Have any eugenics proponents ever heard of natural selection? It is a pretty amazing phenomenon that optimizes a genome to its environment without the need for politicians or invasive surgery.
I’m not a biologist, but it seems to me that if you know anything about selection pressure, you would know that the best way to change people’s traits would be to change the environment those people reproduce in. That is, bitch about welfare, not reproductive welfare mothers.
[QUOTE=DrCube]
Have any eugenics proponents ever heard of natural selection? It is a pretty amazing phenomenon that optimizes a genome to its environment without the need for politicians or invasive surgery.
I’m not a biologist, but it seems to me that if you know anything about selection pressure, you would know that the best way to change people’s traits would be to change the environment those people reproduce in. That is, bitch about welfare, not reproductive welfare mothers.
[/QUOTE]
Well, to be fair, a program of forced sterilization of welfare mothers is itself a particular extreme form of selection pressure (one wonders to what extent the various traits involved here are genetic/hereditary, but, all the same…).
[QUOTE=jayjay]
We could make the first rule “If you have ever used a number in place of a word (that wasn’t the name of the number), you may not breed”.
[/QUOTE]
What do you mean? Something like “She’s a ten”?
Careless reproduction and incompetent parenting are significant problems that help perpetuate the plight of the underprivileged, poor and dependent.
The costs of that unregulated procreation are born by society as well as those populations themselves, and your OP has a germ of legitimate concern in it.
Consider at least two other points:
I intended to participate in a debate last night but an electrical storm in the area kept making it impossible. Today I have a ton of things I have to get to, so I’ll limit what I say now to a couple of comments and let the thread die.
It’s clear that most of you strongly disagree with me on this issue. It’s too bad that you do because your children’s future looks very bleak, and worse still is that this jewel of a planet is going to pay the price with trillions of undesirables doing their thing.
It’s funny how some of you kept mentioning the Nazis even though I made it clear that the plan I’d like to see implemented had a good deal of kindness to it. You make it sound like it’s just sooo horrible that certain people shouldn’t be permitted to breed. And yet governments often impliment drafts to use young people for cannon fodder like it’s no big deal.
I wonder how many of you care about the rights of the unborn? I guess hacking them up (millions per year) doesn’t compare with making a snip on a person, right?
I’ve been told that the autobon, from which our interstates are based on, was Hitler’s idea. But do any of you refuse to use the interstates and hiways because of Hitler’s involvment of their creation?
I wonder why none of you commented on my question about those examples of parents gone bad that I gave? I asked you if they had the right to be parents, but there was no comment.
What a strange world this is.
[QUOTE=Keeve]
What do you mean? Something like “She’s a ten”?
[/QUOTE]
There’s a particularly striking example of what he means in the title of this thread.
[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
It’s clear that most of you strongly disagree with me on this issue. It’s too bad that you do because your children’s future looks very bleak, and worse still is that this jewel of a planet is going to pay the price with trillions of undesirables doing their thing.
[/quote]
Are you going to address any of the *reasons * people have given for their disagreement? They’re good reasons. Or are you going to continue to stick your fingers in your ears and shout “lalalala I can’t hear you!!!”?
Do you *honestly * not see the problems inherent in giving government the power to declare people “undesireable”? You *truly * don’t see the potential for abuse here?
Your definition of “kindness” is a little different from mine, apparently. Yes, it IS sooo horrible. Genocide sucks. War sucks too, of course, but it’s not terribly relevant to the discussion at hand.
Again, not terribly relevant, but… if we assume that *unwilling * parents would likely make *bad * parents, then shouldn’t *you * consider abortion a good thing? Or at least better than the alternative?
You shouldn’t believe everything you’re told. I think it’s part of your problem. Construction on the Autobahn began in 1913. Also? Highways? Different than eugenics.
Actually, people DID comment. Mostly to say that your examples were anecdotal and statistically irrelevant. Just because you don’t LIKE the answer doesn’t mean it’s not the answer.
It could be stranger. People could be allowed to implement crazy shit like this rather than just spout off about it on message boards. Me, I’ll take the current level of crazy, thanks.
[QUOTE=ITR champion]
3. What you propose is unconstitutional, so it can’t be implemented at any level of government.
[/QUOTE]
ITR champion, I agree with darn near every point you made, but I don’t think a eugenic system would be unconstitutional (I assume we’re talking about the U.S. constitution). What does it violate? The only thing that it might violate is “cruel and unusual punishment” (assuming that the Supreme Court would agree that it’s cruel, unusual, and a punishment, which in a government that legalized eugenics, they might not) but I’m not sure that the Eighth Amendment would apply to this situation- the people who would be sterilized would have committed no crime, and so I’m not sure if the Eighth Amendment applies directly.
