Posts Tagged ‘eugenics wars’

Today a peek into the real fruits of social democracy.  We delve into eugenics as preached by yesterday’s progressives that ultimately ended in genocide. Oops!

Doctor Glenn Beck - Foremost interpreter of the Progressive

Glenn Beck over the last year or so has brought to light a much forgotten “Eugenics Movement” in the United States.

If you have been following Beck, you know of what I speak. If not, briefly, the science of eugenics was promoted by the self same progressives that Hillary Clinton said that she fashioned herself after, albeit as a “modern progressive.” Eugenics is the science of race manipulation to obtain better human specimens.

The practical application of eugenics was seen in Germany beginning in the 30′s lasting up until the last days of World War II. It began with the kindly elimination of the insane (wonder how they missed themselves), the infirm, and folks they didn’t like, leading eventually to 7 million Jews being poisoned, suffocated, shot, gassed, and beaten to death. However, prior to this enlightened social democrat period, it was a popular topic with enlightened Americans. In fact, a case could be made that the Germans learned much of their eugenics art from academic America.

It is not my contention that modern progressives would dip back into eugenics, however, the same faulty mind circuits are still there that allow for goofy and dangerous logic.

In other words, progressives have changed but little, if at all, and they prove it all the time with their wacky causes. They see but only a short distance into the future, and to the past, not at all. The consequences be damned. Full speed ahead.

By comparison, and I mean this sincerely, the Ku Klux Klan were pikers when set side by side with the educated progressives of the time when it came to the final solution of the lesser classes of human beings. The Klan would have been well satisfied with a few lynchings and shipping all non whites back to their country of original origin.

The progressives, however, many of them, would have been satisfied with no less than the complete eradication of anyone not fitting a strict Aryan mold.

Personally, the first time I ever heard the world “eugenics” was on an original Star Trek episode. Every Trek enthusiast knows that the Eugenics Wars took place sometime in the 1990′s…and that it had something to do with building a more perfect man. But that’s about all. For all I knew at the time, and for years after, it may have been a word that Gene Roddenberry made up.

However, now I know that Roddenberry, who often made political statements inside the Trek flickers, had a bone to pick with eugenics. Whether he was referring to what went on in Germany during WWII or the whole can of worms can’t be known.

Of late, as already mentioned, Glenn Beck has re-opened the can of worms, exposing it for a the progressive plot it was.  And not just any old progressive plot either. It was evidently an elitist progressive favorite. Elite as in college deans. Contemporary masters of science.

Much as I am sitting here railing against eugenics, at one point in our history, college professors and their bosses were railing for eugenics.

Eugenics does have a bit of a nice ring, you must admit. Wouldn’t it be nice if only the right sort of people were alive? You know, all right handed white guys and strong, yet submissive, large breasted blond women? (Sort of like Sweden.) Everybody polite, and you could leave your doors unlocked? And NO guilt for all the people that were bumped off to make it so?

All possible outcomes of the perfect eugenicized society have all been explored in science fiction and dismissed as so much koolaid eons ago.  Causes way more problems than it fixes.

But, once upon a time, the most “intelligent” progressives thought eugenics was a neat idea. Naturally, they had their detractors, much as the the proud progressives of the modern era do with their pie in the sky, consequences be damned, theories.

So, you say, it can’t happen here? Maybe not now, but it did, once, in Germany. As a matter of fact, it happened here as well. It is stated, if not totally spelled out below. Read the numbers.

Contemporary Writings on Eugenics…

Below, find a short bio of Victor C. Vaughn straight from JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2000. Below that, read the sinister article in the defunct University Missourian newspaper from 1913 by one in the same, dean Vaughn. The article in toto was written by the “United Press.” You will note that the JAMA did not include any mention of dean Vaughan’s eugenic leanings…

The opening of the historical text below is evidently a foreword and opinion. It appears to be by the presenter, or editor of the piece in the University Missourian. You’ll have to make up your own mind on that. After that, you’ll read Vaughan’s opinions.

Check out the the bio of the University Missourian and the school it belonged to. I expect, if you are a Beck fan, you will not be terribly surprised. If it’s all news to you, hold onto your hat as you check the sources.

I apologize for length and dryness of this offering. What lies above is largely opinion. What lies below is verbatim fact. Read carefully and note the keywords. You’ll find that American progressives did indeed see themselves producing “supermen,”and not necessarily in nice ways.

If you are familiar with the eugenics carried out by Germany in WWII, relate what you read below to what actually transpired 20 years later as the theory becomes fact. Consider what part writings such as this played in the formulation of the Final Solution.

As you’ll find, if you are the least philosophical, and live long enough, nothing EVER happens in a vacuum. You just have to find the pieces and put them together properly. History is prologue.

What you will read below is only a tiny, tiny part of the voluminous text of proof provided by progenitor progressives that remains for our eyes to this day.

