February 2nd, 2013
So the WSJ was nice enough to give me a ton of space today in the Review section to talk about the book and make some trouble. You can see it online here, but I highly recommend picking up a print copy. Because the layout nerds did a beautiful job of setting up the piece. I’m really grateful to the whole shop up there.
Starting tonight the big media push begins. The After Words episode runs on CSPAN 2 tonight at 10:00 pm. The people who watch CSPAN 2 at 10:00 pm on Saturday nights will no doubt be transfixed. Then on Monday I’ll be on one of the morning shows. The rest of the week will be spent hopscotching across the cable and radio spectrums. Hilarity will ensue.
In all of this I hope to be guided by the sage wisdom Larry King passed on to my buddy Tucker Carlson, when he was first starting out in TV:
“The secret,” King said, “is that you have to give a shit. But not really.”
Long live the King.
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Hello Mr. Last,
Thanks for the excellent article in the WSJ today! Your analysis was spot on for economic issues, but there are deeper scientific, cultureal, and spiritual issues.
1. Scientific: The pro-life movement has been aware for years that The Pill seems to reduce women’s sexual desire and feeling of attraction to masculine men.Wimpy metrosexual boy-men, with feminized mannerisms and appearance, are far for present in pop culture than in the days before The Pill. You would be fascinated to take a look at this research. Secondly, in some states such as New York, up to one-third of the babies are aborted. As the pro-life movement tries to communicate, despite the political correctness blackout, abortion hurts women. Unresolved, unacknowledged grief and loss drives post-abortion victims to attitudes and behavior that tend to make them less open to marriage and children. They are too traumatized. Take a look at the Catholic Church’s Project Rachel, which tries to heal women who have been taken in by the lies of the abortion industry. 2.) Cultural: young men and women have been brainwashed by radical feminism to be skeptical about marriage. Without the commitment of marriage, babies will be few. The sexual harassment policies at companies and on university campuses also contribute to a poisonous attitude of distrust between young men and women. 3.) Spiritual: taken together, these scientific and cultural trends combine to produce what Pope John Paul II called “the culture of death”. Please read his encyclical “The Gospel of Life”, plus Paul VI’s “Humanae Vitae” is you want to understand the birth dearth at the deepest, most spiritual level.Keep up the good work!
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Having read your article in 2/2-3/13 Wall Street Journal, you mention significantly raising the child tax credit. As per the IRS website, “The credit is limited if your modified adjusted gross income is above a certain amount. The amount at which this phase-out begins varies depending on your filing status.” Are you saying that it is worthwhile to incentivize increasing the number of children for higher income filers, i.e., those that can afford the cost of children the most, would not likely require college tuition assistance, etc. As such, by raising the child tax credit, do you mean significantly raising the phase-out, or the amount of the credit for those currently eligible?
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Okay, I’m one of those persons watching CSPAN2 at 10:00…how else do you follow up a night of excellent middle school basketball and a meal at Steak n Shake. I just wanted to say that I found the 10-15 minutes that I saw pretty riveting. Its so unusual to get to hear people talk intelligently at length about subjects without the constant interruption from the ideologically opposed selected guest (or host in the case of Piers whats-his-name). It made me want to read the book and also maybe The Big Sort that you referenced. I just wanted to say how enjoyable it was and how surprised I was to stumble upon it.
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JVL … I don’t watch c-span 2 at 10:00 on Saturdays … instead I check the c-span schedule on Friday night and DVR all the weekend shows I want to watch and watch them when I have free time over the weekend … and I’m not kidding. So of course I watched your interview … nice job, glad to see you finally made the big time. Mazel tov on the book.
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Mr. Last,
I do not know more about your book than what I heard you say on part of your After Words spot this weekend but am aware of the demographic shifts that are occurring in the Western world and the implications they hold for caring for the elderly, to mention only one result.
You made several comments about “looking at the data” during your presentation but ended with a comment that people who believe in something greater than themselves will want to have children. I take issue with that non-data-based opinion and was disappointed that you indeed swerved from data. It made me wonder about the rest of your presentation.
I was looking for the Pew Researcher interviewing you to ask something about the effects of the huge population on the world’s resources and the effects of having so many people on the change in climate. Do you discount the relationship between large populations and energy use and the relationship between fossil fuel use and sea level rise? Given your preference for relying on sound data, I would suspect that you do not.
The upshot of all this might be that demographic changes will lead to disaster, but climate change will as well, so we’re toast no matter what the future holds. It could be the natural way of things.
P Rbandon, Kahaluu, Hawaii
Since this is a conservative website, I don’t expect a favorable reception to my comments.
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The grimmest part is how marginal your recommendations are. This is a problem without any obvious policy solution, though the ones you propose are all worthwhile on their merits.
Longtime Galley Friend February 2, 2013 at 5:29 pm
Then you will love the book. I just finished it and it’s only partly focused on economics. There are entire chapters on the Pill, abortion, the breakdown of marriage and rise of cohabitation, and he ends with Benedict XVI and what passes for a call for a cultural revolution. It will hit all your pleasure centers.