"And Gulliver Returns" Book 1 Reversing Overpopulation--The Planet's Doomsday Threat

by LemualGulliverXVI

“We are going to get a chance to discuss these psychological differences when we get to Singaling. Dr. Chan is one of the foremost experts in the world in this area. After we pick Dr. Wang’s brain about value systems and how we each vary in our values then learn about our needs and drives from Dr. Chan we should have a clearer insight into why we do what we do, and perhaps how we can fashion more satisfying lives for ourselves by understanding us better. I believe that our beliefs and actions are based either on our unconscious motivations or on our values. And commonly we act psychologically but believe that our actions are really value based—which they are not. ”

  “Wreck, I’m really excited about discussing life with these people. Who else do you have lined up to help us open our minds?”

  “There are a bunch of things I would like to delve more deeply into. How do you get things to happen is one concern. If we were to seriously pursue licensing parents what methods would be available? Con?”

  “We would be looking at politics there! Politics is the ‘science of the possible’ is what my old UCLA professor taught me. Dr. Titus was THE expert on how people can and should be treated, depending on the desired ends. Remember him Wreck? Juniors sat in the last rows, seniors ahead of them, then the masters students then the PhD students in the front. Titus said that since it was a class in “the science of the possible” any way that you could get a grade was OK. I remember you knew one teaching assistant from when she was a high school student coming to your lifeguard tower, then you started dating the other TA. And you got an A.”

  “I remember it well. Probably the only smart thing I did in college! But Con, I think we will find that what works politically, that is how we get people to do things, goes back to the original motivational ideas of values, needs and drives. But the effective politicians are able to show us why we should follow their leadership--often without thinking.”

  “This sounds enlightening. Anything else planned?”

  “Of course, we’re going to solve all the world’s problems! We are going to Muchinju, that experimental religious country where people of the several major religions are getting

  along quite well. I want to see how peace and population control have worked in our modern world.

  “But then there are the United Colonies where I think that freedom has gotten out of control. They are making some highly controversial changes in their system to try to curb the urban excesses that seem to accompany the materially induced selfishness of our modern global economic and social monster. They have had to try to reconcile the ideals of liberty and equality---which are actually antithetical. They chose liberty. They have a total aversion to both population control and to licensing parents. But they do make parents totally responsible for their children!

  “Another stop I plan would be in Northland. Their approach to population control and to parent licensing is really far out. They are doing human cloning and artificial insemination to ‘improve the human breed’ so to speak.”

  “You mean eugenics?”

  “Yes. Eugenics in ways that Hitler or Churchill never dreamed of!”

  “Well Wreck, I don’t know which adventures look forward to more—traveling the physical or the intellectual world.

  “Wreck, as the resident liberal of the group, I share your concerns about population control. The genocide in Africa is appalling. Estimates are that nearly 4 million people were killed in Congo in the war of 1998. A half million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by rampaging Hutus in a hundred days. Millions more have become internally displaced or have sought asylum in neighboring countries. My cousin is in an African aid group. She says nobody outside of the country seems to care. She’s told me about seeing five year olds with their hands cut off by the invading army. Ten year old girls raped and tortured. Villages burned down.

  “Sub-Saharan Africa has one crisis after another. Then we have the Philippines, Palestine, Iraq, Syria and North Africa--country after country engaged in generally meaningless attempts to kill off their neighbors. Columbia has a perpetual civil war. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres recently reported that there are more people displaced now than at any time since World War II.

  “Obviously the planet is not the home of universal happiness. And for the good life we certainly passed the maximum population some time ago, if two billion people is the maximum load the earth can endure. Fewer would obviously be better. By 2050 the population may stabilize at 10 billion people. With ¼ child less per woman we would reach 2 billion in 2300. But can we survive 200 more years with the scarcities of water and power and with polluted air and water? We need to do it faster.”

  “Nature will handle the situation if we don’t. And nature can be more brutal than we are. Diseases will take their toll. Untreatable tuberculosis kills a few million a year. When I left the planet there were 40 million with AIDS and over 20 million had died from it. Was this a blessing or a curse? The life expectancy in Zimbabwe had fallen from 60 to 30. But they can still produce a number of children before they are 30 and most of the children will be HIV positive.

