 new babies.....

[Left Is Write]

30. What bothers me is their lack of understanding of the English language.

There is no way, according to the rules of the language, that a word spelled Jinger should be pronounced as Ginger.

[Systematic Chaos]

31. ROFL!! "Jinger?"

That sounds like this guy trying to do Jingle Bells as he staggers home....

http://gprime.net/game.php/drunkwalk

P. S. - Beat 106 meters. :P

[Dinger]

32. What Does mr. duggar Do For A Living?

I think I heard once that he wanted to run for political office - eeek!

[ThatsMyBarack]

33. Some (R) thing, obviously.

They're breeding an army of right-wing nutjobs! :yoiks: