Michelle Duggar, she of the 19 kids and counting, has some strong words for people who accuse her and her husband's prolific babymaking of being wasteful or irresponsible in an overpopulated world: overpopulation doesn't exist, because the entire global population can easily fit inside of the Jacksonville, Florida city limits. Your move, scientists.
During a web interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Michelle Duggar was asked how she could justify having such a large family in a world of limited resources. Duggar dismissed the charges that there was anything selfish about her choice, because there can never be too many children. She says,
Well, first off, the idea of overpopulation is not accurate because, really, the entire population of the world, if they were stood shoulder to shoulder, could fit in the city limits of Jacksonville. So if you realize that aspect of it, we realize we're not anywhere near being overpopulated.
As my Swedish grandfather would say: uff dah.
To Duggar's credit, she follows that dubious assertion up with some sense talking — buying used cars and used clothing and living resourcefully can help reduce a family's environmental impact. But to suggest that a family of 22 people doing their very best to conserve resources is somehow environmentally friendly is a dubious assertion indeed. A family of three or four would practically have to prance around throwing a trail of styrofoam packing peanuts in their wake to leave the same sort of carbon footprint that the Duggars leave. And it's impossible to suggest that every single family buy used goods ad infinitum — until clothing and cars are made to be infinitely durable, someone at some point needs to consume a new product lest America start looking like the S&M Australian wasteland in Mad Max: Road Warrior.
Duggar then goes on to proclaim that her children will be the ones paying for Social Security and stuff, because they'll be out there doing good while other people are doing lazy, leechy stuff like declaring their home a church so that they don't have to pay property taxes on it.
Further, according to Duggar, countries all over the world are experiencing crises where their death rates are outnumbering their birth rates. People from these countries are showing up to America's shores, desperately begging Americans to please, please have more babies so that the human race doesn't go extinct. The world isn't overpopulated at all! We just hallucinated that 7 billionth person being born. Humans are an endangered species! Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying!
What is it about Michelle Duggar that makes me want to have a lemonade and Rice Krispie bar with her even though I know she'd spend the whole encounter trying to convert me to Christianity or telling me that a vacant uterus contains just enough room to hold the devil?