Last week, during a radio interview on NPR's Diane Rehm Show, Ted Turner showed once again how his dedication to a rather brutal form of secular humanism (one quite rigidly in favor of abortion, euthanasia, and coercive population control) can easily dismiss proven realities. In this case, those realities are so plain that even the liberal host of the program feels compelled to refer to them.Turner said during the interview that the word "control" in the term "population control" raises "a lot of bad connotations." After all, "people don't want to be controlled." And he agreed that was a proper response. He didn't want to be controlled either. So he repeated that believes in" voluntary" family planning.
Rehm's response suggests she can hardly believe Turner is denying what many observers have noted over the years regarding the barbaric coercion of China's one-child policy. So she gives him a chance to back out. She slowly repeats his own words, "as long as it's voluntary" so that he can correct the impression he has made.
Turner muffs the opportunity.
He continued, "The Chinese, and I think wisely, instituted a one-child policy. And they put in penalties, tax penalties and so forth, for people who have more than one child. But they're still a billion and half people in China, and, if you've been over there, it's so over-crowded you can barely turn around." And, he dug in further, "they've done it without draconian - as far as I can see - draconian steps. They do encourage people to have one child."
Rehm cannot let that pass and she quietly adds. "They've done more than encourage on several occasions."
Turner unashamedly shrugs off this fact. "Well, I'm not intimately familiar with everything."