  “Nature seems to be trying to limit populations Along with HIV we have ebola, malaria, famines, influenzas, tidal waves, wars, uprisings, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and earthquakes. And if those don’t control the total world population then we have homosexual partnerships, assuming they don’t have children. The power drive of political madmen from Genghis Khan, Alexander and Caesar to Hitler, Pol Pot and Hussein have worked to kill off both soldiers and civilians. Weapons of mass destruction, now available to most power hungry leaders and fanatics, can control populations more effectively and sadistically today than at any time in the past. Poison the water supply of a city, let loose deadly pathogens in the air, use nuclear weapons against major cities like New York, London, Tokyo, Beijing or Paris.

  “Or maybe we’ll follow the pattern of Dr. Calhoun’s mice. Maybe it will be done through a worldwide atomic war. But wouldn’t it be ‘loverly’ if we would solve it with our intelligence? And restricting births is the most obvious solution. But further, allowing children to be born to the best possible parents certainly is an altruistic goal.

  “Would it be better to reduce the population voluntarily, with its rather minor adjustment problems or should we wait for the devastation that Mother Nature and her psychotic warrior sons will undoubtedly wreak? Which approach will result in the least amount of human suffering?”

  “Tell me about it, Wreck! Human history is little more than recanting the wars of conquerors and religious liberators advancing their causes while eliminating the heretics. As a utopian, I can’t help but hope that we can end wars, increase education and toleration, and save our planet. But the realities of human nature, as shown from our history, tell me that it is improbable. Still I hope for the best. I hope that reason will overcome our selfishness—and that our logical potentials will win out over our psychological propensities.”

  “Well Lee, I would like to think that we could live in a stress free utopian world, but the classical utopian ideals can’t be reached today. At least I don’t think so. Every utopia requires that people give up some freedoms and desires. It may be the family, private property, some controls on freedom of speech or of the press. The task is to keep as many freedoms as possible while controlling population increases through education, rewards and punishments. The rewards might be financial, educational, vocational or recreational. The punishments might also be financial, educational and vocational and might also include imprisonment.

  “H.G. Wells in Modern Utopia rightly said that the utopian plans of the past postulated a content citizenry, but no society can exist without friction, conflicts and wastes. In my search for utopia, I am really just looking for a better way for today and the dawn of tomorrow. Obviously if Plato or More were writing today they would have quite different plans for their societies. Economics change. Political realities change. No one would plan a utopia based on a small state like Plato did with
Sparta. Today a globalized utopia would be the goal. But the prejudices of the people, the roles of religions and the call of a democratic

  freedom push and pull the possibilities for order. The best we can hope for is that we can agree on stopping the population explosion, reducing the violence, stopping the global warming, and installing workable democracies that allow for freedom and universal education. We can’t eliminate poverty until these are accomplished. We can’t eliminate diseases until we can control our environment. We can’t eliminate our self imposed inhumanity to our human neighbors until we make the pragmatic changes that need to be made. But just what changes can be made and should be prioritized? That’s what I want to concentrate on.

  “There are a number of ways society might work to reduce childbirth, especially to young mothers. One might make it illegal to have a child before 18. Twenty-five would even be better. I understand that if pregnancies were prevented until 25 it could reduce the number of children born worldwide by about 40%. But while such methods might easily reduce population they might not increase the happiness of those children.

  “I don’t like America’s approach to limiting population. Our Constitutional freedom to own guns helps by having psychos shooting school children, that way they’ll never reproduce. Then, of course, our gangs kill each other repeatedly. That reduces our population and saves money on prisons—the dead guys won’t commit any more crimes. Then there are the accidental shootings of children by parents and parents by children, But then—that’s the American way!

  LICENSING PARENTS

  “So let me talk about my other concern, licensing parents. In the early 1900s maybe a few people dreamed of space travel. But did any even conceive of television, computers, the internet, artificial hearts, atomic power? There were probably no such dreams, and certainly no concrete plans to achieve any dreams that might have existed. But to reduce population is not just a dream but a very real need—probably the greatest need that we humans have ever encountered. And there is a plan. It is already being done in some countries. And that plan is aimed at fulfilling the hope that every child born into the diminishing population is loved and cared for, is educated, and is given every opportunity to live a satisfying and socially worthwhile life. Effective parenting licensing is the answer to both problems.”

  “Wreck, would you still advocate licenses if the birthrate were being reduced in most countries?”

