I don’t know if I’m parsing this correctly. Are you saying that the only reason people get dogs in your particular apartment building in Austin is because everyone else has one?
Or are you saying that, in general, the only reason that people get dogs is because everyone else has one? The latter just isn’t correct. And I can’t speak to your particular apartment building, but I’d expect it’s not true for everyone there either.
And I know the stats on dog attacks. Something like 10 a year from pitbulls could easily be down to owners buying them specifically to use them as weapons and training them as such.
I don’t think so… given breeds have different reputations, there’s no reason to expect that anything about their owners distributions to be random.
I don't really have a strong opinion on the subject, but in my life, Doberman Pinchers and German Shepherds have gone through phases of being seen as dangerous breeds as well. My suspicion is that owners who desire aggressive dogs also tune into this and train their dogs accordingly.
Also, FWIW, the only dogs I have been bitten by were a Chihuahua and a Pomeranian.
Smoking and parenthood are lifestyle choices, which have consequences. Skin color is not, and shouldn't. It is not relevant to the conversation.
While the latter is certainly extremely reasonable and humane relative to the former, that condition is still an insurmountable barrier for lower income, cognitively impaired, or otherwise vulnerable folks.
If you lack the means to obtain another citizenship, you are more or less the partial property of the government you were born into (given they are legally entitled to a portion of all your earnings), and you have no way of leaving.
That we more or less "trap" the vulnerable into partial financial servitude wherever they're born makes me mildly uncomfortable in the same manner that the concept of chattel slavery makes me deeply uncomfortable - no person or institution ought to have such dominion over another living, breathing person that the latter cannot disassociate from former.
We wax and wane about the necessity of such resulting from the social contract, but the social contract is the only contract I know of that is both serious and enforced (even if not literally defined), whilst not being one that you enter into voluntarily.
A key component of what renders a contract valid in contractual law in the US (stemming from common law) is that all parties to the contract must enter into it voluntarily, with full knowledge of it, free from coercion or deception.
We at least ought to stop calling it a "contract" and start calling it what it really is - Demands for involuntary tributes to the ruling elites (who benefits more from taxpayer dollars - the poor and needy, or Lockheed Martin executives?), that you must comply with under threat of force, up to and including lethal if you resist the wrong way.
I'm not saying the alternative is simple, but it seems unjust to me that human societies force their most vulnerable people into subservient economic relationships with governments (that have lengthy track records of using those very same tax dollars to perform horrific and flagrant atrocities against humanity, like drone bombing weddings, abducting and torturing innocent people, etc), based purely on where they're born.
Animals don't engage in this kind of depravity - why must we?
I hope the societies of the distant future look back on our current system of government and see it for the barbaric, medieval, and inhumane institution it really was.
I am already 100% confident I will never see a penny from it, and as a result, I'm saving and investing so aggressively that I'll be on track for my investment income to exceed my FAANG income before I'm 40.
Relying on unsustainable government wealth redistribution programs is cargo cult behavior.
In any case, the woman has, at minimum, several months of time between the moment she becomes aware of a pregnancy and the moment a viable, live birth occurs.
Since the 70's, PP could get you in same week for an abortion. It didn't matter what the pregnant woman's skin color, income/wealth, zip code, age, disability, national origin, religious views, or any other bit of demographic data was - this was something rapidly and easily accessible to anyone with thousands of locations across the U.S.
Granted, this has regrettably changed in recent times, so I'll give you that.
On a tangent - it's so bizarre to me that when the conservatives who can almost incessantly be found talking about the importance of "small government" finally seized a modicum of real power in the US via SC majority, some of their very first actions were increasing the scope of the rules and regulations of big government. :|
You are mixing up many different unrelated topics here.
Smoking is [mostly] a choice. You used it for an analogy. You explained why it is good to have smoking laws. Then you act like this is part of the conversation on the same level as childfree zones. Smoking is a personal and a public health issue. You getting cancer is expensive for everyone, your non smoking flatmate getting smoking derived cancer is a tragedy (and expensive for everyone) Definitely not in the same level as ruckus, dirt and destruction of property.
Parenthood as in "how many children will someone have" is [mostly] a choice. But there are many reasons for society benefitting parenthood in spite of exclusionists (How to call them NIMBYS?)
-> Children are expensive for parents. CONVERSELY, they are fantastic for economy. Parents are forced to work because they MUST SPEND. Not that they want, they MUST pay for food, care, health, education, clothing, entertaiment.
-> Housing is a very important current issue. Not only in the US. In the few countries I have cared to pay attention, there is the pertinent mafia who has (unofficially exclusive) permission to build, and they naturally build less than required: it is obvious, less supply, better prices. Then add the "investors", buying all property to rent it. Now add the NIMBYS to that humanitary tragedy.
-> There comes a point when the rich country population is unsustainable, and the immigration floodgates are opened. (Cheap labor, anyone?) US and Canada are there already. If not done correctly, that creates many more social issues for everybody (even the immigrants)
Too bad, when you live in a society, you have to deal with other people living in the society including those under the age of 18.
Both concepts (white only and childfree) are the same (Exclusion of the others), and come from the same place (My right to have what I want is more important than everybody else's)
Same as it was considered bad taste to have blacks lingering around, now it is bad taste to have children running around.
It's also funny that you are OK with "it is bad taste to have dogs running around", almost like it's your preference..