Wednesday, September 01, 2010

The Progressives in England

Oh, they're still around.

The mentally and morally “unfit” should be sterilized, Professor David Marsland, a sociologist and health expert, said this weekend. The professor made the remarks on the BBC radio program Iconoclasts, which advertises itself as the place to “think the unthinkable.”

That should be familiar to US progressives--it was endorsed by the execrable Justice Holmes and by Wisconsin Progressives, too--back in the early 1900's.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"That should be familiar to US progressives--it was endorsed by the execrable Justice Holmes and by Wisconsin Progressives, too--back in the early 1900's."


True, but it wasn't just relegated to "progressives". The response of prominent Catholic clergy was not entirely uniform.

whatwemaybe.org/txt/txt0001/Glad.John.2006.Catholicism%20and%20Eugenics%20in%20the%20Weimar%20Republic%20and%20in%20the%20Third%20Reich.htm

Dad29 said...

I forgot both Margaret Planned Parenthood and A. Hitler.

And that book review is preposterous. To posit that abstinence is the same as sterilization, abortion, or chemical prevention of birth is logically and philosophically inane.

And, by the way, actual Church teaching on the topic does not remotely resemble what the reviewer (or book-author) postulates. That's sort of like taking the word of a Milwaukee UPS mechanic as Company policy.

But hey...whatever turns your crank.

Anonymous said...

The reviewer summarized the book, which is based on actual RCC actions and authentic documents of the time period. The book author also considered current teaching of the RCC on such matters in her analysis.

There were two camps--positive eugenicists and negative eugenicists--within the RCC, and the response to those camps by the hierarchy was mixed. That was the focus of the book.

Like I said before, you have demonstrated a knack for being historically challenged. It seems anything that remotely casts the RCC into a negative light in your eyes is automatically labeled as "inane" and "preposterous". Classic ideologue. Alinsky would be proud.