Posted on 06/23/2011 7:17:26 AM PDT by surroundedbyblue
There is nothing the state of North Carolina can do, Elaine Riddick says, to make up for forcing her to be sterilized when she was 14 years old.
"They cut me open like I was a hog," the woman who now lives in Atlanta said at a Wednesday hearing in Raleigh held by a panel working to determine compensation for thousands of victims of the state's defunct eugenics program. "My heart bleeds every single day. I'm crushed. What can they do for me?"
Riddick, 57, was one of 13 people who spoke at the meeting, and one of nearly 3,000 living victims of the program, which was shuttered in 1977, three years after the last sterilization was performed. The public hearing is part of a process unprecedented not just in North Carolina, but nationally. About a half dozen other states have joined North Carolina in apologizing for past eugenics programs, but none of the others have put together a plan to compensate victims of involuntary sterilization.
"It's hard for me to accept or understand or even try to figure out why these kinds of atrocious acts could be carried out in this country," said Gov. Beverly Perdue, who appointed the Eugenics Task Force that convened Wednesday's hearing.
Any plan that involves financial compensation will be a hard sell, though, in a year when the state budget includes deep cuts to numerous programs. The General Assembly passed the $19.7 billion spending plan over Perdue's veto. Bills in the legislature aimed at providing specific financial and medical compensation for victims have stalled.
"We've made some baby steps, but as we get closer to the big one, there's some pushback," said state Rep. Larry Womble, D-Forsyth, the lawmaker who's been most active on the issue.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
So right. And that's as good a name for the Steaming Pile as any. (That's what we call him in my household, "Steaming" for short.)
No, she wasn’t sterilized. The law at the time was that she would have to be sterilized before she could be married. Her epilepsy was due to injury not heredity but that didn’t matter.
Question: why is it that the State of North Carolina (read: taxpayers) are the only ones bearing the burden of providing restitution in this situation? Shouldn’t organizations like Planned Parenthood that have history based in partnership with the State in implementing eugenics and forced sterilization (if not actually being the driving force behind it) be forced to contribute to the restitution as well?
The Darwinists love to talk about their theory of evolution, but only because this diverts attention from their real agenda and that agenda is the systematic elimination of huge portions of the world's population that they consider "unfit" and the total destruction of Judeo-Christian culture. Darwinist eugenics is predicated upon the belief that the human intellect is the master of the universe, that there is no God and that any "rights" that exist only exist because the elites have determined that they are acceptable for the population.
The Darwin family stopped focusing on evolution very early on, by the late 19th century their sole focus was eugenics. Anybody who thinks that Darwinism is about science is wrong, it is about population control and an elitist utopia.
Here is a snapshot of the destruction of Darwinism (granted, Stalin and Mao never professed to be Darwinists, but their policies were textbook Darwinism):
Rachel Carson (author of "Silent Spring" which resulted in the DDT ban): 50-80 MILLION deaths and rising every year.
Margaret Sanger: 46 MILLION+ deaths worldwide EVERY YEAR (850 MILLION to 1.2 BILLION worldwide since 1900).
Stalin: 13 MILLION+ deaths.
Hitler: 12 MILLION+ deaths.
Mao: 50-80 MILLION deaths.
So, in just the last century, Darwinism is responsible for the deaths of AT LEAST 975 MILLION INNOCENT people. (And note that this only counts the genocide that can be directly attributed to them, if the wars initiated by Stalin, Mao and Hitler were included there would be close to 100 MILLION more.)
First off, I am fully aware that ghetto life is destroying people. The fundamental lack of respect for life has tentacles that extend into numerous situations. Crime, violence, theft, murder, drug abuse: all of it stems from a blatant disregard for life. But if we endorse programs that embrace eugenics, how is that going to promote a culture of life that breeds responsibility & good citizenship??
