OF ALL things people are the most precious. -- Mao Tse Tung
That's the epigram for Chapter 13, "Population Policies," of Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment by Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich, and John P. Holdren (1977). (See the snip below.)
Mr. Holdren is President Obama's science and technology czar.
Mr. Mao Zedong (the modern spelling) was chairman of the Communist Party of China. Says his Wikipedia entry, fully sourced on this point:
Mao's policies and political purges from 1949-1975 are widely believed to have caused the deaths of between 40 to 60 million people.
Class assignment: Read the epigram again and reconcile it with "deaths of between 40 to 60 million people."
For extra credit: Explain why sensible people would ever have quoted Mr. Mao on the subject of population control.
Here's a snip of the relevant screen at Questia.com:
To see this yourself, click on Ecoscience above, scroll down the left column, and click on "Chapter 13 Population Policy."
Click here for Anita Dunn's encomium to Mao.
UPDATE: Thanks for the link from Mark Hemingway, a regular at National Review's blog, "The Corner." And a big howdy to "Corner" readers who stop by. A related post here.
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