Obamacare is 21st century eugenics (Part 2)

By Bob Kemp

The idea of a master Nordic race with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin did not originate with Nazi Germany or Adolf Hitler. Decades before the Third Reich came to power; the quest to develop the "perfect" humans had begun in the United States. Eugenics owes part of its development to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP) that were concerned about the increased immigration of non-WASP to America that did not look like or talk like themselves. You see, during most of the 19th century, the vast majority of immigrants to the new world were WASP from northern Europe, but the tide changed at the beginning of the 20th century. More often, the Statute of Liberty was welcoming Italians, Slavs and Jews. Immigration had increased 5 fold in the early part of the 20th century from around a quarter of a million immigrants each year to almost 1.5 million people, the majority of which were not WASP.

The WASP feared that their domination in America was threatened by this influx of folk not like them. The new arrivals looked...different. They dressed differently and spoke in a tongue not like theirs. Their customs and habits were also different and even strange. These new arrivals were not protestant, but Catholic and Jewish. In New York City, the contrast between the different groups was most noticeable. The Jews, Italians, WASP and Slavs preferred to keep to themselves. They all seemed to claim a certain area of the city as theirs to live and work in.

As new immigrants without a lot of money or other means of supporting themselves right off the boat, the non-WASP immigrants often found housing in the poorest of neighborhoods. Like those that came before them, they hoped and prayed that with hard work, conviction and God's grace, their circumstances would eventually change and they would be able to move to a better neighborhood and provide a better standard of living for their family.

Many didn't speak English when they arrived, and many didn't have a proper education. So the challenge of finding work that paid a living wage was compounded by this. Unless they had a specific skill and/or had family that had arrived ahead of them in the states and were established, many had to take whatever work they could find; the work that WASP either didn't want to do themselves or paid others to do for them. This is how many of the notorious gangs of New York City got their start. They were poor uneducated immigrants that came to America with hopes of a better life than what they left in the old country, but for some the only work they could find was on the wrong side of the law. I am not making a blanket statement here about all non-WASP immigrants. Nor am I saying the WASP were somehow superior to others. There were those that did come to America with education and skills to employ. For those in the minority, America truly was a land flowing with milk and honey almost from the time they stepped off the boat. But this was the exception, rather than the rule.

The WASP really didn't want these people intermingling and intermarrying with their kind. "Those people are not like us" they would tell each other. They are poor and dirty. They are uneducated and lawless trouble-makers and evil-doers. Stay away from them lest they bring you down also. So segregation was a natural outcome of all this, not only in New York City, but across America.

Does any of this sound familiar? Today's immigrants, both legal and illegal, face much the same stereotypical attitudes from Americans. They also face the same challenges and obstacles as first generation immigrants. Nothing has changed in this regard. It is an old story, one that will be played out from generation to generation. I am opposed to illegal immigration and I do want the government to enforce the immigration laws that are on the books now. I want to be clear about this. I also want to be clear that the ground for government run eugenics is just as fertile today as it was 100 years ago, perhaps even more so. The goals of the eugenicists may be different, but only to a degree of separation. That degree of separation we will look more closely at later. The only thing that changes in eugenics is those that are in power to use it, and those they choose to use it against. Now, back to our history lesson.

The WASP saw these new immigrants as a very real threat to the balance of power they held in America. Many feared the melting pot of America, and this provided the perfect environment for eugenics to take hold throughout the country. Eugenics was the perfect pseudoscience for the racist of the early 20th century. It would become the "science" that would determine who would dominate, and who would become extinct. Eugenics promised to eliminate all human beings deemed "unfit" to live and promote the survival of the fittest; those that fit the strong Nordic stereotype by the elitist that saw this example as being the "perfect" human being. All others could be aborted or euthanized.

It is obvious that this view of perfection was promoted by those that held a Darwinian/Galton worldview and not a biblical worldview. The Darwinian/Galton worldview is that of an atheist. Mankind is only an animal with no more value than your favorite pet. Like dogs, man can be bred to attain certain perfection from a human perspective, with an imperfect man determining just what that measure of perfection is. In 1 Samuel 16 we have the historical account of the prophet Samuel being sent by God to anoint His chosen to replace Saul as king of Israel. The scripture tells us in verse 7 that God told Samuel not to judge the lad by outward appearance. It tells us that God does not look at the things that man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. Ya think this is what Martin Luther King Jr. was referring to when he said he looked forward to the day when his children would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their heart?

