Just cause we did it before.....

Dad29 left a comment on my post "The Sanger Parade Marches On":

"Yah, well.

In the early 1900's, the Progressives in Wisconsin called for mandatory sterilization of the "feebleminded."

At that time, the Progressives were all Republicans. The Catholic Bishops rallied the troops--and since then, the Democrat party has dominated Wisconsin elective offices. "

True, forced Sterilization of the of the mentally disabled happened in more that half of the states in this country up to the early-mid sixties. The rest at least thought about it or did it without anyone knowing.

Not sure why he mentioned Democrats and Republicans the split is pretty even in the states that practiced this act. Heavy on the Democrat side in the South.

One public service article entitled:

North Carolina Law, little used, makes small dent in problem: Public information is vital to success of Eugenics.

It tried to inform the public this was a good idea with such quotes as:

"An animal breeder, if he took the time to study our technique in perperuating the race, would likely shudder and use strong language. He knows better that to permit his scrub stock to out breed his best blood lines on a two-to-one basis.
In the past we have made (and still making some half-hearted stabs at correcting the imbalance in our birth rates. The use of contraceptives has been urged to help bring the birth rates into balance. Yet contraceptives have back-fired on us. Generally speaking, they have been accepted only among the class of persons who represent our best mental stock." (emphasis mine)

The last quote was the basis for the movie Idiocracy

North Carolina's rules were simple:

The Eugenics Board will order an operation:

1. Where it is to the best interest of the patient, mentally, morally, or physically.

2. When the operation is for the public good.

3. Where the operation has been requested by the guardian of a mental case.

4. Where the patient "would be likely, unless operated on, to procreate a child or children who would have a tendency to serious physical, mental or nervous disease or deficiency."

Oh yes they also call on the founding fathers to back them up:

"When William Penn observed, "Menare generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children," his readers smiled and nodded, "How true! How true!" In the past two centuries we have come to learn just how true this observation is. We continue to quote William Penn and nod our heads but we no longer can afford to smile."

The important point in Dad29's comment was that the Bishop's did rally the troops and ended this practice, at least by state law. As they recently did in Louisianan and are continually working to end abortion both in and out of our two party system.

Dad29 pick up a copy of G.K. Chesterton's Eugenics and Other Evils.

Improving Chances for Success

When my eldest son wanted to join the military, each branch of service courted him with hefty sign-on bonuses and no entrance exams. They were hungry for warm bodies.

My son joined the Air Force because they gave him the best deal.

Now that my youngest son is considering the same move he asked the recruiter about sign-on bonuses.

The Sargent told us that the because of the current economy there is no need for monetary incentives to get people to join. And he would have pass an exam. It is the only job out there right now that doesn't lay people off.

Schools have seen this trend and are adjusting the curriculum accordingly.

What's Right With The World

Good article by Gerald J. Russello

Little Emperors

"We can always convict such people of sentimentalism by their weakness for euphemism. The phrase they use is always softened and suited for journalistic appeals. They talk of free love when they mean something quite different, better defined as free lust. But being sentimentalists they feel bound to simper and coo over the word "love." They insist on talking about Birth Control when they mean less birth and no control. We could smash them to atoms, if we could be as indecent in our language as they are immoral in their conclusions." (GKC: "Obstinate Orthodoxy" The Thing)

An interesting series of essays and articles about China's one child policy from an unexpected source.

The essays from the the the Little Emperors themselves are the most heart wrenching.

You know those times when you find a jug of milk in the back of the refrigerator that you KNOW has gone bad but you smell it anyway?

The Mike Wallace interview with Margaret Sanger is like that.

Sanger begins with: "I was what I would call a born humanitarian."

Later she says, " I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world--that have disease from their parents, that have no chance in the world to be a human being practically. Delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things just marked when they're born. That to me is the greatest sin -- that people can -- can commit.."

full transcript here

The Sanger Parade Marches On

When Barbara Harris began her story on how she adopted her children I paid attention because it was a similar story of our path to adoption. We both received children from drug addicts who knew they were incapable to raise that child. I soon found that we both reacted differently from this similar experience.

Where as when we found out the birth mother was pregnant again we located another family seeking to adopt. A word of mouth network began and several children of women in trouble have been adopted. We are no longer in the loop but referrals are still happening - no web site needed.

Now Barb took a different tact. She thinks these types of women should not breed. She has set up an organization to pay these women (and men) to be sterilized.

"Hey Girls, just say yes to this little procedure and we will give you $300.00" Her business is death and business is booming. Now she exporting, starting in the UK

"More children for the fit, less from the unfit - that is the chief aim of birth control." Margaret Sanger 1919

In that same vien a Louisiana State Rep., John LaBruzzo is putting together another program to help society: "What I'm really studying is any and all possibilities that we can reduce the number of people that are going from generational welfare to generation welfare," he said.
He said his program would be voluntary. It could involve tubal ligation, encouraging other forms of birth control or, to avoid gender discrimination, vasectomies for men. This program would pay the volunteers $1,000.00.
It could also include tax incentives for college-educated, higher-income people to have more children, he said.

