Tag: Unz Review

Eugenics, Elitism, and the Law

Roger Mitchell2 Comments

“The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him.” — Proverbs 18: 17

“From there He arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden. For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. But Jesus said to her, “Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” And she answered and said to Him, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.” Then He said to her, “For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.” And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.” — Mark 7: 24-30, NKJV

At first glance, these two pieces of scripture seem to have nothing in common, but I have found a connection. Oddly enough, it comes from two separate articles on The Unz Review, the first making a case for the practice of eugenics and the second ripping his argument into shreds. Reading through the first article (7600 words, half-marathon, but I finished), one might be tempted to think that there is a sound argument for the practice, but reading through the second (27, 800 words, I skipped a lot and didn’t get through to the end before I quit), it is quite apparent that there are a lot of flaws in the first, all of which need to be resolved and the Commenters Which Follow happily did (and still are doing) their part to achieve that.

There are a lot of things which play into this debate and discussion, but ultimately the lesson learned is that eugenicists favor some method of “selection” to cull those they disapprove of. The reason for the disapproval nor the method employed are not critical to the debate, all that matters is that there are “elites” who decide and “sub-standards” who bear the judgment of the decision. This attitude brings to mind the saying that “The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.”

Throughout human history, the world has experienced this tension repeatedly. This is not something new. Everywhere, in all times, some class of people has been termed “deficient” and “not quite human”, and due to that designation, suitable for “subjugation and/or removal”. Consider the history of the United States alone:

  1. Native Americans
  2. Black slaves
  3. Irish and Italian immigrants
  4. Chinese
  5. White trash
  6. Mentally incompetent
  7. Physically flawed
  8. And many more.

Applying this topic to the second scripture quoted, it is evident that the mindset was prevalent and accepted during the time of Jesus. The Jews knew that they were “superior” over all others and the others who lived under their dominance knew it as well. How else can you explain these words? “…it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” The Gentiles were treated like dogs, little dogs, fit only to be cursed and kicked out of the way, unless, of course, they could be used to fill the coffers and wallets of the self-recognized “upper” class, which included not only the highest echelons of Jewish society, but also the lowest of the low. Remember Peter and the vision he had in which God told him not to call anything “unclean” which God had cleansed? Yes, even poverty-stricken, ignorant fishermen were prone to look down their snobbish noses at anyone they deemed “inferior” and draw in the hems of their robes to avoid touching them.

Thank God that after twenty centuries, we’re beyond that. Except that we’re not. The issue still swirls and the temptation still exists to consider a specific class as better than all others and it is nearly certain that the “favored ones” are represented by those who do the defining. Curiously enough, the definition always matches the person and personality of the definer, but then again, it really isn’t so curious. After all, we do have tendencies to inflate and lift ourselves above the status of others around us, don’t we?

Or am I the only one who has ever done that?

Where Do the Children Play?

Roger MitchellLeave a comment

The following is a response I made to a comment (#152) by one, Mulga Mumblebrain, (imagine the inner workings of someone who produced that moniker), who wrote this in response to an earlier comment of my own. See here for the full article at the Unz Review.

“Capitalism is actually a form of cancer, one currently in the end-stage of its neoplastic growth as all the life-supporting biospheres on the planets collapse. The big capitalists, the prime metastases of the disease process, plainly plan to resolve the situation with chemotherapy, ie bio-warfare, to remove all the little metastases and opportunistic infections aka the ‘useless eaters’.”

Where do the children play, indeed?

In order to make sure that I understood capitalism correctly, I typed the search term “capitalism definition” into my Brave browser. The first paragraph is reproduced here.

“Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market. This system is based on the idea that individuals and businesses make decisions about what to produce, how to produce it, and for whom to produce it, driven by the pursuit of profit.”

1. ALL (with the stress on all) capital goods are owned either privately (one individual, meaning exclusive) or corporately (more than one individual, meaning shared).

2 ALL (ditto) decisions made about production are made by either one single individual acting alone or are made in conjunction, association, and cooperation with other individuals.

What this means is that every single bit of production is made by individuals acting either alone or corporately. The base unit of capitalism (and every other means of production) is the individual. There are no corporations nor businesses which do not derive from the actions of individuals. There are no economic systems, governments, charities, non-profits, etc. which are NOT made up of individuals working together.

That being said, if the above definition is true, then it is certain that every single individual on this planet is a capitalist in some form or another. No one ever produces anything without the hope of gaining something from it. Even the naysayers and disbelievers profit in some fashion by the work they do in the expectation that they will benefit from it. Therefore, and I repeat my assertion from Comment #20 above,

“Capitalism, by itself, is not to blame. Just as with money, it is the abuse of capitalism which produces bad results. Notice that money itself is not “a root of all evil”, but rather the love of money which is condemned. Unfortunately, people look at the disastrous consequences of bad policy which is perpetrated under supposedly “capitalistic societies” and conclude that it is the capitalistic tendency which is at fault, causing them to embrace a differing viewpoint and structure–Marxism, for instance, or any other envy-driven philosophy and protocol.”

By itself, working to produce profit and gain from one’s actions is not to blame. Since everyone, without exception, participates in this production, then the fault has to lie elsewhere. The problem stems from the age-old desire to profit at the expense of others who are seen as nothing more than an opportunity to be taken advantage of. Force (often violent) and fraud are brought into play with the result that the most-powerful rise to the top of the heap, instituting rules which everyone else must submit to, so that the rule-makers can profit–again at the expense of others.

Every economic system the world has ever produced suffers from this affliction. Force and fraud are used to take from those less fortunate in order to produce gain for the better-connected and favored class. Every system has those who run things with the understanding that they, personally and individually, will profit from their input. Every system has those, bottom to top, who try to take advantage of the system so that they can benefit. Every single one.

“There are none righteous, no, not one.” –Romans 3:10

In its purest form (individual effort to gain from one’s work), capitalism is a healthy and vibrant means of “producing the goods” which people want. It is only when something is introduced and imposed on it from the outside (force, fraud, etc.) that it becomes a cancer, as you say. So long as people are left alone to live their own lives freely, they will produce, not only for themselves but also for others. This is the essence of Adam Smith’s argument and it has been wildly successful.

Unfortunately, capitalism (like everything else associated with humanity) is “infected” with the “cancerous” thought that taking (stealing) from others is acceptable and can produce widespread social benefits. “Thou shalt not steal!” (a personal admonition) has been perverted to read, “Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.” Or perhaps, because someone has more than you do. Or perhaps, because you have the power to make it stick. Or perhaps, because you are a “bleeding heart” who sees injustice and seeks to force correction on it. Or perhaps, …, ad infinitum.

The problem, then, is a spiritual matter, not an economic one. The problem, then, is the fact that people are, at heart, thieves who will use anything (force, fraud, etc.) to get what they want and, if successful, their gain ALWAYS comes from someone else becoming the victim and paying the price. Advocating for a different economic system does not change this. It only changes the method by which individual people are used, abused, and taken advantage of by other individual people.

You may have diagnosed the disease correctly (cancer), but have misdiagnosed the cause of it. Corrupted human nature, not capitalism, is the reason why we are in the mess we are and that corruption cannot be changed by fiat, law, or government edicts and programs. It can only be changed at the individual level, within the confines of one’s own heart.

I fully expect, Mr. Mumblebrain, that you will shoot the messenger because you do not like the message. That seems to be your nature. So be it.