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Victor C. Vaughan Biography

(Bio from JAMA) Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.
Victor Clarence Vaughan (1851-1929) was best known as the dean of the University of Michigan Medical School from 1891 to 1920. A biochemist, hygienist, public health authority, medical educator, and administrator, Vaughan was a leading figure in US medicine during the late 19th century and through the Progressive Era. For example, in 1889 (along with Michigan bacteriologist Frederick Novy), he developed one of the first systematic courses on bacteriology and germ theory for medical students. He was instrumental in the implementation of medical educational reforms years before the landmark Flexner report on medical education of 1910. In the laboratory, Vaughan applied biochemical methods to identifying putrefactive bacteria in food products in order to significantly reduce the incidence of “ptomaine poisoning” in Michigan and beyond.

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SCIENCE OF EUGENICS
Victor C. Vaughan of University of Michigan Tells of Efforts of Eugensts.
ANSWER TO BISHOP

Professor Believes all Men and Women Should Undergo Examinations.

To deny the possibility of race betterment is the worst form of infidelity; it means to be without faith in self, in fellow men and in the Creator. Race betterment, which, of course, includes and depends upon self betterment, should influence our daily lives, form a basis for our ethical judgments, determine our political activities, and be a strong motive in our religion.”This statement today from Victor ( Vaughan, dean of the University of Michigan medical department, and world-famed advocate of eugenics, was made in reply to recent utterances of Bishop E. D. Kelly, of the Detroit diocese of the Catholic church, who declared that “the religion that holds God as the author of the human soul must carry on warfare against a so-called science which, under the captious terms of sterilization and sex hygiene, interferes with man’s natural powers, contravenes his God-given free will and robs children of purity and innocence.” Through the United Press. Dean Vaughan today defended the science of eugenics in the follow article:

By Victor C. Vaughan, written for the United Press.

The eugenist is trying to accomplish to things, both of which are essential to the welfare of the human race. One of these is to prevent the multiplication of bad stock, and the other is to encourage the replenishment of the good. The science of eugenics (lost text) its negatives and its positive work. (lost text) -,ative eugenics can succeed only by the help of legal enactments. There must be laws preventing the marriage and reproduction of the unwanted.

Crime is a disease due to heredity, or environment, or both, and at present we permit it to breed and come to maturity in our midst. It will not grow less as long as this continues.

Its breeding places should be located and disinfected. No child should be born into this world save from good stock. However, “good stock” needs some explanation. By good stock the eugenist means one relatively free from undesirable unit characters, and the most important of these are alcoholism, feeblemindedness, epilepsy, insanity, pauperism and criminality. All those classes should be excluded from the list of those to whom is granted the privileges of exercising the highest, holiest, most important function of the race parenthood.

The eugenist does not propose that marriage selections shall be determined by statute, but it does propose to educate the young that selections shall be made on more rational grounds than at present. The eugen!st does not aim to degrade or abolish the institution of marriage, but does aim to inculcate the idea that marriage is the highest and holiest of institutions so holy that he who dishonors it shall be counted worse than an infidel. It is no free love scheme,for that would lead to physical, mental and moral debasement.

The eugenist will endeavor to induce the state to aid in the evolution of the superman by restricting the reproduction of the obviously undesirable. It is even now a crime by statute in the state of Michigan for an individual of one sex to infect one of the other with a venereal disease, whether the relations between the two be that of husband and wife or otherwise. However, such a statute is at present without other than educational value. Inasmuch as the prevention of crime is much wiser than permitting and then punishing it, the state will go further and demand that no marriage be permitted only to those free from those diseases.

It will come to pass that every wise man and woman will under a medical examination once or oftener each year to ascertain whether they are sound or not. In working out this problem the state must supply expert medical advice, because this opportunity must be open to poor and rich alike. Already the sterilization of certain classes under certain restrictions has been localized in eight states, and in one the operation has been performed on more than 700 individuals. The state has a right to protect its honest citizens against those who are evil.

In order to secure protection against the evil doer, the state may and does often take his life; may it not therefore render him incompetent to reproduce his kind?

For many reasons, segregation is better than sterilization, the chief objection being the greater cost. But the cost of this method, as great as it would be, is much less than we now bear from unrestricted multiplication of these classes which now occupy our courts, necessitate a large police expenditure, and fill our reformatories, asylums and penal institutions. The suppression of diseases, both that are transmissible from parent to child and those which affect only one generation, is a state problem and must be solved by the state.

References:
-Vol. 283 No. 7, February 16, 2000  TABLE OF CONTENTS   JAMA
-University Missourian. (Columbia, Mo.) October 23, 1913

Finally, if you have not seen this, you’re in for a real treat. There are other versions of the same clip…that is the same clip with different pictures and text… but I chose this one because of the translation on the page. I think it makes it an even more powerful window into the damaged mind of the progressive past. It adds even more Orwellian flavor to a historical piece of film dripping with it. Relish the words of George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish dramatist, literary critic, a socialist spokesman, and a leading figure in the 20th century theater. (And a darned good progressive!)