  “Yes Ray. We still need to protect children until all are guaranteed an effective childhood, where every child is loved, cared for and effectively educated. If you know any teachers or social workers you can find out about the number of parents in every walk of life, that abuse their children. Children should be wanted and parents should be taught what their children need in order to grow up effectively. They need to know about their physical, emotional and mental needs. And potential parents should be screened to make certain that their own emotional maturity levels are mature enough to be able to raise a child. I think it’s a shame that a half million children in the U.S. are being raised in foster homes. Research shows that more children are being raised by grandparents than parents. Then look at the number being raised by TV and video games. Seems to me that there aren’t as many children who are really wanted as most people would like to believe. ‘Making the baby’ is obviously more fun than ‘making the child’ for the great majority. And a child has only one childhood. It must be the best and most loving experience possible

  “When the state of South Dakota passed its anti-abortion law, excepting only to save the life of the mother, even rape victims could not have an abortion. And South Dakota has an extremely high rape level. I assume that the legislators know that every child of a rape will have a mother who is as financially and emotionally secure and loving as the average child born to a happily married couple. We can certainly assume that any raped mother will desperately want the child that was conceived in violence, fear, desperation and hate. And if the rapist doesn’t marry her he will certainly send his monthly support checks.

  “You probably read the best selling book Freakonomics (8) it theorized that the major reason that crime has dropped is that the Supreme Court allowed abortion in Roe v. Wade twenty years earlier. Poorer women, whose children would most likely find their way into gangs and crime, procured abortions and thus reduced the number of potential criminals.

  “Is it really more important to just have a baby born or is it more important to have a baby born who will be wanted and loved and will have the opportunity for a healthy and satisfying life? Wouldn’t you support abortion in that case Ray?”

  “Never! The Church’s position is that the soul is infused into the fertilized ovum at the instant of conception. That should be perfectly clear to any thinking person. Aren’t you a thinking person, Wreck?”

  “Well I don’t know enough to argue about that issue right now, but I know it’s something I will ask Dr. Wang about when we get to Kino.”

  “Even without the religious concerns, in the more primitive societies children are often economic assets. They are the necessary hands for tilling the fields and they are the essential old age security for their parents.”

  “That’s true Ray, so if we reduce a population something would have to be done to set up government care for the elderly who don’t have children. But you would have to agree that in the non-agricultural, developed economies-- children cost money. Some families are happier with children, most are not. Children are no longer economically useful because there are fewer small farms and the labor is machine-generated, not human-generated.

  “I’ve thought about this most of the time I was in space. Our biggest problem right now is how to convince the people, the politicians and all the religious leaders that population must be controlled. Is it the will of Allah to see the human race in misery? Is it the will of God to see His world heading for oblivion. Did the Supreme Being give humans intelligence to control their instincts and change their traditions?

  “I think that voluntary population control with the increased possibility of loving parents will make the world safer for all. And it should reduce the number of warrior leaders

  and terrorists in the world because more children will be shown the path to loving rather than loathing, helping rather than hating. I know that in Norway one in three new mothers is over

  30. I would guess that they would be more financially secure and psychologically mature than your average 17 year old mother in LA.

  “Think about it. Look at the laws for licensing we have enacted. What is more important for society, dogs on a leash or concerned and loving parents, driving a car or increasing the chances that humankind can live peacefully and in a friendly environment without famine and pollutions? If it’s more important should it be licensed to ensure that the most important things are a legitimate concern of the society?”

  “But Wreck, licensing parents would be genocide because the poor and uneducated would most likely not be given licenses. Poor Indians and sub-Saharan blacks would obviously be targeted.”

  Chet had sat quietly but felt compelled to enter the free-for-all.

  ---------------------------

  “Ray wouldn’t you call what the Africans are doing to each other genocide? When I covered Africa for World News I was appalled by the cruelty and killing. They didn’t seem to see it as genocide, at least not as racial genocide. It’s not a racial thing to license parents. It is a human thing. But a proposal for licensing would certainly run into incredible opposition and in America and most other countries would be politically impossible to accomplish. The Christians, particularly the Catholics and Mormons, the Muslims, and the national rulers who don’t want their constituencies reduced, business people who want to expand the consumer base, and certainly the tradition of having children—will be huge obstacles.”

  “What if we make it voluntary Chet,—money or free education for voluntary sterilization or having small families—money direct to the
people—bypassing the leaders. Today billions are given to eradicate disease in Africa. Even if diseases are controlled, the poor will be even poorer and more miserable if they continue to produce large numbers of children. There have to be financial incentives for today and for the future to motivate them effectively.

