day no. 16,835: you will rely on someone's babies

Proverbs 14:28 (NLT)

A growing population is a king's glory;

a dwindling nation is his doom.

Fruitfulness is a sign of health. A thriving nation booms with babies while a decaying nation aborts its future through contraception, fornication, homosexuality, and infanticide.

"I do not wish to see this country a country of selfish prosperity where those who enjoy the material prosperity think only of the selfish gratification of their own desires, and are content to import from abroad not only their art, not only their literature, but even their babies." — Theodore Roosevelt, 1911

If you count your life so precious as to consider potential descendants a drain on your current resources, you will be forced to import other people's descendants. If you cannot be bothered with having babies, you will be forced to rely on the babies of others.

"If the average family contained but two children the nation as a whole would decrease in population so rapidly that in two or three generations it would very deservedly be on the point of extinction, so that the people who had acted on this base and selfish doctrine would be giving place to others with braver and more robust ideals. Nor would such a result be in any way regrettable; for a race that practised such doctrine—that is, a race that practised race suicide—would thereby conclusively show that it was unfit to exist, and that it had better give place to people who had not forgotten the primary laws of their being." — Theodore Roosevelt

God called man to be fruitful and multiply. If a couple have two children, they have merely replaced themselves. They have not furthered the mission or filled the earth. And since some couples, desiring many children, sometimes are not able to conceive any, the average number of children between the family with two children and the family with none is halved. The first family's two children are not enough to replace the four adults who will die. If that goes on long enough with enough families, you may go looking for that culture, but you won't find it.

Mathew 21:18-20

Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away!

A tree that refuses to produce figs will be struck down. It won’t make more fig trees because it won’t make fig fruit. And if enough fig trees agree to boycott fruit bearing, figs will cease to exist.

A society that does not want more of itself will get what it wants. If it will not die to itself and fall to the ground as seed, it will be the last crop, and in the end, it dies anyways. And worse of all, it will have deserved it.

“New England of the future will belong, and ought to belong, to the descendants of the immigrants of yesterday and today, because the descendants of the Puritans have lacked the courage to live.” — Theodore Roosevelt, 1914

No good and healthy home is averse to having people over, but no home can stay good and healthy if it is constantly being broken into. Immigration should be more akin to welcoming someone into your home than to a home intrusion. No good nation can remain good if its goods are constantly ransacked by roaming mobs, but neither can a nation be called good that does not open its doors to some in need. A good home is a good place for a foster child, but a good home cannot remain good if any orphan is free to set up camp in their foyer.

Immigration should be an addition to an existing nation's brilliance, not a necessity for its continued existence. A healthy home is hospitable and exports its grace to those it invites in, but it cannot remain a healthy home if it depends upon the guests to provide the main course. A guest may bring dessert, but should not be expected to bring the pot roast.