The idea of marching morons assumes intelligence is hereditary. While I will not deny there are hereditary components to intelligence, ie fetal alcohol babies rarely win nobel prizes, you don't have to be a genius to raise your child properly.

I think, Dinozoa, that Ben Bova was making a different point. He wasn't talking about raising a child 'properly,' he was talking about making babies, period - quantity, not quality. Who is more likely to have the time (and lack of family planning) to spawn a dozen children, two college professors or two people on welfare? Which pair is more likely to then encourage their offspring to go to college?

Also, more to the point is the fact that intelligence aside, those who have the best chance of rearing educated, well adjusted children are the ones who are not breeding.

In other words, the only people who respond to the call to limit population growth are those who are intelligent and educated enough to see the problem, and be willing to do something about it. Whereas those who cannot understand the reason for the call, and who therefore have the greatest chance of rearing equally ignorant children, continue to breed like rabbits.

Don't worry, the 'Bling Bling'‘en status North Americans will soon join the rest of the world as the oil ownership of the west looses control. We'll all be driving horse-carts and selling wheat and pork for a few CNY.
Western Americans have had the benifit of an industrial exploitist economy for decades. We buy gasoline for less than we pay for bottled water. We pay a fraction of an hour's wages for a litre of sterile water which is worth a life in areas of Africa. An oilfield worker in my area of the world takes home $50K to $120K CAD a year, while the same worker in Kuwait makes $1944 CAD (1660 USD) per year. There's a reason why everything you buy has 'Made in China' or 'Manufactured in India' stamped on it.
North America has made a 100 year career out of exploiting the poverty of second and third world contries, but woth a loosing ground: the morons spoken of here can't coninue the battle.
America has become so used to it's 30 second hamburger and its rediculious social security that it can no longer sustain it's supremecy. In the 50's Donald Rumsfeld would have been presidential material, now we make a demon of his policies, but shrug off the left wingers of american politics as 'greasy hippies' (using different words doesn't change the meaning) and rightfully writing thier ideals off as idealistic banter.
Think we've got a solution ahead? Look forward to China and it's unwavering socialist expansion, or India with a hard common religious expansionist value system. North Americans are having 1.2 children per couple while the third world is having 4 - 9.
Of course the meak shal inherit the earth!