THE NATION: SO WHAT IF EUROPE DEMOGRAPHICALLY COLLAPSES? STOP BEING SUCH A NATIVIST!

There's so much wrong with this article that it took us three readings just to figure out what was going on. As near as we can tell, there are at least three claims being made by Katha Pollitt:

(1) Global population collapse is good
(2) European population collapse is good
(3) Conservatives who want to stop population collapse by rolling back liberal policies are stupid because liberal policies encourage population growth (or at least, she's saying something like this).

We weren't even going to blog the article - a left-wing cheer for European collapse is eye-rollingly common these days - until we got to that third, strikingly dishonest, part:

As Lerner notes, the countries with the most rigidly patriarchal families and the most sexist workplaces are the ones with the lowest birthrates. (That's something for the World Congress of Families to consider when it meets in May in Warsaw. Founded by right-wing "family values" ideologue Allan Carlson, the WCF inveighs against abortion, same-sex marriage and secularism and promotes large "natural families" and "religious orthodoxy." I don't get the feeling working moms are on the agenda.)

Obviously, that statement can't be true. At least it can't be true if you include countries where women can't go to work - Muslim countries with skyrocketing birthrates in Africa and Asia - as countries that have "sexist workplaces".

Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric...