Irony - the advances in the science of longevity of human life being the ultimate destruction of mankind!

I'm deviating a little bit today from my usual topic to talk about what I think is the greatest threat to the existence of mankind... the unchecked growth of the human population.

Let me reiterate my topic. There are several clever examples of irony, but this is what I believe is the best illustration of the word, partly because I came up with it. "The advances in the science of longevity of human life being the ultimate destruction of mankind". This realization dawned on me yesterday when I was watching the discovery channel and they were talking about the advances science was making in extending the average lifespan of humans. You know that it's really come a long way when there are doctors, no... specialists, called "longevity experts". They do nothing but help rich old men extend their lives as long as their bank account will support it. I'm not talking about keeping them plugged into a machine on their death bed... I'm talking about prescribing a 100 pills and supplements a day to what they call "reverse the signs of aging".

Why is longevity so important? Whatever happened to quality of life instead of quantity? Personally, I'd take 50 years of healthy, fullfilling life experiences over a 100 years of simply "existing". I truly believe that the single greatest threat to mankind is overpopulation. The result of this unchecked epidemic is self-destruction. In a world where resources are already growing scarce, the last thing we need is more people trying to share a shrinking piece of pie. There are these tree-huggers and Al Gore lovers who go on and on about how we should "save the Earth by conserving it's resources" and then produce 5 offsprings each. Have they thought about how much resources each of those 5 bastards are going to use up? In 2000, the world population was around 6 billion people; it's projected that by 2030, the population would go up to 9 billion. How much longer can we keep dividing these finite resources amoung us?

Which brings me to my real topic here; as alarming as the birth rate is at it's current rate, we're not doing any good by drastically reduing the death rate. There's a reason nature intended for people to die at a certain age... to maintain a balance in the sheer number of people. But once we start messing with that, we're opening Pandora's box. What if in the next 10 years, we increase the average human lifespan by 10 years. That's 'n' number of people we'd have to sustain for an extra 10 years than originally planned by nature. What if we make a huge breakthrough and extend the lifespan by 30 years. People who should have died at 70 are now all living to a ripe old 100? The fact that they are not going to be contributing members of society cannot be changed. So the burden falls on the working "younger" folks to pick up the slack. How long can we sustain that? Think of the simple case of health care; just because these folks live to be a 100 doesn't mean that they aren't going to need health care! And as seniors, they aren't going to be the ones picking up the tab; that'll fall on the government, which is really you and me. At a time when people can barely afford health insurance for themselves, we're going to ask them to foot the bill for all these other folks too?

Yes, I do know some really nice old people and I'm not talking about mandatory limits on people's ages. If you can live to be 90 as a reasonably healthy person without being a burden to others or to society, then fine... I have no problems with that. But if we're starting to extend life simply for the sake of "living on", then that's pointless and dangerous in the grand scheme of things. You may think this is crazy... that I'm just being a lunatic here. Hopefully I won't be around to see this, but in 50 years, when the world's at a staggering 12 billion people and everyone around you is living to be 100 years old and trying to share your space and resources, then this point will make more sense.

Stop trying to simply aim for longevity of life... aim for quality of life and when it's time to go, say your goodbyes and move on.

Question for our esteemed presidential candidates

As it stands right now, we're going to have a Senator in the White House as President of the United States since the last senator to hold that office, Richard Nixon, back in '74. Personally, I don't like that too much. Senators are basically paper-pushers; they've never had any real administrative office. I don't care if they are part of high profile committees and have very high security clearances. To me, having balanced a city's or a state's budget prepares you better to be the president (which governors and mayors do). Anyway, that's not what I want to talk about today.

I have a question that actually applies to either of the 3 Senators currently in the run for Presidency, Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain. Sadly, this question applies to all 3 of them. It revolves around one of the biggest problem the nation faces, illegal immigration, second only to our security (or lack there of) problems. The question is as follows:

“Hello Senators. My name is Fred and I’m from India. I came here to pursue higher education and I’ve been working in the IT sector for the past 8 years. I’m on a H1-B VISA and I’ve been in line for my green card for the past 6 years. I’ve paid more than $10,000 in legal fees for this procedure and I’m still waiting indefinitely to get my GC. I pay my taxes (almost 25% in Federal and State taxes), pay for Medicare and Social Security, something that I’m not eligible for under my current status, but still have to pay for, own a house in GA and pay property tax, own an American car and I also volunteer with pet shelters. I can speak/read/write English as well as, if not better than, some Americans that I know and I’ve never broken the law.

My question is: under my current VISA status, if I get fired tomorrow, I’m legally supposed to pack up my bags and leave the country and try from my home country for another job. But then I heard of your comprehensive immigration plan… it sounds wonderful. A chance for everyone to have a shot at the American dream. Since my illegal immigrant brothers can stay indefinitely in this country and get a working VISA which will eventually lead to a citizenship and have to pay much less in terms of a penalty for breaking the law, I was wondering if you could give me a list of federal crimes that I can commit after I lose my job that will guarantee me the same status as these “undocumented workers” from our southern border? I don’t want to leave this wonderful country if I lose my job as I legally should and after careful research, I’ve realized that the comprehensive immigration plan is the best way for me to cheat the system and get a citizenship. I can’t seem to do it if I follow the law, so please give me a list of federal crimes that I can commit in order to be eligible for this wonderful status. Thank you”.

For the sad few who couldn't smell the sarcasm reeking off that e-mail, let me assure you that I'm not looking to commit any crime here. The point was that, no matter how well you sugar coat it, no matter what excuses you give or what name you give for "amnesty", at the end of the day you're rewarding illegal behavior. Some might even say that you're "aiding and abetting"! These people are criminals for the simple reason that they broke at least 1 Federal crime by crossing the border without proper authorization. The politically correct police are not even allowing people like me to use the work "crime" and "illegal immigrants" in the same sentence. Well, when the father of a sick and hungry child steals a loaf of bread out of sheer desperation, but gets caught doing so, he's still branded as a "criminal" for doing so and is sent to jail for his "crime", right? Then why are we so afraid to admit that these people have in fact broken the law and thereby become "criminals"? Are we afraid, or maybe even guilty, because we hired one of these criminals to mow our lawn for half the cost of the other legit company? How long as we going to act that we're doing the humane thing by letting them stay? Would you feel the same way if your son or daughter was killed in a hit and run accident by an illegal immigrant behind the wheel?

Trying to stay true to the very essence of this blog, the common sense question then that we have to ask ourselves is, "why is it so hard for people to call these law-breakers as illegal immigrants?"