Eugenics does not care about what is inside a person unless it will contribute or distract from its goals. In the beginning, God created man in his intellectual, spiritual and moral likeness. When man sinned, man lost the moral likeness, which was his sinlessness, but we still retain the intellectual and spiritual likeness of our Creator, though granted the intellectual aspect is greatly diminished from what it was intended to be. Even in the garden before the fall, created man was not perfect. God did not create him perfect, but "very good." A perfect being would not sin. And yet somehow imperfect man is arrogant enough to believe he can surpass God in making a "perfect" man to live in an imperfect world!!! In all human history, there has only been one perfect man; his name is Jesus. And this perfect man loved those that society shunned; the very one's eugenics would destroy. He loved the leper, the blind, the lame, the poor, the prostitute, the thief, the foul and profane. He saw people as God sees them, and valued them as God values them.

The leading American eugenicists were able to provide statistics which showed that the poor, outlaws and immigrants were a drain on the rest of society. They pointed to a study done by Sociologist Richard Dugdale in the late 1800's. Dugdale studied a family given the pseudonym of Jukes. Even though in his book, The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease and Heredity, Dugdale made the argument that environment was the dominant factor in the families generational displays of anti-social behavior and low intelligence, eugenicists used it to also argue their point that heredity was just as much to blame. Dugdale presented to the New York legislature that the Jukes family had cost the state of New York 1.3 million dollars, an expense the state did not need. Arthur H. Estabrook of the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, New York did a follow-up to Dugdale's work in 1916 titled The Jukes in 1915. Estabrook's book argued that environment created in an individual certain traits and habits that become hereditary. Much of the data from not only these studies, but studies conducted on other "degenerate families" was skewed in the favor of the eugenicists and helped to fuel their cause.

The lows birthrate of WASP in the early 20th century, and the high birthrate among non-WASP women was also a concern for eugenicists. They pointed out that as white, middle-class women became more educated and even took jobs outside of the home (oh mercy), they were choosing to have fewer children, thus the birthrate among WASP was declining. In stark contrast, the non-WASP immigrant birthrate was increasing at the same time. There was a genuine concern that the WASP women would literally breed themselves into a minority class at the least, and into extinction in America at the worst.

It was called The Progressive Era in the early 20th century. Science would be used to solve society's problems. I can hear Mr. Obama saying even now that science will be used by his administration and the government to guide national policy and that only good, sound science would be considered for such policies. Enter eugenics. Under the Obama administration, funding for abortion overseas has increased dramatically. "Every child a wanted child" is the argument that the pro-abortionists have made since Roe v. Wade. I guess that explains the increase in child abuse in every category across America in the decades that have followed. And nobody wants a child that is less than perfect (Who is determining what a perfect child is again?). So evaluate the child early in the womb and determine if he/she has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. After all who wants a child with a physical deformity or that is retarded or has Down's syndrome? Let's just get rid of them before they are born and become a drain on society. Yes, good, sound science will solve all our problems like global warming (climate change for the politically correct) or high energy prices and higher taxes. Good, sound science will solve our social ills like unwanted people. Let's trust the elitists in power to determine what good science is and what bad science is. Forget about such outdated notions like right and wrong, good and evil, charity and grace. Science is America's god revived from the ash heap of history. Mr. Obama is its prophet. And we are now entering a new Progressive Era. We are the enlightened generation called by science to do its bidding. The healthcare reform bill, according to many, is good, sound science put into action. The bill will make abortion more accessible and affordable to those that want it because our tax dollars will provide abortion to all those seeking it. This should not be. The bill offers no counseling to the mother to suggest alternatives like adoption. That would be too much of a drain on society according to the bills authors.

The Progressive Era of the early 20th century had two goals to achieve with the help of eugenics; helping the "unfit" and improving the human race, much in the same ways the healthcare reform bill of the early 21st century seeks to help the "disadvantaged" and improve the human race with funding for Embryonic Stem Cell Research and abortion on demand, among other things.

Mark Haller, a professor of history said, "Society had a responsibility to care for the dependent and delinquent but society had, at the same time, a responsibility to see that such persons did not contaminate generations to come." Eugenics argued that whether through sterilization or segregation, it offered the best quality of life for the "unfit." Eugenics claimed to care for the less fortunate of society, but in reality eugenics only helped the dominant class.

I close part 2 of this column with this:

Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not He who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not He who guards your life know it? Will He not repay each person according to what he has done?

Proverbs 24:11-12

© Bob Kemp