Coulter, Darwinism, Hitler, Eugenics and Caring

[neoblues]

Egad, it seems, now and then, I come across "Doc" D. James Kennedy on his "Coral Ridge" Christian "religious disinformation" television show (I wish there was an FCC law that limited such programming to their own television networks, and another law that outlaws such networks). I can't help but stop for a moment (until the nausea becomes too great) to see what absurd, deceitful crap he's spouting this week. This week it was all about "Darwin's Deadly Legacy" (deadly because it more or less caused Communism, Hitler and the Holocaust--and now it's corrupting the minds of our poor little school children**)

Repeatedly thoughout his program of semi-cleverly misleading arguments, he turns to Ann Coulter for "expert" testimony (yes, the program packaging refers to her--as well as Kennedy himself, as "Experts"), after all--she's so smart. In one, she share with us how shocked she was to discover the relationship between Hitler and Darwinism--shocked because she didn't already know it. If interested in the link between Ann Coulter and Hitler (and Satan), just click the link in this sentence. She goes on to talk about Eugenics... She says "Eugenics is applied Darwinism" and points out that the Germans considered those who were found sub-standard, and therefore eligible to be euthanized (removed from the population, permanently) or sterilized, were considered "useless eaters"--as though (sniffle), she cared... it's so nice she's found religion.

Oh, and Darwinism also finally resulted, more recently, in causing students Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris to perpetrate the Columbine massacre. Puh-leeze. Any this female impersonator somehow managed to get a Law degree--as irrational as it seems that anyone who could support such inane propositions could have passed college exams (unless she cheated somehow).

Anyway, that Ann Crueltor for you. I swear, the crap that get's on television these days...


________________________________________________________________

**no doubt he wonders how our children will compete in the world if they're corrupted into believing in the false doctrine of Evolution, and by extension, the ultimate corruption: Science itself. What a boob.

[Armstead]

1. Eugenics is a big thing on the Far Right

Some of them tie it into the Great Socialist Liberal Conspiracy that goes back to the early 20th Century.

What they tyend to overlook is that many of the leaders of the Eugenics were conservative tycoons and political figures, including relatives of W himself.

[rug]

2. I saw that. They also blamed Darwin for Columbine.

[teryang]

3. Failure to distinguish social Darwinism from Darwinism.

Social darwinism is based upon the mistaken premise that races are "species" and the fatally flawed notion that nations are biological organisms of genetically homogeneous populations.

Social Darwinism was the product of racism and the inhumanity to man, necessitated by imperial politics of colonialism and despotic rule over so called "genetically inferior" races.

This misapplication of scientific Darwinism concerning evolution and the origin of species was a perversion of the scientific method and had absolute nothing to do with Darwins theory of evolution.

Crackpots like Himmler sent teams of Nazi "anthropologists" to measure the skull sizes of "Aryan" progenitors in central Asia. To attribute this insanity to Darwin's scientific efforts is a ludicrous and intentional distortion of the truth. This intellectual fraud was the product of 19th Century Imperialists in England, the US, and elsewhere, attempting to impose their rule by conquest and murder throughout the "underdeveloped" world. Measuring skull size was big magic for lying conquerors.

One might suggest that it was the propaganda/misinformation equivalent of saying that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or that we are in a struggle for survival with "terrorists."

[Warpy]

4. These people are utterly witless

The only thing you can do about them is laugh at them very publicly and move on.

You could always ask them why the good fairies never stopped that sort of thing if you're feeling mean.

But do laugh.

[Philosoraptor]

5. they'll all be replaced by we, the fittest.

[Boojatta]

6. Maybe the Media forum would be more appropriate for this than GD.

Would you have started this thread if you couldn't use the name "Coulter" or "D. James Kennedy" as a source, but had to rely on an anonymous website as the source?

[MrPrax]

7. Revisionism...

linking Hitler to Darwin is a bit of a stretch...

Much easier to link some of the world's leading eugenists directly to Hitler; like Madison Grant whose million seller 'The Passing of the Great Race' was widely read and very influential...in fact Hitler wrote to Grant telling him it was his 'Bible' and mentions it in 'Mein Kampf'.

Davenport, another prominent eugenist, was very influential as well and taught for decades at Harvard. Teddy Roosevelt himself wrote many articles on the subject of race eugenics and the decline of 'old stock'. Dugdale's viscious, but widely cited study "The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease and Heredity" from the 1870s provided much of the theory to the concept of the 'rogue's gallery' in crime and can still be seen in the technique of 'racial profiling'.

The revisionist part comes from the fact that it was considered on the Continent that all the really good science on the subject was being done in the much freer and less stodgy American science institutions...apparantly the melting pot of American urban life provided a much greater 'test' pool for study than uniformly homogenous old Europe. The melting pot also provided much of the motivation to American's intellectual native class who discussed such compeling things in their cirrculums about whether the 'negroid' was capable of 'free thought' or was it merely 'mimicry' or 'adaption'.

Where the social darwin divergence takes place is between 'hard' and 'soft' positions -- hard being you can't change the races and the soft being you can MODIFY their behaviours through environmental conditioning and 'natural' selection.

But at this point, it has little to do with science, Darwin or anything else and much more to do with a scientific secularization of religion and morality which predates Darwin and everything else.

The American prison experiements in Auburn and Cherry Hill were inspired by a lot of the forerunners of social darwinism (Betham's Panopticon) and Protestantism. In fact Penn's idea for Cherry Hill was that you could take hardened criminals and turn them into quakers through behaviour modification.

This was cutting edge back in the 19th century and very much examined and admired by European and American reformers of all stripes.

So it does seem a little much to try to draw a line directly from Darwin (and miss Malthus and Bentham!!?) to Hitler while ignoring the considerable American contribution to the subject.

It also seems dangerous to me to revise history to simply reflect temporary partisanship; this is how movements like Nazism come about...they have roots in the society already, they are not 'new fangled' political ideas.