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troubleLawmaker Advocates Eugenics in New Hampshire
The thing is, honestly? I don't know why this is news, except someone "important" said it outloud.
A lot of people like to pretend that the eugenics movement is in the past, and I'm certain that this man's age will be held up in order to demonstrate that. But that's ... incredibly simplistic and ignores the way that certain types of people are prevented or discouraged from having children in North America.
I talked a bit about it in a Feministe Thread that went off the rails, if you are curious. Kaz is in there representin', as is abby jean, and La Luba. I should content warn for Hugo man-splaining, Clarisse asking people to do work for her so she can make a better presentation, a few disenvoweled comments, and people insisting that critiquing the modern pro-choice movement, and the "heroes" of the past for being explicitly eugenicist, sound too much like anti-choicers. Honestly, it might be worth skipping the whole conversation, but a few people said really smart things. You can tell who they are because they keep getting ignored.
Oh, hey, was that bitter me speaking? It's probably because I'm evil.
(I have not yet sorted all the other people who wanted on the acafilter. I'll sort that today.)
A 91-year-old state representative told a constituent that he believes in eugenics and that the world would be better off without "defective people."
Barrington Republican Martin Harty told Sharon Omand, a Strafford resident who manages a community mental health program, that "the world is too populated" and there are "too many defective people," according to an e-mail account of the conversation by Omand. Asked what he meant, she said Harty clarified, "You know the mentally ill, the r#tarded, people with physical disabilities and drug addictions - the defective people society would be better off without."
The thing is, honestly? I don't know why this is news, except someone "important" said it outloud.
A lot of people like to pretend that the eugenics movement is in the past, and I'm certain that this man's age will be held up in order to demonstrate that. But that's ... incredibly simplistic and ignores the way that certain types of people are prevented or discouraged from having children in North America.
I talked a bit about it in a Feministe Thread that went off the rails, if you are curious. Kaz is in there representin', as is abby jean, and La Luba. I should content warn for Hugo man-splaining, Clarisse asking people to do work for her so she can make a better presentation, a few disenvoweled comments, and people insisting that critiquing the modern pro-choice movement, and the "heroes" of the past for being explicitly eugenicist, sound too much like anti-choicers. Honestly, it might be worth skipping the whole conversation, but a few people said really smart things. You can tell who they are because they keep getting ignored.
Oh, hey, was that bitter me speaking? It's probably because I'm evil.
(I have not yet sorted all the other people who wanted on the acafilter. I'll sort that today.)
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Date: 2011-03-11 05:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 06:10 pm (UTC)You know, thinking about how many of us were out there fightin' the good fight on the Feministe thread,I wish that next time this happens (because there WILL be a next time) we could send an e-mail/PM round and have everyone just ignore the apologist/ableist/racist/classist/etc. folk and have an actually interesting discussion about this stuff in the vein of "if you ignore us then, well...". Sadly everyone would still have to wade through the horrible comments and people would probably take us not addressing their remarks as "omg I win!" It's just so frustrating to think that if you'd taken several commentators whose names I shall not name out of the conversation we might have actually been able to HAVE ONE.
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Date: 2011-03-12 05:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 06:28 pm (UTC)More recently I came across a self-publicist named Claire Khaw, who was invited onto a British radio talk show to ask why a mother of a daughter with severe cerebral palsy had imposed such a burden on the tax-payer and her other children by keeping her, and said she would abort any child she knew would be disabled. She has made similar remarks (on her blog and no doubt elsewhere on the internet) about other named severely disabled people, including the lady involved in a much-publicised assisted suicide case here in the UK last year, who she said was "no good to man nor beast", i.e. it was best for everyone that she die. Her views are bluntly put but certainly not unique.
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Date: 2011-03-12 05:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 07:04 pm (UTC)YES LET US PLEASE TO BE RID OF THE ULTRA-CRAZY-CHRISTIAN REPUBLICANS OF TEH DUMB. (Like, do they not realize it's people like the dude above spouting stupid stuff that makes the entire group of them look dumb & uncaring & ignorant?)
side ponder: Yes there is an overpopulation problem, which is why my solution is zombies. ~ponders~ i will have to add a wheelchair ramp to my zombie bunker..and a no Haters sign.
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Date: 2011-03-12 05:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 07:42 pm (UTC)This post breaks my heart, though--just that someone thinks that at all and is so proud of thinking it that he came right out and said it, and knowing that he is far from the only one. There's not enough D: in the world for this.
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Date: 2011-03-12 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 07:43 pm (UTC)If we're so damn overpopulated, could people STOP WHINING about the low birthrate of white women?
(I seriously believe that the earth's population growth will come to a screeching halt the moment every woman on the world gets to decide exactly how many children she wants to have. Since the answer is quite infrequently "eight to twelve".)
