The eugenics debate and the climate change debate.

Bookworm observes that

The eugenics debate from a century ago bears striking similarities to the climate change debate today.

...over the past couple of nights I watched a fairly good PBS documentary about eugenics. While it didn’t mention Margaret Sanger’s racism, it did touch upon a lot of other interesting points about the eugenic craze in America:

The way in which someone took a scientific theory (evolution) and ran with it;

“Scientific” research that started with conclusions and forced the data;

Big money;

The buy-in of the American elite in the name of expertise, science, and self-improvement;

The panic about a nation that could be destroyed by “defective” human beings, whether because of birth defects, substance abuse, or inferior race;

The doubling down as doubt crept in amongst serious researchers; and

The movement’s eventual failure when it reached its inevitable and extreme conclusion with the Nazis.

If those factors remind you of something, then I’ve successfully made my point, which is that the whole eugenics foofaraw is like a template for climate change hysteria. Just think about the fact that the climate change craze:

Took a scientific theory and ran with it;

Larded the theory with dubious “science” towards a predetermined conclusion;

Got big money;

Got the buy-in of a hysterical elite in thrall to expertise, science, and self-improvement;

Turned into an eschatalogical, Manichean panic to prevent the end of the world;

Saw its true believers double down in the face of opposing evidence;

and
(Finally) seems to be falling under its own weight as it becomes clear to ordinary people that it has no substance and is being used for bad ends (in the case of climate change, to enrich hucksters and impoverish ordinary people around the globe).

Go here to read some additional observations from Bookworm about art restoration and racism.

Disproportionally killing black and hispanic babies

Dr. Susan Berry writes about Planned Parenthood,

which now rakes in more than $500 million in taxpayer funding annually – grew to perform over 300,000 abortions per year in the United States. According to the 2010 census, 79 percent of Planned Parenthood’s surgical abortion facilities are located within walking distance of black or Hispanic neighborhoods.

Planned Parenthood is celebrating its centennial anniversary, the same year its dream presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, is vowing to ensure more black women can have abortions because taxpayers will pay for them.

Some 59 million abortions have been performed in the country since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, nearly 18 million of them on black babies. As Breitbart News has reported, the Alan Guttmacher Institute also provided data showing that about 30 percent of all abortions in the U.S. are performed on black women, with another 25 percent performed on Hispanic women.

Perhaps the most stirring statistic comes from New York City, where more black babies are aborted than are born.

...Sanger, who began the Negro Project in 1939 and worked to bring birth control to blacks in an effort to reduce their population, joined with elite and well known African-Americans Mary McLeod Bethune, W.E.B. DuBois, and Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. The Negro Project was sold as a solution to poverty and high birth rates among the black community. At the same time Sanger promoted her theory of “eliminating the unfit,” she also condemned charitable organizations that she believed were elevating the very population that needed to be weeded out.

...In January, when Clinton accepted the official endorsement of Planned Parenthood, she also called for an end to the Hyde Amendment so that more low-income black and Hispanic women could obtain abortions on demand on the taxpayer’s dime.

“I will always defend Planned Parenthood,” Clinton said. “And I will say – consistently and proudly – Planned Parenthood should be funded, supported, and appreciated; not undermined, misrepresented, and demonized.”

Clinton, who also said unborn babies have no constitutional rights, added that women have the right to abortion.

Read more here.

Of eugenics, snowstorms, and apophasis

I look forward to reading Jonah Goldberg's National Review newsletter every weekend. This week he gives a lengthy discussion of progressives and eugenics, the D.C. snowstorm, Hillary Clinton, and, of course, Donald Trump.

Speaking of Sanders, some wag on Twitter noted that the best thing about the run on the grocery stores in blizzard-besieged D.C. is that it gave the Beltway crowd a sense of what it will be like under a Sanders administration. I don’t want to live under a socialist president, but a silver lining would be seeing all those MSNBC hosts waiting in line for toilet paper.

Jonah describes a phenomena we here in Colorado see about every two weeks, including this weekend, in which predictions are for a big snowstorm Monday and Tuesday of next week:

...so they run to the supermarkets like the kids in Red Dawn and grab enough provisions to last them until spring. That leaves sane people with a dilemma: Do you run to the store, too, not out of fear of the snow, but out of concern that the deranged masses will clear the shelves?

Have you heard of the word apophasis? Goldberg explains that it is

...a rhetorical device where you bring up something while denying or condemning it.

...For instance, you might say, “I do not think the fact that Hillary Clinton put our national security at risk just so she could hide her illegal communications from congressional oversight, journalists, and FOIA requests should be held against her.” Or you might say, “I have no doubt that Bill Clinton is telling the truth. Though I cannot for the life of me figure out why he was pantsless at 3:00 in the morning, trying to push that goat over the fence.”

Apophasis came up on Twitter the other day because Donald Trump tweeted: “I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!” I was mildly surprised by the number of people who thought Trump’s tweet was clever. But I was truly stunned by the number of idiots who thought he wasn’t calling Megyn Kelly a bimbo. His whole shtick is that he’s a warrior against political correctness. He wasn’t invoking political correctness as a legitimate thing, he was sarcastically hiding behind it. People not enthralled with Trump recognize this as smarmy cowardice.

Indeed, they would see it plainly if I were to tweet, “I’m not going to call Donald Trump an adulterous cad. That would be politically incorrect. So I’ll just say he’s a moral lightweight!”

The difference of course is that there’s no evidence that Kelly is a bimbo. There’s ample evidence that Trump cheated on his wife and slept with many married women. What’s the evidence? His own, boastful (!) testimony for starters.

My favorite part is that Trump’s “bimbo” tweet came immediately after one in which he condemned Fox’s response to his debate boycott as a “disgrace.” He added, “Who would ever say something so nasty and dumb?”

The almost Caligulan narcissism on display here is now familiar to everyone. The truly creepy part is how many conservatives overlook it or celebrate it. The slightest insult to the Donald arouses outrage and dismay from his digital court sycophants, but when he behaves like a boorish and childish lout, all praise and honor is due!

But, as I hope to say one day with more lasting results, enough about Donald.

Read more here.