Fortunately the state legislature put the kibosh on that - for now.

Final thought:
"This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live." Deut. 30-19

Cinematic Bookends

It has been argued that Fellini's Satyricon does not fit well in his body of work. Some call it his best and others laugh at that notion. But all agree that this film was not your typical sandal and spear roman epic and is still the best presentation of the pre-christian world ever put to film.

Fellini really captured that time in history that Chesterton labels; "Pan was nothing but panic. Venus was nothing but venereal vice."

The film shows a life devoted to sensation and personal freedom devoid of any transcendent meaning.

This is why GKC also reminds us "Pagans were wiser that paganism; that is why the pagans became Christians."

It took about 1200 years to cleans us of the pagan era as outlined in Chesterton's book on Saint Francis. ushering in the Christian era.

Now, today, many are saying, we are beginning the postchristian era. This I have been trying to deny to no avail because the evidence is so overwhelming. Thus brings us Terry Zwigoff's film, Art School Confidential. Again critics were divided on to whether this is a good film or not but it is an excellent example of the post-christian era (something they do not even notice) and as such it is just as unsettling as Satyricon.

Again, a film that shows a life devoted to sensation and personal freedom coupled with a pursuit of fame and fortune at any cost all devoid of any transcendent meaning. This film also shows the art world today in all its empty chaos. The artists today are still trying to deconstruct something that has been deconstructed a hundred and fifty years ago. They are deconstructing with out any philosophy, understanding or sense of beauty.

The sixties brought us a back-to-nature "pagan" way of life, it's "high point" was Woodstock and then it went ugly very fast. As GKC said, "Whatever natural religion may have had to do with their beginnings, nothing but fiends now inhabited those hollow shrines."

I think both movies should be seen but I warn you it will not be a feel good evening of cinema.
Also Felline is a better film maker and much is lost on the small screen where as Art School Confidential works just as well on the small screen because postchristian ideas and ideals are small.

What would Gene Autry say?

Chesterton, spoke poetically about cheese;

Stilton, thou shouldst be living at this hour
And so thou art. Nor losest grace thereby;
England has need of thee, and so have I--
She is a Fen. Far as the eye can scour,
League after grassy league from Lincoln tower
To Stilton in the fields, she is a Fen.
Yet this high cheese, by choice of fenland men,
Like a tall green volcano rose in power.
Plain living and long drinking are no more,
And pure religion reading "Household Words",
And sturdy manhood sitting still all day
Shrink, like this cheese that crumbles to its core;
While my digestion, like the House of Lords,
The heaviest burdens on herself doth lay.

Yet curiously silent about Harmonicas.
I think this would have gotten his attention.

A New Friend Found

Leafing through my new yard sale How-To-Build-Furniture book my Bride said to me, "You know I would Like some chairs to put under our big maple in the back yard."

"There are some plans for Adirondack chairs in here."

"Well, I saw, on a show, the other night where they used Arts and Crafts style chairs outside and it looked real nice."

For those of you not married let me translate that statement: 'I want Arts and Crafts chairs and nothing else will do.' There were no Arts and Crafts style chairs in this book. Another twentyfive cents wasted.

At times I really believe that HGTV is a tool of the devil.

"Stickley or Morris style?" I asked.

"You pick."

My research got waylaid when I found an entry that couples William Morris with G.K.C. and there I found a kindred spirit, Jennifer Pierce. She writes a very interesting series called GKC 15 Minutes at a time. It begins here.

Jennifer has a respectful love of Chesterton and the series is a wonderful read as she weaves modern art, theater, and pop culture through the lens of a Chesterton world view, quoting him liberally.

The down side is her site has an annoying pop-up that keeps asking you to register. You can hit cancel and keep reading.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

“There can be comparatively little question that the place ordinarily occupied by dreams in literature is peculiarly unreal and unsatisfying. When the hero tells us that “last night he dreamed a dream,” we are quite certain from the perfect and decorative character of the dream that he made it up at breakfast…….Dreams have a kind of hellish ingenuity and energy in the pursuit of the inappropriate; the most omniscient and cunning artist never took so much trouble or achieved such success in finding exactly the word that was right or exactly the action that was significant, as this midnight lord of misrule can do in finding exactly the word that is wrong and exactly the action that is meaningless.” GKC

Why I highlighted that particular phrase is because last night I had a powerful dream. In this dream I came up with an invention for a train car that would be able to transport fruits and vegetables, from California to parts east, without spoiling. In it I saw many schematics, innovative insulation techniques, and I was able to see and solve the previous problems that others did not.

When I awoke I gave this dream some thought and decided it would work. I got up in search of a pencil and then remembered that this “thing” had already been invented and was working fine, they call it a refrigerator car.

