I think I've seen Frosty's work before, but think we'll have a revolution before we add another 100 mil.
Consider the Machiavellian spin on Yugoslavia, I posted a couple years ago, stil up at
http://www.dc-pc.org/machveli/machveli.html bot to save the click, a rundown...
When a republic [Yugoslavia] has an intractable political problem [Catholic clerics & Muslim mullas were trying to ban birth control so as to increase their numbers at the polls and thereby disempower the Serbs who were Eastern Orthodox and used birth control], it will find a man of flawed character [Malosevic], to do what is necessary [dissolve the union and form Serbia for the people who limit their brith rate]. Then, after the fait accompli, they will disover his faults, and send him away, he taking the guilt for the action away with him, while they get to enjoy the fruits of the new status quo.
In 1980, the Serbs were 34% of the population and thereby could prevent a 2/3 majority from changing the constitution. They are now 31% of the same region. They saw what was coming. Malosevic killed 10% of the Croats and Albanians, which Machiavelli suggests is adequate to drive the rest out of the area.
For the Serbs, it was the only solution. With only 1-2 kids, they wanted to upgrade the school system to meet west european standards so their kids could go to college and earn enough for the western middle class lifestyle. But, the Albanians and Croats were flooding the school systems with kids, and the education level was falling. The Serbs tried establishing their own schools, but the majority in the legislature raised the taxes on the middle class to pay for building new schools, and the Serbs saw they were loosing contol of the situation needed to ensure the future of their own kids. What would you do for yours?
Its worth considering that the followers of 'be fruitful and multiply' religions set a very low priority on environmental issues. At some point, WASP women in America will come to the same conclusion that the Serbs did. You cannot run a republic with a decent respect for civil rights without a strong and prosperous middle class.
Both Gibbon and Machiavelli saw that the aristocracy encouraged immigration into Rome from tribes that lacked sound republican traditions to drive down the cost of labor and increase the numbers of the lower classes. They funded the campaigns of demagogues pandering to religion & ethnicty while making hidden deals to reduce the taxes on the rich.
As Mach noted, this works for a while, but the middle class goes broke, the tax base shrinks, and since the government cannot tax the people with the money, they *borrow* it. But eventually, some creditor sees that the tax base will no longer service the debt much less pay it off, and refuses to lend more. At which point there is economic crisis, riots in the streets, and they need to call someone in to restore order. In Rome, this was Caesar.
And his replacement, his nephew Octavian, was like Putin & Musharif, less corrupt and more competent than the oligarchs who had been running things. What's really different today is the internet. Octavian inherited Caesar's fortune and used it to dissemble his spin on events to the public. He also slandered the reputations of all senators who rose to speak against him, and appointed all the judges. Bush would tried to do the same, but he's nowhere near as smart as Octavian.
Which is not to preclude some smart demagogue using the new media, the internet, to get his message across, and suceed where Bush failed. But any such insightful leader will recognize there's no way to control the internet, so like Putin, he will try to avoid abusing the rights of the citizenry, and in fact set himself up, as Machiavelli says, as the representative of the citizens against the oligarchs.
Its worth considering that Malosevic was put in before the internet. And it was the US Air Force knocking out his TV and radio stations that eliminated his control over the media which was then replaced by voices more in keeping with American sensibilities.
I dont know if this historical analysis will be persuasive, and make the middle class break out of group think to examine the situation rationally. You not only need a middle class, you need one that is *rational*. But they were mostly raised on sugar cereals, junkfood, and sodapop, and did not receive the right trace elements and micronutrients during child hood for maximal mental development. Trying to figure out what irrational people will do is nearly impossible.
A rational middle class would not have let Bush get into the Oval Office. If the above analysis is right, crisis looms, and that sometimes wakes sheeple up. But sometimes they pick a Hitler. Thus, for some time now, I've advised moving to a small town or rural area as far away from the great power centers as possible. Things could get messy.