I pay a little attention to 3rd world diseases, that are often mistakenly just called tropical diseases. I even see some of those disease occasionally or get public health reports of their presence in the US.
The lack of common sense about immigration and the uncontrolled illegal immigration creates a new public health problem worth considering.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/02/do_liberals_care_if_third_world_illnesses_infect_americans.html
As a recent legal immigrant, I had to pay close to £400 to be screened for diseases and to be given compulsory vaccinations by a friendly London doctor exclusively designated for that role by the Embassy. I was lucky I had to do it just once; I know people who had to wait several years while their visas were being processed and they were required to renew their physical every year.
It’s not his most publicized quote for sure. Although his views weren’t exactly unique or original, he wrote his first big essay on overpopulation at a time when it found a lot of resonance in the upper crust. Their financial backing ensured his views were more widely published than previous authors. He was a major influence on the eugenics movement that came later. The spread of Malthusianism was one of the topics Dickens was protesting in his A Christmas Carol. Scrooge’s line “If they’d rather die, then let them do it and decrease the surplus population” was a direct reference to how the elitist interpreted his work.
“But you don’t have to take my word for it!”
http://files.libertyfund.org/files/1945/Malthus_0093.02_EBk_v7.0.pdf
Book 4 Chapter 5
Some point out that the chapter is deliberately extreme for emphatic effect (http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/malthus3.html ). Malthus’ point is that we will have to do these things if we encourage young marriage and don’t practice preventative measures which to him meant nearly life-long abstinence and severely limited births (by the standards of the time). Still, even in context I feel his proposed alternatives are born of irrational fears and disdain for the impoverished.
Regardless of the true intention behind his words, what we contend with today is the result of hundreds of years of people interpreting his meaning in a way they find beneficial to themselves. Usually that’s along the lines of anything we do to objectively improve the lives of the poor will only enable them to increase their rate of breeding and overconsumption.
Thanks for explaining. I didn’t realize Malthus said that.
You’re unfamiliar with Malthus’ work. He wrote that we shouldn’t teach the poor about sanitation and that we should encourage them to live in conditions that would spread disease in an effort to curtail overpopulation.
Expecting leftists to consider the real world effect of their causes is like expecting a bull to care for the dishes in a China Shop.
“Malthus was pretty explicit in his views on spreading ideas about sanitation and disease prevention to the poor.”
But Malthus didn’t have to contend with PC theories that if we seek to teach immigrants health and cleanliness – we are somehow forcing our evil, white European societal mores on them.
Thank you, sir, for pointing this out! My immigrant ancestors back in the 19th century were screened for diseases before they were allowed into the US. Back then Typhoid Marys were a very real concern.
Modern Liberals have no sense of hygiene. Again, Hanlon’s Law applies.
To be fair Christopher Columbus was a marauding murderer, not for spreading disease but for his tyrannical governorship of Hispaniola. I’ll add that it was only blind luck that his whole fleet wasn’t lost at sea as a result of his glaring mathematical error.
Columbus aside, the article is sadly right. Many in the liberal camp base their world view on an extreme “white guilt” narrative. They don’t seek equality; they seek revenge passed down through generations. Never mind the fact that in Admiral Columbus’ day they believed infectious diseases were caused by miasma and no one believed a dirty blanket could spread small pox. In their minds, White Europeans and ONLY white Europeans invented war, genocide, and slavery so it’s only fitting that 500 years later their decedents be treated to some cosmic justice. Of course, they’ll be spared because they’re the enlightened.
In 1847 many doctors thought Ignaz Semmelweis was ridiculous to suggest they wash and sanitize their hands between autopsies and obstetrics. So even if the mysterious great American plague was a result of European trade, the 1500’s Europeans were just as in the dark about it as the locals. It’s a bit ludicrous to suggest that Columbus invented biological warfare, but then, that’s why you never hear that argument being made by someone with any knowledge of medicine or history. They’re still being taught that Columbus was some paragon of scientific inquiry who proved to the ignorant religious class that the world was round thanks to anti-religion propaganda published in the mid 1800’s; proving once again that a lie will run ‘round the world 6 times before the truth can get its shoes on.
That’s why the ignorant think the way they do. As for the Well-off financiers throwing their weight behind the narrative, I think good old fashioned Malthusianism explains their reasoning. Let’s be honest, these aren’t diseases of the third world, or of the uneducated, these are diseases of the poor. Malthus was pretty explicit in his views on spreading ideas about sanitation and disease prevention to the poor.