Eugenics, Disgenics, and Economics

“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.... Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Writing for the Majority, Buck vs. Bell, 1927

The 1920s may have been roaring, but people did not enjoy the creature comforts and perceived economic security that we enjoy today. We’ve grown soft and complacent. The population of the United States is set to undergo one of the sharpest losses in overall standard of living in our history, sometime in the next ten years. It’s just a mathematical fact. When the social safety net collapses, it’s going to make the middle class very angry, empower a nationalistic government (likely non-democratic), and allow ethnically-charged urban violence to flare.

The scapegoat will likely be the low IQ minorities that will be seen to be in large part responsible for the expansion and collapse of the social safety net. Recent and upcoming advances in the quantification of intelligence through gene mapping will be used to justify ‘non-discriminatory’ eugenic cutoffs. Maybe sterilization in exchange for government benefits. The government may justify a surrogacy program by claiming a need for more engineers. Darwin never leaves the building.

“…the argument of freedom or right of the individual can no longer hold good where the welfare of the state and society is concerned.”

-- Premier of Alberta, 1930s

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1127045