Now, I’m not saying that eugenics is moral, but merely that it would be Constitutional. Unless you have evidence to the contrary, of course.
[QUOTE=appleciders]
ITR champion, I agree with darn near every point you made, but I don’t think a eugenic system would be unconstitutional (I assume we’re talking about the U.S. constitution). What does it violate? The only thing that it might violate is “cruel and unusual punishment” (assuming that the Supreme Court would agree that it’s cruel, unusual, and a punishment, which in a government that legalized eugenics, they might not) but I’m not sure that the Eighth Amendment would apply to this situation- the people who would be sterilized would have committed no crime, and so I’m not sure if the Eighth Amendment applies directly.
Now, I’m not saying that eugenics is moral, but merely that it would be Constitutional. Unless you have evidence to the contrary, of course.
[/QUOTE]
The first document of the US government was the Declaration of Independence, and it says that we are all endowed with the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. I suppose that many people could argue effectively that depriving someone of their reproductive faculties violates their right to the pursuit of Happiness. It’s easy to “what if” that one to death, “what if someone’s pursuit of happiness includes eating their neighbor’s skin? hmmm?”, but I’ll ignore such silliness for the time.
I’m amased that nobody typed the word “Nazi” until the 40th post. Someone advocated Eugenics, which is pretty much saying “Godwinize me, please”, and it took 40 posts.
Anywho, I have thought about the same thing, and while I’m not advocating doing this, I think that the only way to do it in the US would be in 6th grade when they take all the buys into the gym and all the girls into the auditorium and give them the birds & bees talk (do they still do that?), to instead take them to a clinic and get them reversable vasectomies & reversable tubal ligations (not 100% effective and not 100% reversible, I know that), then take them to the respective gym & autidorium and show them films about venereal disease with images of people in advanced stages of syphillus, active herpes lesions, AIDS, genetal warts,etc and then teach them about correct condom usage. Then let them apply to ahve the surgeries reversed when they are ready to have children.
Yes, I understand this violates basic human rights on many levels and is the perfect growth culture for abuse, corruption and graft by petty bureaucrats. And all the questions about what criteria to use to decide who can and can’t make babies (a point system? how do you score family history of genetic physical defects against mental illness, intelligence, etc), how to avoid racist eugenics instituted by local bureaucrats (race quotas for breeding? how to classify all us mixed breeds?),etc.
[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
I intended to participate in a debate last night but an electrical storm in the area kept making it impossible.
[/quote]
Well isn’t that convenient.
Nice promise. Too bad you didn’t keep it.
Wrong. Every single person disagrees with you. You should learn the difference between the words “most” and “all”.
That’s what they all say.
What’s funny about it? You believe that your plan for exterminating “undesirables” had a good deal of kindness. The Nazis also believed that their plan for exterminating “undesirables” had a good deal of kindness. Therefore comparisons between the two plans are quite appropriate, and not “funny” at all.
We don’t make it sound that way; it just is that way.
What’s you’re point. Are you saying that since government do one wrong thing, it’s okay for them to do every wrong thing?
Do a search and you’ll see that many people on this board do.
So your position is that the unborn have many rights while the born have none?
You been told a lie. Interstates have variable numbers of lanes, while the Autobahn always has two. Interstates have speed limits, the Autobahn does not. It’s tough to think of any two highway systems with more differences than the interstates and the Autobahn.
No. (Since Hitler had no involvement in the creation of interstates and highways, this is a rather vacuous statement.)
First of all, you did not ask whether any of those people in those examples had the right to be parents. Secondly, considering that you’ve refused to answer any of the many questions asked of you, it’s hypocritical of you to complain about anyone else failing to answer questions you asked, much less questions you did not ask.
There, at least, we are in agreement.
GuyNblueJeans, I would like to thank you for a valuable public service. The incoherent, rambling, unorganized, dishonest, mean-spirited, Orwellian garbage that you’ve spewed on this page has surely demonstrated once and for all that eugenics could never possibly appeal to any person who has the slightest trace of intelligence, logic, or humanity. You have debunked the idea of forced sterilization far more thoroughly than any of us could possibly hope to do. I am grateful from the bottom of my heart.
appleciders, in my interpretation the proposed eugenics program would violate amendments 8, 9, 10, and 14. Of course my interpretation is not entirely the same as that of the current Supreme Court, but I highly doubt that the current crop of mostly Republican lackeys would approve something like this.
[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
It’s clear that most of you strongly disagree with me on this issue. It’s too bad that you do, because your children’s future looks very bleak, and worse still is that this jewel of a planet is going to pay the price with trillions of undesirables doing their thing.
[/QUOTE]
There is no argument as weak as the one that starts off with “Well, if you disagree with me, your kids will die.” You’ve pretty much lost the debate right there.