  “Don’t you think that we have a duty to make every child’s life worthwhile. With death by hunger, genocide and disease rampant in Third World countries and with mental illness, abuse and the lack of optimal opportunities throughout the world in all societies, protection of children is an essential. If they are to be born, society owes them the best chance at a healthy, happy and useful life.”

  “Don’t you all agree that children should be properly parented? But most people want the right to have children—as many as they want. They may call it a human right. But others call for children’s human rights to have the best parents possible. Sometimes these proposed human rights, those of the potential parents and those of the children, are in conflict.

  “Do you think that the 13 year old father and the 15 year old mother who had a child in the UK in 2008 can properly parent their child? Alfie Patton, who sired the child when he was 12 and whose voice had not yet changed, told a reporter that ‘I thought it would be good to have a baby. I didn’t think about how we would afford it. I don’t really get pocket money. My dad sometimes gives me £10. . . . We wanted to have the baby but were worried about how people would react. I didn’t know what it would be like to be a dad. I will be good, though, and care for it.’(8a)

  "What about that unmarried unemployed Los Angeles woman who had octuplets after already mothering six children under the age of eight. And with three of those children were handicapped! And all living with her mother in a three bedroom house! Seems to me that these children won’t have an optimal start in life—even in California.

  “To protect children we have laws requiring car seats and laws to require that parents not lock them in cars when they go shopping. We require that they go to school or have adequate home schooling. Schools may require vaccinations to protect the child from a disease. Government has introduced child labor laws, standards for required financial child support, and now often holds the parents responsible for the crimes of their children.

  Government increasingly has moved to protect children from the possible abuse by parents or others. No thinking informed person would say that there are not some parents in the world who are incompetent or abusive.

  “I remember a story in the Los Angeles Times many years ago in which it was reported that criminally abusive parents, after being released from prison, were given their young children back. Within three days the three year old girl was dead from exhaustion because her father forced her to continue running around the house while periodically beating her. I cried, and still do when remembering the story. My daughter was three at the time. To think of her being similarly abused sickened me beyond belief.

  “A friend told me about witnessing the boyfriend of a neighbor standing a little girl on a table then punching her hard enough to knock her to the floor, then standing her up and repeating the process. My neighbor called the police who took the hateful Satan to jail. But that didn’t remove the physical or psychological scars from the little girl. These abuses are not confined just to little girls, although girls seem to be the major objects of abuse. When professional football player Laveranues Coles told his team, then the world, that he had been sexually abused by his stepfather for years, at gunpoint, it shocked the nation.

  “How many abusing or murdering parents should society tolerate? 1%, 10%? How many children should be allowed to be sexually abused by parents or others? How many should be allowed to be psychologically abused? How many should we allow to be born with AIDS? How many should be allowed to be born into abject poverty? How many should suffer through childhood continually malnourished? The ideal would be none! We probably can’t get to that level, but we can certainly reduce the number.”

  Lee couldn’t restrain himself any longer.

  “I was talking to an industrial psychologist at my office the other day. He said that how a child is going to be treated may already be predetermined before the baby is conceived. If a mother wants to have the family she never had in her lifetime, then the child is going to have to make her feel that she has a warm, loving family. Later, when the child wants to do things on his own the mother may see it as a threat to her preconceived need for a close family. She is using the child to fulfill her needs, rather than being an effective parent and helping the child to satisfy its own needs and developing its potentials.

  “Young pregnant unmarried girls I have talked to almost universally want a baby so they will have someone to love them. Obviously this is the reverse of what is needed for a baby. Babies need someone who can love them and help them to grow mentally and emotionally. In fact it takes maturity to be able to love, and no child has such maturity. It is the job of the parent to develop the self-respect in the child that is fundamental to being able to love. Another reason young girls may want children is because it proves that they are adults. So adulthood is thought of as strictly biological, not involving mental or emotional maturity, not involving any ability to financially take care of oneself, not involving any socially useful purpose.

  “I’ve heard young men say that the reason they wanted a child is to carry on the family name. This is another disservice to the child. Children should be conceived so that they can become physically and emotionally healthy people, not so that their parents can indulge some adolescent need or feeling. This just continues the train of insecure needy people who don’t have the emotional requirements for raising an emotionally healthy child. And what about babies born to crack addicted mothers, mothers with AIDS, alcoholic mothers who risk inflicting their babies with fetal alcohol syndrome?

