Gumballs

Pro-lifers!  This video is a must-see!

I am not kidding when I ask pro-lifers to check out this pro-abortion propaganda. It’s slick and convincing. And I get it on my FB feed every time one of my good solid pro-life friends approves and passes it on: it’s all over the place.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE

Check it out! Commentary attached below.

It’s from Numbers USA, founded by John Tanton. He’s much more dangerous than Margaret Sanger. Sanger devoted her life to making the feminist movement subservient to the eugenics movement. Tanton has given his life to recruiting conservatives including pro-lifers to support population control. It was weird enough when mothers were recruited to the abortion movement; this guy successfully recruits avowed pro-life activists! Watch how it works!

He says he’s talking about immigration. That’s true, but it’s a detail, not the whole story.

Step 1: KISS: keep it simple, stupid! Don’t personalize poverty; use statistics. One gumball = a million people. That’s a good round number, and it’s about the number of documented (“legal”) immigrants into the USA each year.

Step 2: make the connection: immigration is about poor people. Make a smudgy claim: immigration is to alleviate poverty. I’ve never heard anyone say it that way, ever; but it sounds plausible.

Step 3: stack ‘em up! The numbers are overwhelming, and unstable!

Step 4: There are three billion poor people, and we aim to alleviate poverty to helping one gumball. Ah! That’s why he said immigration is about poverty. So it’s one gumball out of 3,000 rolling around in the pretty musical wineglass! There are 65 gumballs on the road, looking for a new and safe home. 65: we can handle that, but 3,000 is just nutty!

Step 5: But then, we double the gumballs in their stacks! The immigrants aren’t the really poor; we have already given up on them! It’s the middle bunch, another 2,600 Mexican gumballs! (Sorta Mexican, Mexican and folks like that – but keep saying Mexican, because we don’t like Mexicans, do we? Mexican, Mexican.)

Step 6: Who wants to let 2,600 Mexican gumballs in? The “elites”! We hate them too, right? But the elites are stupid people. Take a gumball from the crazy stacks, and put it in the musical wineglass, and you can’t see any difference at all in the crazy stacks! 5,600 gumballs, minus 2-3, looks a lot like 5,600 gumballs! So we destroy America, for nothing! The audience groans in frustration.

Step 7: Suppose we take TWO gumballs annually. That would really destroy America! But you still can’t see the difference in the world of 5,600 gumballs! Aren’t those elites stupid?

Step 8: And you know who emigrates from poor countries? The strong and able (and eugenic) types. So we’re draining the gene pool of the world. Those gumballs should stay home and help their neighbors!

Step 9: It’s worse! While we take one gumball, those other gumballs are breeding like rabbits (or guppies, or fruit flies – or marble factories!) We take one out each year, and they “added, births over deaths,” 80. “Added”: that’s a funny way to talk about giving birth. But somehow he’s got to get the birth idea across. So he wraps it up: those poor people “added, births over deaths.”

Step 10: And then, look! The marbles don’t fit in the tall glass columns anymore! Next year, when we take one marble, the marble will breed another 80, and those marbles pour all over the table and floor!

And the climax: “Don’t you see, immigration can never be an effective or significant way to deal with the suffering people of the world. They have to be helped where they live. … Let’s help them there.”

So what did he do?

1.       The marbles are out of control! He’s a nice guy, so he didn’t say we gotta make the marbles stop breeding, but that’s the only solution, right?

2.       He didn’t address population control. He said he was talking about immigration. His action item was about the marbles that want to come here. Keep them out!

3.       If you accept the marble image, you accept his picture of a population explosion.

4.       And if you accept that there’s an uncontrolled population explosion, you can’t fix it, but you can avoid it! Don’t pour marbles in my wineglass! NIMBY!

What would make the presentation more honest?

1.       First: use six bowls for six continents. We can squabble about how full to make the bowls. But however full you make them – half full, or quarter full, or just a layer of marbles at the bottom of each bowl – the North American bowl has to be far emptier than the other bowls!

2.       Second: Most people are staying where they were born. Today, about one percent of the people of the world (65 marbles) are on the road. That’s unprecedented! But there’s a difference between 65 marbles and 6,500 marbles.

3.       Third: It would be more honest to point out that the people who defend the immigrant marbles are also helping the stay-at-home marbles overseas.