You’ve not shown an iota of evidence that more people is a bad thing. We have more people now than we did ten years ago and on the whole we’re just as well off. We have FAR more people now than we did 100 years ago and I’d say we’re better off.
Nor have you produced any explanation as to how the government will adequately judge parenting skills before people become parents. The government can’t control its borders (I’m assuming you’re in the USA) can’t stop drunk driving, can’t catch tax cheats, doesn’t even have a cohensive plan for running national elections and generally makes an awful mess of almost everything it does, especially if it’s not a core function of government and often if it is, and you wan’t to give them control over something even you can’t articulate a real plan for that will, in all likelihood, cost billions upon billions of dollars in extra tax revenues/indebtedness, certainly causing as much harm to the economy as the bad parenting it might prevent and probably more, and will also result in thousands of cases of injustice, corruption, prejudice, and unncessary suffering. You also have not explained how you plan to make up for the corresponding loss in birth rate and demographic shock that could cause down the road (a problem many rich countries are already facing due to low birth rates.) Actually, you’ve demonstrated no grasp at all of the economic realities involved.
You have no evidence to support your idea. In fact, you barely have an idea, really.
GuyNblueJeans, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but many, many states did exactly this in the early 20th Century. Scroll down to the “United States” section in that link.
The practice didn’t end with a Supreme Court case, and in fact had been upheld by the Supreme Court in 1927 with Buck v. Bell. What stopped eugenics and compulsory sterilization was the discovery of what Hitler had been up to in the 30s and 40s, and the realization that state-sponsored eugenics was different from the Bergen-Belsen only in degree. Eugenics was ended by general disapprobation, because people looked in the mirror and saw the Nazis.
[QUOTE=BMax]
The first document of the US government was the Declaration of Independence, and it says that we are all endowed with the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. I suppose that many people could argue effectively that depriving someone of their reproductive faculties violates their right to the pursuit of Happiness. It’s easy to “what if” that one to death, “what if someone’s pursuit of happiness includes eating their neighbor’s skin? hmmm?”, but I’ll ignore such silliness for the time.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve never heard of a Supreme Court case citing the Declaration for their ruling, though I’ll admit that I haven’t heard everything. I don’t think that document is legally binding.
I can see where it might or might not violate the 8th. We do refuse to let people drive a car if we have a good reason to believe they’re not good at it (failed their test). The 9th (“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”) might imply that reproduction is a right, or it might not; it just says that the list of rights listed may not be all that are guaranteed. Without a Supreme Court ruling, I don’t think we can say exactly whether reproduction is a right guaranteed by the 9th amendment. The 10th amendment just says that the federal government is limited to the powers enumerated in the Constitution- at best, that means that Congress can’t implement eugenics, but an individual state can. The 14th says that “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” which is great until someone uses the due process of law to deprive people of this liberty.
I didn’t mean to imply anything about our current government; much as I dislike the makeup of the Supreme Court, I can’t imagine they’d do anything like this. I just meant to say that if a corrupt Supreme Court wanted to allow such a law, they might not find a problem with it in the Constitution if they looked at being a parent as a privilege to be granted, not a right to be taken away.
EDIT: And on edit, I see that jayjay has the relevent court case. Thanks!
I asked what was meant by
[Quote=jayjay]
We could make the first rule “If you have ever used a number in place of a word (that wasn’t the name of the number), you may not breed”.
[/quote]
and I got the response
[QUOTE=Yag Rannavach]
There’s a particularly striking example of what he means in the title of this thread.
[/QUOTE]
I just wanted to thank you, Yag. That is indeed a great example. And yes, perhaps they might be the first ones on the list. Especially in this case, where it is only saving you one keystroke!!!
[QUOTE=Keeve]
I asked what was meant byand I got the responseI just wanted to thank you, Yag. That is indeed a great example. And yes, perhaps they might be the first ones on the list. Especially in this case, where it is only saving you one keystroke!!!
[/QUOTE]
Poor, poor MC Hammer, he’s 2 legit 2 reproduce.
[QUOTE=jayjay]
We could make the first rule “If you have ever used a number in place of a word (that wasn’t the name of the number), you may not breed”.
[/QUOTE]
Yes! And if you used the letter “u” to replace the word “you”. After all, typing those additional two letters is such an intellectual strain!
[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
Hey All! Sorry for not having gotten back sooner.
Okay, no; my idea has nothing to do with wiping out one race or another. I abhor racism and so skin color would make no difference to decide on who’s fit and who isn’t fit to be a Parent.
I should have said (as I mentioned in a recent post) that my own parents were about as irresponsible as two people could be. Without going into the details, let’s just say that as a conscientious person I try to do what my limited resources will permit me to do as a way to atone for them for having placed on the American tax payers the burden of having to feed and clothe me and my siblings for several years when we were kids growing up.
