InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "no gnus is good gnus"

sometimes sanity takes vacation time on me (keieeeye) wrote,
@ 2009-10-30 11:39:00

Current mood:	frustrated
Entry tags:	faith in humanity, portents of doom

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3012655/Sterilise-underclass-to-stop-child-abuse-Michael-Laws

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	spacelogic 2009-10-29 10:48 pm UTC (link)
	OH HAI EUGENICS! Ugh. (Reply to this) (Thread)

keieeeye
2009-10-29 10:53 pm UTC (link)

RATHER. My comment:

Many people may not be aware that this technique has been implemented before. In the first half of the twentieth century there were "studies" done into certain family lines in New England that seemed to have a high proportion of alcoholics, criminals and "feeble-mindedness" and the members of these families were sterilised. They were, largely, Native American Indians, and members of these tribes even today often find it hard to be federally recognised as legitimate tribes because during that period they went underground, thus breaking the line of history that is required to be recognised as a tribe.

Better education and access to contraception would have a better affect. Teach these people how to prevent pregnancy on their own terms. Provide social support to help them improve their lives and get off the benefits. And realise that it is not only the poor that abuse and murder children - it is a problem that affects every race, every ethnic group, every religion, every financial class. Instead of going for "easy" options like eugenics, why not try to improve resources for victims so they feel they have someone to go to?

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spacelogic
2009-10-29 11:53 pm UTC (link)

Ack, I shouldn't have gone and looked to see what the comments in general were like. Bad Phoenix!

But, yeah. Forced sterilization of "underclass" people (unempowered ethnic groups and mixed-race people, the disabled including in modern society people with HIV, poor criminals but not rich ones, and just poor people) has a long, nasty not-purely-historical history, but not necessarily a well-known one. It's very troubling how few people recognize that, or know that sort of thinking when they see it.

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keieeeye
2009-10-29 11:58 pm UTC (link)

It also makes it harder for the "higher class" victims to get help - because their abusers are respectable, wealthy, charming people who have nothing to do with those (predominantly ethnic) poor people. Someone commented that the PC brigade has been going for 30 years and failing - because, you know, social problems were so much better back then! Not talked about ≠ nonexistent.

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spacelogic
2009-10-30 12:07 am UTC (link)

Ah, but things only come into existence when we become aware of them! I'm of the opinion that a certain amount of that and the good-old-days myth boil down to how when you're little the world seems simple, and the older you get the more complicated and scary it feels, so it follows that the progression of time makes the world more complicated and scary, and thus going backwards in time would have the opposite effect. Hence the regressive politics and refusal to evaluate what the past was really like.

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