Yes, I agree welfare programs that pay for women to breed scores of uncared for, illegitimate children are a huge part of the problem. However, this article was discussing a government-sanctioned program that forced sterilization on those that the state deemed undesireable. If you think that’s ok, you are NOT a conservative & you have more in commmon with Obama than you think.
Your post to me, in which you claim I don’t know what I am talking about is both rude & insulting. I know more than you think. I live in a city, on the edge of a ghetto & I work in a large inner-city children’s hospital. My mother is a retired disability caseworker who can go on & on ad nauseam about how broke the system is. Please, spare me your condescention.
I can understand that. But how does one reconcile this apparent belief in man as master of all things with such things as "deep ecology," g*ia worship, and other such things this same elite seems to be into? These philosophies seem very mystical and opposed to human mastery of the world.
Perhaps I should rephrase. The whole environmentalist mindset is that the world is "perfect" but for the interference of "lesser" humans, the elites believe they alone can return the earth to this utopia. It sounds sort of like the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man, but it's the exact opposite because they believe that THEY can restore Eden.
Again, what you say makes sense but it contradicts other things we know about the "elite." The "elite" don't believe there ever was a Garden of Eden--just "nature red in tooth and claw." And the same elite who worship science are the same elite who idolize "the indigenous peoples." Granted, none of this makes any sense. I suppose that's why any attempt to explain one aspect of the elite's ideology contradicts some other aspect of that same ideology.
And precisely who is the determiner of being “stupid” enough to deserve sterilization?
Your definition may be taking welfare. Somebody else’s definition of “stupid” may be that you have “unenlightened” or “reactionary” ideas such as thinking evolution is unscientific or thinking that the right of citizens to keep and bear arms isn't limited to the National Guard.
I happen to agree that most of our modern government-run welfare system should be shut down and turned over to churches and private secular charities, but that's not the point. Do we want to follow the model of Sparta and have the government inspecting newborn babies to see if they'll be allowed to live so unproductive babies don't become a drain on society?
I don't want to give government that kind of power.
Now if someone wants to pass a law that any unmarried mother with more than a certain number of kids won't get any increase in her food stamps if she has an additional child without being married, that's a public policy question of whether to give people benefits, not taking away rights. I can see arguments both for and against that kind of policy, I'm concerned that it would become a way to coerce people into getting abortions, and I'm not sure the public good of promoting marriage is worth giving people the idea that the government would rather you kill your baby than pay to help you feed it.
But forcing sterilization is totally unacceptable — period.
Jim Robinson wrote on Thursday, June 23, 2011 1:41:41 PM: “FR is a pro-God, pro-life, pro-family, pro-liberty site. We do not support government forcing anything on anyone, much less forced sterilization. You can either keep this NAZI-like crap to yourself or get the hell off of FR! Choice is yours.”
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!
I saw your post and the banning of “I buried my guns” after I wrote my response. Thank you again!!!
This kind of crap makes conservatives look like racist pigs. It needs to be punished so the rest of us don't get a black eye.
BykrBayb posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 1:45:40 PM: “Would you issue exemptions from your forced sterilization program to disabled vets with traumatic brain injuries, or should they be treated like all the other “retards?” Would Trig Palin be allowed an exemption, even though he is exactly the type person you're targeting? These are not rhetorical questions. I'd like an honest answer, if you're capable of such... Thank you Jim. Some of the comments can be very hurtful to people caring for disabled family members. God bless you.”
Just one word — Amen!
trisham posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 5:37:50 PM: “It is difficult to believe that there might be anyone here that would support that kind of thing. Unfortunately, we seem to be beset with trolls lately.”
DJ MacWoW posted on Thursday, June 23, 2011 5:29:37 PM: “One has to wonder about people like that. Was he serious? Are there really people that filled with hate and prejudice that believe they are really conservative?”
Unfortunately, yes.
The modern conservative movement predates the modern pro-life movement. There was a day that being pro-life wasn't assumed in economic conservative or nationalistic conservative circles.