So I hope that this little admission will cause you to at least know that I’m not coming to this means of dealing with a most serious problem as some kind of a neo Nazi or something, but rather as someone that experienced first-hand the shame and pain of having been tossed into such a complex, dangerous and competitive world by two human beings that just didn’t have a clue. (It’s actually a bit more complicated than that, but you get the general idea.)
Also, I am well aware that “my idea” has been around for a long time. But the fact that it has is neither here nor there. I’ve been to a third world country, and believe me it’s a pretty dog-gone eye-opening experience to see so many people crowded into an area like sardines! I saw a river that was so polluted that one could not see any water, just a river of garbage that twisted about as far as the eye could see but with no movement or life. It was horrible!
Not long after I wrote my post, I was listening to one of my favorite radio talk show guys, and he referenced a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle that stated that a welfare lady just gave birth to her THIRD SET OF TWINS!
When I heard him say that I couldn’t help but feel a little better about writing my post in the tone that I did. Because without sounding like a broken record, folks, there REALLY IS a problem with too many people that are taking the same moronic path that my own parents took, and it is WRONG. It’s time to stop being polite with these people and start telling them, among other things, that it (supposedly) costs nearly $270-thousand to raise a child until it’s 18.
For those of you that still feel strongly about everyone having the right to procreate, let me mention to you just two examples of actual “parenting” that I read about in the news (even though you’ve no doubt read hundreds of similar accounts).
Oh, maybe around 18-years ago, it was reported that parents of a toddler living in Houston, Texas, I think it was, decided that they’d like to get their hands on some big money. So, the young couple decided that the best way to go about doing this was to collect on an insurance scam. While the mother held the baby in her arms, the father carefully poured Drano (a liquid pipe cleaner) down the throat of the baby! The baby died an agonizing death 3-days later.
In another incident involving a person that had the right to make a baby, a “mother” decided to unstop her toilet by picking her baby up by its ankles and began using it as a toilet plunger!
And let’s not forget Susan Smith of South Carolina, another great parent. You may recall that she and her husband had split and so because she felt that her two young boys were hindering her in her desire to have a potential suitor take an interest in her, she decided to concoct a BS story about some black guy supposedly car-jacking her, and then driving off with her two babies. A week or so later she confessed that she drove her car into a lake, and thus the authorities found her dead children in the car at the bottom of a lake.
But everyone has the right to make babies, right? Sure they do. Sure. Of course.
As far as the question of criteria goes, let’s just for now agree that there’s a need to revamp our thinking on the issue. And then from there permit bright compassionate people to figure out the general details and then present them to the general public to hash out and vote on how the ultimate formula should look. (I could lay a lot out myself, but am in need of sleep at the moment.)
Lastly, someone stated that it would never work because nothing ever works when the government gets involved. For the most part that’s true. However, those folks that have been handing out the food stamps and welfare checks have done a solid job for many decades, so maybe they could take control of the hands-on operations of this plan and make it work, no?
Oh, one other thing. YES – be proactive! Be VERY proactive!!
[/QUOTE]
Being a social burden doesn’t necessarily make a bad parent. You’re speaking of parenting and the ability to afford children as if they’re the same thing. Plenty of good (even great) people were raised in poverty. And some people actually survive their poor, ignorant, uncaring upbringing to become fine adults; people the world is better off for having them in it.
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
We should forcibly sterilize the illiterate? I’m as pro-literacy as the next guy, but it’s generally in the form of “We should work hard to teach people to read and write” rather than “We should punish people who fail to learn to read and write”. I suppose you feel that procreation is a privilege, not a right, or some such, but this all feels very icky to me. (You know, I suppose I may have been whooshed here…)
[/QUOTE]
If by “whoosh” you mean the victim of drive-by satire, then yes, you were whooshed. I was making a reference to the “literacy tests” once used in the South to prevent blacks from voting. A clue might be had from the fact that I started my next sentence with “Seriously, …”
If there truly is serious debate to be had about this topic, I submit that screening and certification of potential parents is nothing short of dystopian. It belongs in novels about places like Oceania and Gilead.
ITRC, if you think only one person would vote for this you’re more delusional than GuyNblueJeans. I can think of five people who would eagerly vote for it right here in my office.
Wow, that was out of left field. You know abortion would be getting rid of the very people who are going to kill our children, right?
[QUOTE=BlackKnight]
People have no special absolute right to reproduce. We, as a society, don’t even consider the right to keep your children after you’ve created them to be inviolable. Children are routinely taken from their parents if those parents are deemed abusive or negligent.
[/QUOTE]
Judging someone for what they’ve done is very different from judging them from what we think they will do. I don’t like your idea, but it’s far better than the OP’s, which seems to involve predicting what kind of parent a person will be based on standardized tests or some similar nonsense.