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To: Choose Ye This Day

Oliver Wendall Holmes thought he had a solution to a similar problem. Anyone recall that?


60 posted on 04/23/2008 1:48:08 AM PDT by count-your-change (you don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: count-your-change
Oliver Wendall Holmes thought he had a solution to a similar problem. Anyone recall that?

It was in Buck v. Bell in which he wrote "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." The decision legitimized what was already being practiced: forced sterilization of women deemed by the government to be unfit to breed. Here's some more of Holmes' opinion: "We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes."

69 posted on 04/23/2008 5:01:36 AM PDT by Flo Nightengale (long-time lurker)
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