Note: Ben Wattenberg made his extreme right-wing reputation by "not pulling any punches"; unfortunately, he inspired the same in his political opposition (now more mature) as well.

With just a few swipes of his corrupted pen, Ben Wattenberg ("Democratic Nations Should Beware of the Birth Dearth", Times, 1/3/85, and "Poverty is Not as Bad Here as the Bishops Believe", Times, 12/26/84) dismisses all human problems and condemns all solutions to them...

Doesn't he know that the United States, with just 5% of the world's population, uses 40% of the world's critically scarce energy? Doesn't he realize that the world is already critically short of such other vital resources as fresh water and strategic materials? To get this latter stuff is why the U.S. kisses up to such dictatorships as [the then-apartheid government] in South Africa! Doesn't he realize that overpopulation in Third World nations, which do lack freedoms, must be humanely countered not by our vainly trying to out-reproduce them but by agricultural, industrial, and educational aid coupled with intense birth-control efforts? Unbelievably, these liberating, friend-making, profitable actions are being successfully suppressed by such reactionaries as Wattenberg!

And doesn't he even see the hunger, homelessness, and un- and under-employment in our own once-compassionate, intelligent America? For shame, Mr. Wattenberg and all your greedy ilk! You should know better!