  "Do you remember that back in January of 2016 David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the UK, suggested that all parents take classes on how to raise their children. This is obviously too late, but it is still a step in the right direction. Naturally there were those resisting the proposal calling it a 'nanny' state move. But no one could disagree with the fact that there were far too many children who were rebellious, lazy, drank too much, did not study, entered lives of crime, became early and ineffective parents and were anchors to the economic and social progress of the society."

  “Lee, I should probably do a TV show on this subject. If children have any rights how can they be protected? Actually they don’t have any rights if society doesn’t spell them out and enforce them. Many elements in society are doing a great deal to protect what they call the rights of the unborn. Some even murder living adults, particularly doctors who perform abortions, but there is no such zeal to protect a child once it is born. Is that logical? Shouldn’t all children have the right to develop their potentials fully?”

  “That would be a good idea, Chet. I know a couple of attorneys in my firm who would help you put it together. But Wreck, I see several potential problems when suggesting that parents be licensed. One is that when you suggest something that flies in the face of a tradition, especially a tradition that began as a cultural imperative—you are going to have problems. But back to your licensing proposal, you must admit that there are a few stumbling blocks to licensing parents to have children.”

  “More than a few! Some would say that to have children is a command by God to ‘be fruitful and multiply.’ We find it in both Genesis 1 and 9. Some would say that it is a right, like the rights to freedom of speech and religion, even though it is not spelled out in the Constitution. However legal limits have been placed on freedom of speech. And freedom of religion limits human sacrifice and usually does not allow handling poisonous snakes or

  drinking poison. (9) Even refusing medical treatment on religious grounds is not always allowed. Legal decisions exist that both allow and disallow the state to preempt the refusal of medical treatment for children because of religious beliefs.”
<
br />   “You’re talking law now, so let me add my two cents worth. Many modern societies grant the right of free speech, but it is not without limits. In fact in the United States the right to say just about anything seems to be possible. While the oft quoted remark of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (10) that ‘you don’t have the right to yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater’ may have once been the standard of the law, the right to free speech has been significantly loosened. For example the Supreme Court of the U.S. found it to be a legal use of free speech when it allowed a Ku Klux Klan member to advocate the killing of Jews and ‘niggers.’(11)

  “The free speech of Socrates was muted in ancient Athens, when his gadfly bite forced those who were able—to think. So he drank the hemlock and society was again at peace—the peace that comes with the certainty of tradition and the bliss of ignorance.

  “Following the subway bombings in London, Muslim cleric Hamza al-Masri was sentenced to seven years in prison for inciting the killing of non-believers—particularly through joining al-Qaeda. His rhetoric was certainly fiery. But at about the same time there were no arrests made of Muslims demonstrating against the notorious Danish cartoons, even though the demonstrators called for the extermination of those who mocked Islam. And in England, two far right wing agitators, who were arrested for attempting to rile up the crowd to attack the wicked religion of Islam, were acquitted in court.

  “Freedom of religion is also not absolute. It must always be seen in terms of compelling state interests. (12) The U.S. has found that a military uniform can not include a religious article of clothing such as a yarmulke (13) On the other hand when a religious group used, for religious purposes, a tea that contained an hallucinogenic drug that is otherwise banned in the U.S. and throughout most of the world, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the government had not proven that banning the drug in this case had demonstrated a compelling state interest. (14) Another way to refute a religious liberty is to prove that ‘a clear and present danger’ to the state exists. Such a danger is often hard to prove.”

  “So you’re saying that to allow parent licensing in the U.S. judges would have to be convinced that it was a ‘compelling state interest’ or that not licensing would present a ‘clear and present danger’ to the state of the nation? Or maybe that certain potential parents would probably provide a ‘clear and present danger’ to their planned child.”

  “Those are possibilities. ‘Difficult cases make bad law’ is an old law school saying. When a severe case, such as one that threatens society, is dealt with severely, how can the society deal less harshly with a similar case that tends to back up the present prejudices of the society?

  “We don’t allow unlimited freedom. People who may be a danger to themselves or others may be removed from society and placed in mental institutions or prisons. In other cases we require licensing or a specified level of education before allowing certain activities, such as doctoring or filling prescriptions. Look at how many types of activities have been licensed— car drivers, truck drivers, teachers, child care centers, dentists, contractors, real estate sales people, psychologists, the list goes on and on. And which of these activities is more important than parenting?