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Date: 2011-03-11 08:16 pm (UTC)I wouldn't bet on it - there are some cultures in which women regard having many children as a measure of their womanhood, and they often want to out-breed their mothers. I met a Somali woman who had precisely that attitude and her mother had had eight. One of my Mum's friends (who would now be in her late 50s; she is Irish and lives in the UK) had six for the same reason.
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Date: 2011-03-11 08:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 05:34 am (UTC)ROBOTS.
And don't you forget it.
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Date: 2011-03-12 05:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 05:36 am (UTC)IF WE FEEL LIKE IT.
YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID. HAVE A HAMSTER.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 05:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 08:52 pm (UTC)Gah to this NH lawmaker. I do hope this incident doesn't lead to faux-gressive self-congratulations about how old people/Republicans are the only ones who think these things anymore. Because, no.
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Date: 2011-03-12 05:35 am (UTC)But yes, I'm glad that the moderators (Well, Chally and Cara) pretty much shut down the thread to trolls immediately because it at least meant that some of us could get our points out.
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Date: 2011-03-14 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-14 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-11 09:39 pm (UTC)This just makes the claims of some folks in the Feministe thread (that eugenics is a long-past issue) THAT much more unbelievable. These sorts of attitudes are still very present for a lot of us, unfortunately (and as you've pointed out many a time!).
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Date: 2011-03-12 05:36 am (UTC)......
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Date: 2011-03-11 11:54 pm (UTC)I got called anti choice the other day for saying feminists shouldn't use the need to abort disabled babies as a rallying cry for abortion rights. I can't even...
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Date: 2011-03-12 05:37 am (UTC)siiiiiiiigh
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Date: 2011-03-12 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 05:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 03:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 04:55 am (UTC)News, my ass. There are tons of people who are pro-eugenics, they just dance around it and talk about their "tax dollars" (FUNNY SO DID THE NAZIS) and avoid the term "eugenics." It's "different." Somehow. I think mainly because they aren't actually familiar with the history of eugenics, and it's easier to deny similarities when you don't know what you're comparing to--from where I'm at, the justifications sound awfully similar.
"Defective people." @#%!^##!&*
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Date: 2011-03-12 05:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 06:08 am (UTC)I am sort of full of feelings about eugenics right now!
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Date: 2011-03-12 10:34 am (UTC)Because I don't know how to even DEAL with this shit on any kind of mental level, other than having my big black dog take his arm off and beat him with it. And if I think too hard about it, I just want to cry because PEOPLE ELECTED THAT FUCKER. I don't want to hear about how it's all in the past and we're all so fucking progressive and enlightened these days when ACTUAL VOTERS ACTUALLY ELECTED A MAN WHO ADVOCATES KILLING ME.
Or maybe I'd get to live because I had myself voluntarily sterilized and I'm still doing the paid employment thing. I'm a Good Cripple.
And then that article is full of excuses implying he said it because he's suffering from senile dementia, and of course someone supports him just because he's a veteran and and and.
Excuse me. Puppy-hugging time.
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Date: 2011-03-12 10:37 am (UTC)I read a comment today saying that those of us who get het up about these things obviously have too much time on our hands and don't care about our communities.
*siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*
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Date: 2011-03-12 10:43 am (UTC)Who is "my community"?
Because I happen to think that "my community" consists of the people I care about, who care about me, the people who support each other. They may not be physically close, but they mean a lot more to me than the family who just bought the house across the street.
My community is you, and Mel, and all the cherished people who help me get through a day or a week or a month or a year while the pain gets worse and/or I'm stoned on vicodin at work so I can mildly function.
We care a GREAT DEAL about our communities. It's just that people don't realize who lives in them.
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Date: 2011-03-12 10:46 am (UTC)I just don't know. *sigh*
But in brighter news, I have cake.
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Date: 2011-03-12 10:48 am (UTC)Dang. I want cake. I gave the puppy an extra hug for you by the way, secure in the knowledge that the universe would send you the metaphorical warm fuzzies without sending you the literal warm fuzzies that are happening because HE IS BLOWING COAT.
Also, check yer e-mail?
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Date: 2011-03-12 03:19 pm (UTC)So my answer to this guy would, of course, be, "Okay then, euthenise yourself first and then we'll consider taking you srsly."
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Date: 2011-03-12 03:37 pm (UTC)and drug addictions - the defective people society would be better off without
I wonder how many nicotine addicted smokers he's "state representative" for....
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Date: 2011-03-13 09:28 am (UTC)I agree with all your points tho, it's weird how many people think Hitler was Teh Ultimate Evil while at the same time agree with so many things he stood for. That does not make sense!
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Date: 2011-03-13 07:14 pm (UTC)