Eugenics - As American as Mom and Apple Pie ?

Here in northern midwest America it is the rare person who is not delighted when the long cold winter season transmogrifies, finally, into that long awaited ( for most ) springtime, that joyous season of nature's rebirth.

I, for one, take particular pleasure in my first springtime visit to the greenhouse, keeping my eye peeled for those new varieties which will make delightful visual additions to our garden beds -

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Ever wonder how so many varieties of flowers and garden plants became available ?

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Source : Wikipedia

Burbank was a real 'pioneer' in the selective breeding of plants. Many today believe our gardens are much improved ( at least visually ) due to his extensive efforts.

Not many would argue that Burbank overstepped his 'bounds' as a 'mere mortal' in 'playing God' with his plant experiments. The results of his works speak for themselves -- many more beautiful varieties in our gardens.

As the Wiki quote above indicates, the Carnegie Foundation, and indeed Andrew Carnegie himself, were very interested in the Burbank's work. Carnegie was a businessman and may have seen big money in what Burbank was up to, and for that reason desired to 'get in on the ground floor,' so to speak, by sponsoring Burbank's work to the tune of some very serious money indeed.

But Carnegie, as we shall soon see, was 'very interested' in other kinds of selective breeding as well. This time where the 'ethical dilemma' of mere mortals 'playing God' is not such an easy issue to decide.

Harry Hamilton Laughlin

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Source : Wikipedia

Indeed, one begins to feel that Laughlin's ethics, and perhaps even those of the Carnegie Foundation by extension, might very possibly differ in profound ways from those of his 'plant eugenics' contemporary, Burbank.

For a glimpse into Laughlin's mind and thinking about the practice of selective human breeding, I offer here a few pages from his seminal reference on human Genetics, Eugenical Sterilization In The United States, published by the Psychopathic Laboratory Of The Municipal Court of Chicago in 1922, and hosted here in the ATS media basket, in PDF format, for the convenience and further edification of the gentle ATS reader.

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The 'preliminary presentation' is now complete.

I invite all interested parties to the discussion.

Both those for and those against.

The only folk I would ask to refrain from posting their commentary are the haters and all those who feel it's fine to insult the family and parentage of other members in good standing of the ATS community.

Well presented and interesting...

My initial reaction? Eugenics will never be morally permissible, there may be some gray areas around the periphery of this argument, yet I don't feel Eugenics could ever benefit humanity and it's great diversity.

I did chuckle a bit about California being the only state that really embraced these ideas and wonder what the current governator would make of them?

eugenics is a big issue so critical
i learned about it in high school it was a moment that i could say that lead me to questioning 9/11 and to seeing the big picture
even ben stein covered eugenics in a documentary he made i think its called expelled
it was an american idea till hitler took it from them but of course its darwinism

[edit on 25-6-2009 by Pay4dadro]

reply to post by jokei

Thanks - glad you enjoyed ...

I am hoping those who stop by will have some time to browse Laughlin's 'great work'.

It's over 500 pages of ( IMHO ) truly shocking prose - and, at least for me, a real 'eye-opener' ...

Eugenics should be a very last resort in a hypothetical situation such as a small family or tribe surviving on the wild where if nomadic, cannot care for a child of certain deformity, in which sadly the tribe would decide whether to keep or end the life. It is sad. I disagree with most fascistic, scientific thought that its ok to create a perfect race, imperfection is just right.

Sorry about being gone for a while -

Got hit with some sort of virus / trojan shortly after I posted this ... working out the 'details' now ...

Anyways, I am pretty suprised at the very limited number of flags and comments here for this truly important 'American issue' ...

Maybe members are checking my 'references' to make sure this is no kind of a hoax ...

May I ask the opinion of the OP on Eugenics?

My opinion here, is that breeding occurs "selectively" anyway, people couple and breed according to traits they percieve to be "desirable", in this modern, western environment, these can be things such as wealth, fame and beauty ~ such qualities may seem crass to some (myself), yet it must be argued that they do exist.

To legislate anything along the lines of eugenics would seem to be lunacy (to me) and bring forth many, many more problems than it could possibly hope to address.

reply to post by jokei

You asked :
May I ask the opinion of the OP on Eugenics?

IMHO, it's like this - 'consciousness' is inconcievable in a 'scientific' sense ...

The 'scientists', they all have their own 'agendas' ... for most, it's just about 'getting the kids through school' ...

