From a reader:
Subject: Adolescents writing at the NRO
“These days, overpopulation is primarily a hang-up for environmentalists, though suburbanites and feminists occasionally whine about it, too. And an important part of the argument has changed. While before, Progressives were worried about the “muck” at the low end of the global population, they’re now vexed by the fat cats at the top. “
This article, with this lowlight quotation above is some of the most slipshod, depressing stuff to come out of your articles in a long time. That you actually believe your points about overpopulation to embody wisdom and knowledge is precisely why I find your positions on this and most every other important issue regressive and insipid. But your truly stupid, Rush Limbaugh-like aspersion on “suburbanites and feminists” — which you think perhaps funny or cute — is merely adolescent, which is the the most accurate adjective for the whole of the NRO, minus Bill Buckley.
Human overpopulation has already worked its extremely deleterious effect on our earth, and it will continue to do so. Can you name the year when we had but 200 million people in the US?
The year was 1967. And our rates are low now, thanks to the availability of contraception. But in many parts of the world, now in this globalized state of things, virtually our end everyone’s backyards, the rates of growth are still far from down to a level that will help to stem unsolvable problems of food, water and other resources. What progress has been won have been through the vigorous efforts of population control advocates. Your lack of any reasonableness about the relationship between the haves and have-nots at both ends of the social-economic spectrum is just another indication of the feebleness of your writing and argument. What argument? I suppose I need to recognize that its just your job, your work, to put out this dribble on a regular basis.