Is That Legal?

You know, if more people took (and passed) ethics 101 in college, they'd be much less inclined to rehash easy targets in public.... maybe not.

Is it too much to ask that the word be retired? We can talk about genetics and science and choice all day without actually using the damn word.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it is indeed going to come up again. Just yesterday I read a news story about Ashley X, a young girl who suffers from static encephalopathy. Her parents authorised removing her uterus, appendix and breasts and giving her high doses of estrogen to make sure that she will remain stunted and small, to make it easier to care for her.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2530561,00.html

And, Eric, don't you think we need a national debate on the important distinction between eugenics and "junk eugenics"?

Barry

The Nazis were opposed to smoking tobacco as well, so we should encourage all children to smoke cigarettes, otherwise we agree with the Nazis!

Eric, do you oppose the practice, or just the debate?

I mean, in this country there is a regular practice of eliminating unfit fetuses (e.g., those with Down's syndrome). Do you oppose that practice as eugenics? Or do you oppose talking about it?

Dear Oy Vey!,
Let me explain how to properly use your little rhetorical device. If someone links something to the Nazis which is in no way associated with why they were evil in order to smear that activity, your comment would be appropriate. For example, if someone attacks vegetarians because "Hitler was a vegetarian" or attacks socialism because "National Socialism has that word in it too", snark is a real winner. On the other hand, if someone says we should avoid genocide and notes that the Nazis are properly loathed for their efforts in that area, responding with "The Nazis hated smoking too" just makes you look like an idiot.

You're a bit confused, Mojo. Muller was implying that eugenics was bad by associating it with the Nazis, just as "Oy Vey" was doing with non-smoking.

ELM: And if non-smoking had been a feature of Nazi ideology, Ben, the analogy would even have worked.

I'd like to commend the professor's opposition to abortion, it isn't easy being pro-life in academia.

You can advocate some form of eugenics without abortion but its very hard to advocate abortion without being some form of de facto eugenicist.

As a law professor, I'd think you'd understand some of the most basic forms of logic, but I guess your own ethnic prejudices cloud your judgements.

The Nazi genocide of the Jews had nothing to do with Eugenics. This had to do with the Nazi belief that Jews were smart (correct) and were responsible for all of germany's problems (incorrect.)

Nazi eugenics consisted of sterilizing mentally disabled, and various racial hygene programs designed to promote procreation of what they thought of as desired groups.

Say what you will of this, but virtually every single non-Catholic European country--many of whom opposed the Nazis like England, Canada, the United States-- adopted similar policies. Other countries such as Norway, Sweeden, Switzerland, and Singapore also adopted these policies.

In this respect "Oy Vey" is wrong to use the reductium ad hitlerum point against Mueller if only because the Smoking analogy has more credence than this--Nazi Germany was the first country to Ban smoking and the only one to do so until relatively recently, so it was at least exceptional in that respect, while it's eugenics programs were not.

That being said, Neither Andrew Staufford, John Derbyshire, or anyone at National Review is advocating eugenics as practiced by the Nazis, or for that matter the pre WWII swedes, canadians etc.

They were talking about various in-vitro manipulation of genes and the like, rather than sterlizing undesirables.

In other words, you have no point.

Alex, try getting your history right before attacking an argument.

In Nazi Germany, it was believed that the Aryans were the dominate race and that Jews wanted to destroy the Aryans, who were seen as the major contributors to world civilization. Jews were placed in THE SAME CATEGORY as those labeled "hereditary asocial," a.k.a eugenics.

By the way, you did know that the Catholic Church was involved in Nazi Germany, right? Your "non-Catholic" argument is flat out wrong.

The eugenics program in the United States was at par with Nazi Germany, by the way.

It is interesting that Alex the "law professor" has no idea about history.

Eugenics has everything to do with Nazi's genocide. Concentration camps were filled not only with Jews, but also with every other people that Nazis believed as "defective" (like gipsys, black people, polish people, Jehova witnesses....)
Massive sterilizations (and killings) were carried on just because Nazis regarded other people as "defective".

That is the problem with eugenics: Who decides what is "defective" and what is not.

Eugenics is not preventive medicine, it is just some bunch of lunatics deciding what is "normal", what is "desirable" and what is "defective".

Law professors without historical knowledge are not desirable in our society, they should be sterilized (maybe that way they will learn what is the real problem with eugenics).