A “more permanent solution”?
Belmont Club links to a London Times story about the top ‘green’ adviser of Gordon Brown who wants to cut the population of the U.K. in half. He quotes a comment on the Times story which spells out some implications: “Just in case no one noticed, the article did not say that ‘slowing growth’ was necessary. It said that ‘cutting the population’ was the necessity. So I ask this: Who goes and who decides? Is emigration an option, or is a more permanent solution to be recommended?”
As I write, 62 comments have appeared on the Belmont Club story, but none asks the obvious follow-up question: Wouldn’t a more concise synonym for “more permanent solution” be “final solution”? I don’t know whether “Bill, San Francisco, USA”, the author of the phrase, slipped in the historical allusion consciously or unconsciously, but it seems thoroughly appropriate. If he meant to make the insinuation I have spelled out here, but wrote it Aesopically to avoid censorship, all I can say is: “Message received. Well done.”