  “We are so often prisoners of our times. A woman who wanted an abortion in 1850 was imprisoned more often then than she would be today. Today if she lives in an area where it is illegal, there is often a nearby area where it is permitted so a few hours by plane or train and she is in a different, more permissive, time and place.”

  “As in many important cases we have one person’s perceived rights versus another person’s perceived rights. Few ‘rights’ are universal—maybe none are. “Don’t murder someone in your own society” is a generally recognized ‘right’ and duty, but it is certainly not universally adhered to. Street gangs regularly murder others. Secret state organizations like the CIA of the USA, FSB as the successor of the KGB in Russia, or the Israeli Mossad regularly kill others in their societies. Genocides in Africa have people in the same state and same tribe killing each other.

  “And what society are we talking about? The world society as seen by the United Nations? Our nation? Then what about civil wars? If I am a gang member is my society only my street gang?

  “Treason is a universal no-no whether it is to the general society or to the gang. But sometimes the traitors become heroes—patriots. Look at the instigators of the American and French Revolutions.

  “Talking about rights, in today’s world few people have the legal right to terminate their own lives, even if they are suffering horribly. Only a few countries grant this right to euthanasia. You may not even have the right to refuse medical treatment. So these highly personal desires are seldom ‘rights’ in the societies in which we live.

  “Also, your rights may shift depending on who is in authority. The right to an abortion may be rescinded by a new legislature or a new court. Your Constitutional ‘right’ to practice your religion as you see fit can be affirmed by one court even if you are breaking serious laws, such as using potentially dangerous psychoactive drugs or are handling poisonous snakes and drinking strychnine. An absolute monarch, of course, has the power to control your actions, but even a democratic government, based on laws can take away what one thinks is a ‘right.’ And often what one thinks is a ‘right’ is nothing more than a selfish desire. It does not have the legal governmental sanctions to make it a ‘right.’

  “Some parents have been sterilized to prevent them from having children. There was a eugenics movement in the United States and northern Europe during the first half of the 20th Century. It allowed sterilization of some potential parents, usually due to mental incompetence. These laws have generally been rescinded, but a U.S. Supreme court case (15)

  allowed a state institutionalized imbecile, who was both the child and the mother of other imbeciles, to be sterilized. However in a later case a man who was merely a criminal was not required to have a state sterilization because he had not been granted due process. But the way was still clear for sterilizations in other instances. (16)

  “Legally the state is in loco parentis, ‘in place of the parents’. And while the state does not want to get into the business of raising children, it often must take over where the parents have proven unable or incompetent.”

  “Gosh Lee, I didn’t realize that we had such court decisions. You lawyers and judges have sure screwed up our country!”

  “Point taken, but now Wreck, what requirements would you propose for a license if it were legal?”

  “I have some ideas but I want to visit some of the countries that have enacted licensing and see what they propose and how their programs are proceeding. It does bother me that some religions advocate large families but expect that their own or other societies will pay for them. I wonder how this is being handled in countries that require licenses.”

  “Who are you suggesting should determine the qualifications for parenthood Wreck?”

  “Psychologists, family counselors, teachers, even the electorate could be involved. But one reason we’re going to take this trip is to observe what some nations have done. So let’s hold off on this one for a while. And remember the idea is not necessarily to only license potential ideal parents but rather to eliminate those who have little or no competence at the time they apply for the license. Those who are likely to mistreat their children would be eliminated. We would certainly want to make certain that there was financial ability. We would want to assess the emotional maturity to be unselfish relative to the child’s needs.”

  “Psychologists? I hear that generally people study psychology to throw suspicion off themselves! But let’s say you come up with a decent test. How would you know that your elite parent candidates won’t someday abuse their children. How are you going to weed out the sexual predators? We certainly had that problem among some priests and look at the screening and education we have all had to go through.”

  -

 
“At this stage of our knowledge of emotional development we can’t be absolutely certain. Just like we are not certain that a doctor who passes the medical boards will be able to diagnose without error or to operate perfectly every time. Science is about probabilities not

  certainties. If even the lowest 1% of the worst possible parents were eliminated we would have accomplished something positive for the children of our nation and our world. But there have been tests developed which have been proven to be quite accurate, although not infallible.

  “But on with our discussion. I suppose that getting a license would be no real problem to responsible people, but might create great anger and frustration among those who were denied a license.”

  Ray was furious, or at least as angry as a man of God might be.”