Cash for vasectomy....

[Tiberius]

Adrian - I have never to my knowledge, at any point, said that the Nazis invented the practice of eugenics. If I am mistaken in saying this, please point me to my statement so I can retract it in a subsequent post.

"Attempts to de-nazify eugenics on the basis of superficial information sources, particularly citing such dubious authorities as Wikipedia"

- This quote attempts to link eugenics directly with the nazis, as if Nazism is an attribute of eugenics (hence the "de-nazify"). There is no direct link between eugenics and Nazism; the only relationship between the Nazis and eugenics is the same relationship between the Nazis and tanks. The Nazis used tanks. The Nazis used eugenics. Neither of these relationships is reason enough to paint tanks or eugenics with a bad brush. Tanks have been used for good, as has eugenics.

"So as long as a nazi argument has been used dishonestly by the Nazis for one thing, it could not be used honestly for another ever again."

- This quote attempts to link eugenics directly to the nazis by saying it was a nazi argument. It wasn't. Eugenics existed before the Nazis; they used the idea to force sterilize (and kill) people who they deemed genetically inferior.

What I said was that the Nazis were inseparably intertwined with eugenics, and remain so.

No, the Nazis are inseparably intertwined with Nazi eugenics; a specific form of eugenics which the Nazis used to control people and to try and create a race of superhumans. The only resemblance it bears with the idea of eugenics (as a general concept) is the improvement of the genetic composition of a population (in this case, Aryans).

Your aspiration to "improve the genetic composition of a population" is a frightening aspiration devoid of emotional sensitivity or cultural awareness.

I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that I needed to be emotionally sensitive or culturally aware of crops. You do know what a "population" is right? Here's a clue; it isn't specific to humans.

Your dismissal of my opinions in the face of your 'facts' is an extremely dictatorial approach.

My dismissal of your opinions only occurs because you don't seem to know a damn thing about what eugenics is, or how it came about. You seem to believe that only the Nazis used eugenics, when it has been an important part of our way of life for years, and more so recently.

I totally deny "making shit up" and "pulling lies out of" my "ass". If you have a shred of evidence for your allegation that I redefined words for no reason whatsoever then I would suggest you are morally obliged to present it.

I have evidence; every single post you have made where you complain about some definition, or someone points out that you aren't using a definition correctly, and you go into a huff about how people should have their own definitions for words because somehow it "helps" communication. Nobody here has bought it. You can complain all you like and object all you like, but I have a feeling that everyone who has had the displeasure of clashing with you in the past few months knows exactly what I am talking about.

I think instead the record will show someone posting the sentence "Cat moustache bananary who wine spent in lactose pizazz Austin envelope?" and that person was you. Perhaps you would like to define your terms and explain your meaning, I fully support your right to do so. I doubt you will though.

No I won't, because unlike yourself, I wasn't being serious when I asked you that nonsensical question. I, like others, was doing it to show you how utterly absurd your ideas about communication with no common definition are.

More likely, your latest repeatedly foul-mouthed outburst means you are trying to manufacture some pretext for future arguments you might wish to use against me.

No, I'd just had enough of your apparent willful ignorance.

However I would urge you to consider that you may need to accept the position that I have fundamentally different intellectual and political origins from you which leads us to express different opinions. Essentially I am coming from the Left and you are coming from the Right.

Don't make this political; it isn't. The Left have used ideas based on eugenics as much as the Right, if not more. Case in point, the Left are usually socially progressive, and fond of planned parenting, legal abortions, birth control, etc. All of which are (you guessed it) methods for improving genetics of a population. Do you know who Margaret Sanger is? She's the feminist socialist who started Planned Parenthood, and she was a proponent of...(you guessed it again!)...eugenics! Margaret_Sanger#Eugenics_and_euthanasia. Both sides of the political spectrum have used it, and if you had done even the slightest bit of research into the subject you are supposed to be talking about, you might have known that.

If I have given the credit to the Nazis for coming up with what is essentially the way we grow our food supplies I can assure you the compliment was given inadvertently. Please refer me to the page so I can retract it or let me know if I have misunderstood you.

By linking the Nazis to the idea of eugenics, and not accepting that eugenics is a general idea which can be applied under many different circumstances, you are left with the unescapable conclusion that the way we grow our food supply (using eugenics) is based off of Nazi ideas.

My opinion is that this is eugenics, small-scale but eugenics nonetheless, and that eugenics are bad because of the historical association with the nazis.

Yes, it is eugenics. I said as much previously in this thread. However, historical association does not make something bad. If it did, then the way we grow our food is also bad, and by your argument, based on Nazi principles.

If we want to talk about agricultural husbandry, crop breeding and family planning choices then that's absolutely fine, but to try and justify the forced acceptance of the validity of eugenics on that basis is something that is legitimately arguable in normal society, I don't see why it should be so different here.

So I'm not allowed to argue that eugenics is valid based on all the good things that come out of it, but you are perfectly entitled to argue it is invalid based on a single group of morons in the 1940s who used their own version of it as an excuse to kill a bunch of people? Bullshit.