Even as late as the early 1980s, I remember a few people who were generally regarded as conservative Republicans, including elected officials on the local level and Republican Party officials, who were arguing that it was entirely appropriate to encourage abortion in inner-city communities to reduce the welfare burden. Of course people didn't say that publicly with reporters listening, but it definitely **WAS** being said privately by a few people in the Republican Party circles in which I grew up, and from what I have been told, it was being said more often in the Goldwater era though even then it wasn't considered something good for conservatives to say in “polite company.”
That was garbage then, it's garbage now, and fortunately we have a lot fewer conservatives today spouting that garbage.
I am really, really, really glad to see nearly everybody on Free Republic who has posted so far bashing this guy. The rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are not negotiable. Abortion and eugenics are both contrary to any form of constitutional government.
A big thanks to a lot of people — that's the reason for the long “ping” list. You need to be thanked for defending people's right to life, even if they have mothers who have made really bad choices and are in demographic groups unlikely to generate conservative votes. The right to life is not something that can be compromised; the state has no right to kill people unless they've been found guilty of a capital crime by due process of law, and by definition that doesn't apply to babies.
I said it sounds like Eden, of course they don't believe in Eden. But they do believe the earth was once perfect, that man has destroyed it and that they can restore that perfection.
And the same elite who worship science are the same elite who idolize "the indigenous peoples."
They seem to, but at the same time they argue that these people will be much better off if most of them are killed off (look at the population control programs in Africa and South America). It's more like they want to kill most of the people and then keep a few as novelties.
Thanks for a very well thought out and emotional response. The right to life comes from God. When we pose that some may not warrant that right, or should be sterilized of otherwise inhibited for whatever reasons we rationalize, then we are playing God. And just who do we think we are that we can improve on His plan?
Such palpably disgusting thoughts as were presented here by I Buried My Guns cannot go unanswered. It’s up to all of us to condemn any and all such garbage. It cannot go unchallenged.
Please understand that I am not arguing with you--merely conversing, exchanging ideas, and trying to understand.
According to Darwinian evolution, the earth was never "perfect." Evolution was trial and error, death and disease, with no teleological end in sight. One might argue that evolution easily blends with teleologial notions of historical progress to produce the idea that the world is headed to perfection, but according to Darwinism it was never perfect in the past.
This is absolutely true, and I'm afraid too many contemporary conservatives don't understand this. We read that so-and-so who lived back in the Good Old Days was a "conservative" and we tend to identify with him and want to defend him, but he may not really be worthy of our defense (at least on all issues). Nationalist "blood and soil" type right wingers (such as one had in Europe) could be very bad news, and as for "economic conservatives," what do they really care for besides dollars and cents?
Lothrop Stoddard was an early twentieth century "conservative" and he was both a racialist and a friend and supporter of Margaret Sanger. (This is why I am leery of ethno-nationalist "conservatives" like the people at Vdare).
Good point. The Darwinists do not believe that the earth ever was perfect, but they DO BELIEVE that perfection is attainable if "lesser" men are prevented from interfering.
This does indeed seem to be what they believe. Although where atheists get their idea of "perfection" (not to mention their "moral imperative" to bring it about) is a mystery.
It seems to be based on whatever they think will be most personally pleasing to them and give them the most power.
The negative population growth ideology comes out of that: there are too many of us polluting "Gaia" (we're a cancer), and we can return to Noble Savagery if enough of the undesirables (untermenschen) among us are eliminated. Eugenics and population reduction go together; the reduced population of perfected Men (ubermenchen, New Soviet Men, whatever) will have plenty of space to live in (lebensraum).
IMHO.
To be perfectly clear, my post above reflects my understanding of eugenicist and deep-ecology beliefs; I reject them utterly.
Do the elitists of today envision themselves as living like "savages" in the future? That's gonna be quite an adjustment.
Again, the idea of human perfectibility and the hatred of man in the name of "nature" don't seem to harmonize.
BRAVO!!! Wonderful post.
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