Do you support any form of eugenics?

[Meursault]

No poll, because I'm (A) on mobile and (B) can't think of a compehensive range of options anyway.

I don't support Naziesque mandatory eugenics or Tuskegee-style coercion, but I'd certainly favor a voluntary, compensatory programme of sterilizatinn for the unemployed poor - for women, say, five hundred dollars for every year until the average age of menopausal onset; for men, a flat five thousand dollars. I'd certainly get a vasectomy under these conditions.

[Cassius]

Why the unemployed poor in particular? Anyway, no I do not (though if certain people want to keep to their own then I couldn't care less). You could say that on this particular issue I'm one of the 'good guys' (having argued long and hard against some of my slightly eugenicist peers).

[Antonio the Sixth]

God please, not this again.

[TNF]

God please, not this again.

In fairness, it will very likely produce a better discussion than will endless rehashings of SHOULD SMOKING METH IN PUBLIC BE LEGAL?!?! or SHOULD PORN BE LEGAL???

[Meursault]

As a member of the unemployed poor myself, I regard bearing children in this condition as unethical and Christian Consistent Life Ethic teachings about eugenics as immoral.

For the long-term unemployed, child rearing is a poverty trap. Abortion is certainly preferable to expanding the surplus population.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

This thread is already worse than cancer.

[Mopsus]

I'm all in favor of population control, but actively incentivizing that people not reproduce is too authoritarian for me to be comfortable with it. I would rather make birth control freely available to everyone, perhaps while implementing a propaganda campaign informing people about how much money they could save if they had fewer children.

[Meursault]

I'm pretty sure you've cavorted with others who agree with me on this issue in the past, Mr. Sanchez.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I'm pretty sure you've cavorted with others who agree with me on this issue in the past, Mr. Sanchez.

No, even when I was into the whole white nationalism scene, it was more of a movement based around "white rights" (basically the same as the "Men’s Rights" internet meme but dedicated to white people not being responsible for slavery, etc) than it was about horrible gutter ideas like eugenics. It had more to do with rightwing sage, if anything.

What does the bolding of my username have to do with anything, Enzigne?

[Meursault]

Oddly, I've done the reverse: I'm quite comfortable with the non-racialist, non-cultural content of fascism (syndicalism, eugenics, and so on), but I intensely dislike patriotism, nationalism, masculinism, militarism, ethno-collectivism, etc. I would probably have been a fascistii before the March on Rome. Always an anti-Nazi, though.

And I've always bolded usernames. It used to be de rigeur on Usenet forums.

[Goldwater]

Hell no (sane)

[Person Man]

There are those who favor castrations for convicted felons and welfare recipients. That being said, no one should be paid not to have kids.

Government mandated eugenics goes against basic constitution rights.

Many consider people with genetic diseases who use modified forms of IVF and eventually want to use mitochondrial gene transplants so they can have healthy children as a form eugenics. I can understand that some people won't do this because some people might think its like having an "abortion of an abortion", but this is a way that the health of the population can be improved without government mandates or sterilization.

[SPC]

I have problems with both the goals and the methods of eugenics. While the desire to improve the genetics of the population sounds good, comparative advantage dictates that society is better off if people specialize in different skill sets. Thus, it does not really make sense to select for the same characteristics in the entire human population, except for possibly fatal genetic disorders.

With regard to implementation, both positive and (especially) negative eugenics seem to contradict their stated objectives of selective for genetic fitness, for if a trait is truly desirable one would think that such a trait would require no active encouragement to encourage its propagation.

While advocates of the welfare state seem to have a Pavlovian association of social Darwinism with eugenics, the irony I see is that welfare statism is itself a form of positive eugenics, only with traits such as sloth and dependency considered more desirable than productive economic output.

[Antonio the Sixth]

fascistii

The singular is fascista and the plural is fascisti.

[Meursault]

Thank you for the correction.

Out of curiosity, do my views have analogues anywhere?

[Person Man]

I have problems with both the goals and the methods of eugenics. While the desire to improve the genetics of the population sounds good, comparative advantage dictates that society is better off if people specialize in different skill sets. Thus, it does not really make sense to select for the same characteristics in the entire human population, except for possibly fatal genetic disorders.

With regard to implementation, both positive and (especially) negative eugenics seem to contradict their stated objectives of selective for genetic fitness, for if a trait is truly desirable one would think that such a trait would require no active encouragement to encourage its propagation.

While advocates of the welfare state seem to have a Pavlovian association of social Darwinism with eugenics, the irony I see is that welfare statism is itself a form of positive eugenics, only with traits such as sloth and dependency considered more desirable than productive economic output.

That's why I think its a good consensus to use genetic counseling for only traits that can be considered diseases. The problem with social Darwinism and your attempt to "liberalize" social Darwinism is based on the same thing- that is, that the same traits that are considered good now will always be considered productive traits.

[Meursault]

To be more specific: are there any Italian-style fascist groups who still champion the Fascist Left? I'm not looking for any Strasserites.

[Antonio the Sixth]

To be more specific: are there any Italian-style fascist groups who still champion the Fascist Left? I'm not looking for any Strasserites.

I don't think you'll find a fascist group that isn't at least to some degree identitarian (ie championing a romanticized version of a country/region's "culture"). If you're looking for folks of this bent who don't fully fit with the traditional European far-right, I guess a "social centre" like Casa Pound (based on Ezra Pound's views) would do.

[RogueBeaver]

Hell no (sane)

[Meursault]

Reading about it, Casa Pound does have an uncanny echo in my own political views...

How are they regarded?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Eugenics typically means there is some claim that the gene pool is improved, rather than just  Malthusian population control efforts like those in India during the 1970s.  Both are awful though.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Reading about it, Casa Pound does have an uncanny echo in my own political views...

How are they regarded?

As a semi-thuggish far-right outfit, though in the media they are mostly ignored.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

At this point in the world's history I guess I tepidly support prophylactics-based population control in general principle, but the second it targets any specific group, especially one that's already disadvantaged, it takes a flying leap over the line from acceptable through morally suspect into outright evil.

Out of curiosity, do my views have analogues anywhere?

I see that Antonio's already fielded this question about your views in general, so I'll answer it about this subject specifically. You'll find a kindred spirit (although Lucy Maud Montgomery is surely turning in her grave for my use of that phrase in this context!) on this very forum. Seek out a poster called Cory if you're interested. He doesn't hate poor people as much as you do, but he hates disabled people more, so it balances out.

[Meursault]

I don't "hate the poor" (I cede self-loathing to Christians). I love the poor and wish to create an escape hatch from the poverty trap that our unofficial natalist regime - marriage tax credits, preferential welfare payments to parents, etc. - have foist upon them.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't "hate the poor" (I cede self-loathing to Christians). I love the poor and wish to create an escape hatch from the poverty trap that our unofficial natalist regime - marriage tax credits, preferential welfare payments to parents, etc. - have foist upon them.

I understand why you present it that way and the logic that goes into thinking like that but I think that specifically targeting a group of people for what amounts to a cull, even a relatively kind and gentle cull, amounts for all practical purposes to hating them, even if hatred isn't originally the emotion from which the motivation to do so stems.