But, at the 'top' of it all are indeed those who have a 'specific agenda' ...

Everybody else just 'falls in line' and 'gets with the program' ...

This 'eugenics' just falls into place at some 'level' of the 'pyramid' ...

Based on the references provided in this OP, it is certainly undeniable that a eugenics 'agenda' is definately 'in place' ...

Think of it all in terms of a 'pyramid' ...

reply to post by visible_villain


Oh, yeah, I fully agree that there is some kind of agenda in place, I'm not necessarily sure if I believe it's a biological one, not with regard to breeding anyway, although, if we're talking about the higher echelon wanting to wipe out vast swathes of population, then I'm a firm believer in that.

I'm more inclined to believe that we're being conditioned to accept that fate, consume, conform and obey.

reply to post by jokei

You said :
I'm more inclined to believe that we're being conditioned to accept that fate, consume, conform and obey.

Again, IMHO, everybody who can't get with the program gets 'eliminated,' at least in terms of their genetic material ...

Eventually, after 3 - 6 generations, say, then those at the 'top' have achieved their 'objective' - a population which is 'compatible' with 'full control' ...

Everybody 'happily' doing their 'jobs' and nobody whatsoever 'rocking the boat' ...

It's not 'rocket science' ...

reply to post by visible_villain


Yeah, agreed. I try not to be too reactionary (in general), I've been on ATS maybe a year and a half now and find it to be an interesting outlet, filled with topics that (if I don't believe or agree with) I'm interested in.

Maybe it's coincidence, but there seems to be a ramping up of paranoia on here of late, mostly since Obama got into power... initially I thought that whilst probably being just as bad/corruptible/powerless as any previous US president that at least he'd present a more humane faace to the US and hopefully work towards an America that was more aware of the rest of the world and how it's decisions affected it. It seems I was wrong, from what I see on here and in the MSM, if anything he's worse and pushing you guys towards a much more conservative regime ~ I don't think that this "paranoia" is unfounded.

A lot of threads on here seem to be pointing towards some kind of resistance...

reply to post by visible_villain


Doesn't matter; we'll soon be able to alter our genetic code in such an immediate way as to make eugenics obsolete. With nanotech we can replace our blood cells with respiriation robots, our white blood cells with bots, our bones with plastic, our skin with... you get the idea up to and including our brain whos intelligence will be augmented as well. Human 2.0 will be an awesome improvement.

reply to post by miragezero

You said :
Human 2.0 will be an awesome improvement.

Somehow I am reminded of the following -

Definition of Irrational Exuberance

The term "irrational exuberance" derives from some words that Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, used in a black-tie dinner speech entitled " The Challenge of Central Banking in a Democratic Society" before the American Enterprise Institute at the Washington Hilton Hotel December 5, 1996. Fourteen pages into this long speech, which was televised live on C-SPAN, he posed a rhetorical question: "But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?" He added that "We as central bankers need not be concerned if a collapsing financial asset bubble does not threaten to impair the real economy, its production, jobs and price stability."

Source : irrationalExuberance.com

Thanks for comment ...

When Secretary of State Clinton remarked she was a “progressive of the 1920’s type”, she was claiming to be a part of the group that were the main proponents of eugenics:

Who are Progressives?

reply to post by SGTChas

You said :
When Secretary of State Clinton remarked she was a “progressive of the 1920’s type”, she was claiming to be a part of the group that were the main proponents of eugenics

Fair enough, Sarge - and a pretty good point too ! Thanks for your insight.

Hiding History in Plain Sight

Most of us rely on a few translators of Ancient Greek as to what happened back when. Sitchen is an excellent example of the herd believing the translators about Ur yet he taught himself cuneiform and came up with an entirely different "story" using the same source texts. Yet, all this is understandable in the context of so much time passing from the original text writing and the translations.

What about purposeful lost history to living peoples? I had never thought of that! The Turkish people had a written language that was simplified as text, although not in spoken form. In other words the spoken language never changed, only the symbols placing that language on paper (or stone) was simplified. This was around 1910. After 1970 there would be no living people in Turkey who knew the original written language and the newer simplified text. Therefore no one could read the historical texts written prior to 1910, nor understand them except for linguistic specialists. In practical application within a generation, no one could understand the original texts because it no longer was taught in the school systems.

Source : educate-yourself.org