it’s all about control. the left cannot allow her to make her own decisions: she might decide she doesn’t need their “help”. worse, she might SUCCEED without their help, and then – god forbid – and then tell other people.

mix that in with the likelihood that the poor woman is likely to be black or hispanic, and you’ll also notice the poorly-disguised patronizing racism of the left. she’s really not *smart enough* to make decisions like that. (rather like they tell us sarah palin is.) it’s not because she’s black! heck no! it’s just that her poverty has … uh ….has unbalanced her, see, and therefore any life-altering decisions need to be made for her. by her betters in government. see? naturally, they won’t *admit* that. you’ll notice the breathless charges of “eugenics!!” in the comments.

so no, there is no substantive difference. in the cases of ‘sterilization for money’ and ‘kidney donations for money’, the poor find their choices blocked and made illegal by the left, for the sole benefit of the left.

“According to the Cato narrative, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were big-government creatures to begin with.”

What’s the other narrative? The whole “Federal” in the name tipped me off. Anyway, it’s good to see he didn’t miss the day they taught snarky passive aggressiveness in J-school.

Think of all the government money spent on people with genetic disorders. It costs a lot more to educate people with Down’s Syndrome, right? So what’s next, you fail the genetic test and we force you to abort your suspect fetus? Or, if you have the “lesser” baby, we take it for a ride in the CO recirculating van?

It’s no coincidence that Abruzzo’s district produced David Duke…

I recognize your sarcasm, Claude, and think it’s only a short step to that. People get so caught up in the “welfare queen” (and there are indeed some real scumbags out there freeloading off the system” that the miss that many productive people are really not that far from needing government assistance. All it takes is a long layoff, or an injury or whatever for someone to find herself in the position where they’re in need of help. Do we really want to make lifelong sterilization an additional penalty for losing one’s job?

Furthermore, the calculations being made here are based on economics, not genetics. There are plenty of healthy people who are pretty intelligent who could qualify for this too.”

Mike T obviously your memory of what eugenics is (and its history in the US especially the South) is a little rusty because it is not like this debate has not occurred before, and some D-bag from Metarie thinks that he has the most novel idea on how to free us from the dregs of society.

Eugenics was yes about genetics but economics is also a part of this. Your argument is essentially I wouldn’t impose mandatory sterilization of poor people but if by some means other than their personal choice are given an incentive I’ll just look the other way.

By your indifference (or perhaps support) you are effectively engaging in decimation of a class of persons suggesting that only the middle class and the wealthy should procreate as they lead to the best citizens.

That’s Eugenics

That’s wrong!

(still spiraling)

Oh gosh now that the door is open, we could mebbe sterilize criminals. We dont need to force it so we could just offer it as a plea bargain in court. Reduced sentence if u get sterilized. I mean its not force or coercion, unless no one really volunteers for it and because of that we make it part of a criminal sentence. Yeah, thats the ticket. Come to think of it, there r a few more groups i can think of.

(this is how this sort of thing happens and then spirals out of control)

This is akin to any other socioeconomic condition and the government stepping in and regulating it on this basis alone.

And seriously to support this position is just plain immoral.

If you were seriously concerned about welfare I would be more upset about corporate welfare due to sheer volume over the potential for abuse for incomparable inconsequential sums.

Don’t forget that other wonderful group… the ONE ISSUE voter. :(

What we have here is a country where a sizable percentage of the population can’t be bothered to pay attention to what our politicians are doing and hold them accountable for it on Election Day.

As a result, if you get a group of enough people together you can get all kinds of BS laws passed, because the politicians know that activist groups tend to vote. So you end up with what is a minority having their views inflicted upon all of us, with the force of law.

I have lost track of the number of people who have said that they don’t vote, for some dumb reason or another. Then you have those who just walk in and without thinking just vote the party line, who are almost as bad. Last but not least you have the people who just can’t be bothered with taking the time.

There is a difference between what a citizen might take it upon him or herself to do and a government sanctioned policy.

I find it repugnant that there are those on this board who believe any idea of eugenics is an ok thing. There is no mistake about it this is exactly what is being suggested here to remove those who may pose a burden on society. Should we sterilize those with mental retardation, how about those with predispositions to disease. I’m calling each of you that’s a libertarian out who is ok with idea how does this fit in with freedoms of personal choice and liberty to breed accordingly (this has little to do with transfer payments).

By your logic, if I convince someone who is so poor that they can barely feed themselves to not have a child, that’s eugenics in action. That’s how low you set the threshold for what constitutes eugenics here.

Furthermore, the calculations being made here are based on economics, not genetics. There are plenty of healthy people who are pretty intelligent who could qualify for this too.

Yup. Thats the deal. Knowing government as well as i do, it wont be long b4 someone gets the idea to try to make something like this mandatory. They usually start with a small portion of a group that they feel no one will stick up for. Once that is done, the idea of it is engrained in peoples heads and they start to make all sorts or rationalizations of why this same thing should then be mandatory for other groups of people, particularly the group that the current speaker dislikes the most.

But, it’s not really eugenics, unless the contention is that poor people are poor because of genetics, which would be an odd argument for an anti-eugenics person to make.

For the amount of money any individual, rich/poor/otherwise, pays for contraception/birth control/otherwise over a lifetime, having this procedure paid for and additional cash given, is, incident to whatever presumed rationale one may have to take on this operation, a financially sound decision. 1 Grand plus the savings attributable to this is a significant benefit. Plus, the sexual freedom one has is further increased.

Or, are you suggesting that this should be a free operation? With which I inquire, why are they in fact offering taxpayers money to do this? This seems to be the only libertarian argument involved here.

I also don’t see how this amounts to eugenics. this doesn’t make people sterile. This isn’t chemical castration. This isn’t forced. The procedures are also quite reversible it appears. I bet that 15% of the male population of this country would do this. Perhaps more.