After watching Keith Olberman's special comment on the Tea Party movement, I was confused by a particular sign that I saw in the clip. It said, "Tea bag the liberal dems before they tea bag you."
Wondering what on earth that could possibly mean (and if that person understood what "tea bag" means) I went to the website listed on the bottom of the sign: freerepublic.com.
Well I didn't get an alternate definition of what "to tea bag" means, other than the one I already know from urban dictionary, but what I did get was this article, posted today:

(Canadian) Parliament Report Sounds Alarm: Low Birth Rate + Ageing [sic] = Financial Crisis
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2454480/posts

Basically the author is writing about the challenges Canada's economy will soon face due to their falling population. It's true that when you have an aging population, you'll have more people to take care of and less people to care for them. But this writer apparently doesn't see why a population can't increase forever! It's a natural thing- populations increase exponentially until they reach a certain point, and then they fall gradually until they reach a sustainable level. It's not the end of the world. It happened naturally in France without any laws, but it also happened on purpose in China when they realized that in order to get to a sustainable population they needed to pass a "One-Child-Per-Family" law. There's a good reason to try to limit the population: to prevent people from going hungry. We already have a shocking number of people on earth who struggle with hunger daily, so why should we think that we can allow this to go on?
The author also writes that the mainstream media is trying to "diminish the fertility rate" and warns readers that "Such ventures may sound conspiratorial, but evidence for them abounds."
Actually it's not a conspiracy, it's not a secret, and what you're seeing isn't evidence of someone trying to limit a woman's fertility, but evidence of reasoned people finding ways to slow or reverse the growth of an unsustainable population WITHOUT limiting an individual's choice. And unlike many problems, there's a quick fix to this one: By letting women choose when they do and do not wish to have children. They will limit their own families based on how many children they want and can support. Apparently in Canada, the average is 1.5. I see nothing wrong with that, but the author says this is far below the "2.1 replacement rate." 

(As an aside to the author, should you read this, you need some remedial English and Math classes. 2.1 doesn't make sense as a replacement rate because there are only TWO parents. If your growth rate was 2.1 children per 2 parents, your population would actually be increasing. And "Aging" doesn't have an "e." Lastly, why did you put "Canadian" in parentheses? It's not grammatically incorrect, just poor style. Back to my rant...)

So is this what you're really afraid of, conservatives? You're so afraid of taxes that you are willing to pass laws banning abortion and contraception so that women will have more babies so that those babies will grow up and make a larger workforce so that the elderly can be supported for a minimum amount of money being taken away from that workforce?
Hmmm... which of those sounds like a conspiracy now- the one that gives women a choice, or the one that forces them to have babies, whether they can feed and clothe and care for them physically and emotionally or not, and then even tries to "change their attitude" about it? 
And what makes more sense to you- your theory that an economy can grow forever if we deregulate enough, and a population can grow forever (even though the space and resources on the planet are, in fact, finite) if we can just find ways to force women to have more babies- or those crazy left-wingers warning you that what goes up must come down? Hate to break it to you, but as Stephen Colbert once put it, "Reality has a liberal bias."
I can't wait for the day that the Republican party moves back to the center. When it does, maybe we'll be able to talk seriously about fiscal responsibility and how best to protect our economy and limit our government while still providing for the needy, caring for the sick, respecting the equal rights of everyone, and without harming the earth. That's my idea of a more perfect union. Not this crazed, racist, sexist, homophobic, regressive, and just plain illogical vision of the US that the Tea Partiers have. It's sad that their shrill cries are overpowering the quiet and intelligent voices of those who are reasonable and respectable in the Republican party- the kind of people we on the left would like to work with.