It was then I recalled Chesterton’s essay on dreams.

Sometimes it is better to wake up and know you are a fool as opposed to finding out later in the day.

A Merton Clerihew

In his early life Thomas Merton
was often uncertain.
He ended his consternation
through contemplation.

This Looks Like Fun

Uncle Chestnut's Table Gype

In his autobiography G.K.C. mentions "the well-known and widespread national game of Gype".

Specifically, Chesterton mentions, "I myself cut out and coloured pieces of cardboard of mysterious and significant shapes, the instruments of Table Gype; a game for the little ones."

Almost 100 years later, Eternal Revolution has published Table Gype as an abstract strategy game with a random element.


If you have this game I'd love a review.

Maybe a Gype Tournament at the Chesterton Conference. with muffins as a prize for the winners

Chesterton Sightings

This past weekend our town held its annual community wide yard sale, otherwise known as ‘the great transference of junk’. It is also a good time to wander around town and meet with our neighbors. All my kids come home for this event.

At one of our stops I was staring down upon a table, that was calling my name, and internalizing that age old debate, “Do I need any more hand tools vs. “Can you have too many tools?” when my youngest daughter came up to me and said, “Look Papa, a picture of your friend.”

In her pudgy little hands was a magazine with a drawing of Gilbert on its cover. I gave her praise and a dime telling her to go buy it. And I bought a two foot wooded level.

As my wife and pregnant middle daughter were negotiating the price of a baby crib I looked at the magazine article, by our friend by John C. Chalberg, reviewing William Oddie’s Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy The making of GKC, 1874-1908. Being written by “Chuck” it was an enthusiastic review beginning with this paragraph:
“Somewhere on virtually everyone's list of the 100 most important books of the last century is G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. A "sort of slovenly autobiography" by its author's own reckoning, this thin volume packed a huge wallop when it first appeared in 1908. It still does today, whether it's being read for the first or fifth time.”

He also states that Oddie wrote an excellent companion work for GKC’s Orthodoxy. In it Oddie challenges what he terms an “academic embargo” against Chesterton. Something we have all noticed.

A few stops later we spotted a table of books. There was no debate here because you just can not have enough books. Unfortunately this table was mostly full of romance novels, a few How-To books and several children’s books. I grabbed up a couple of furniture building books and moved to the kid’s books. One I picked up was Coraline by Neil Gaiman, my daughter and I liked the movie so she might like me to read the book to her. The book begins with this quote:
“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” G. K. Chesterton.

And yes, that was a surprise.

At the end of the day we had a lot of stuff most of which we were wondering why we bought. Maybe next year I will hold a yard sale to sell all the stuff we have bought from yard sales.

Belloc: Islam is a Christian heresy

In his book The Great Christian Heresies, Hilaire Belloc described Islam as a threat to the West - and counted it as a Christian heresy.

"Millions of modern people of the white civilization-that is, the civilization of Europe and America- have forgotten all about Islam. They never come in contact with it. They take for granted that it is decaying, and that, anyway, it is just a foreign religion which will not concern them. It is, as a fact, the most formidable and persistent enemy which our civilization has had, and may at any moment become as large a menace in the future as it has been in the past."

Certainly the extreme forms of Islam have become a world-wide threat in the last few decades. Belloc proved prophetic in that.

But I also find his argument that Islam is a Christian heresy interesting.

According to Belloc, what Mohammad "taught was in the main Catholic doctrine, oversimplified. It was the great Catholic world - on the frontiers of which he lived, whose influence was all around him and whose territories he had known by travel-which inspired his convictions."

Belloc argued that "the very foundation of his teaching was that prime Catholic doctrine, the unity and omnipotence of God."

"But the central point where his new heresy struck home with a mortal blow against Catholic tradition was a full denial of the Incarnation."

"He taught that our Lord was the greatest of all the prophets, but still only a prophet; a man like other men. He eliminated the Trinity altogether."

An intriguing line of argument.

Happy Birthday GKC

Happy 136th birthday.

for mom

I have recently come across the life and writings of Cardinal Mindszenty. A very interesting and holy life.

In his writings you can hear the similar tones and melodies Gilbert expressed, especially when talking of motherhood. Another similarity between the Cardinal and Gilbert is that Alec Guinness played the Cardinal in The Prisoner (loosely based on Mindszenty’s imprisonment) and he played GKC’s Father Brown.

I know we are a few days past Mothers day but then again any day is a good day to honor Mother. Here is the preface of Cardinal Mindszenty’s book Motherhood:

The Most Important Person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral-a dwelling for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby's body…The angels have not been blessed with such a grace. They cannot share in God's creative miracle to bring new saints to Heaven. Only a human mother can. Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other creature; God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation…What on God's good earth is more glorious than this: to be a mother?

-Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty

Stimulus dollars at work

National Poetry Month

With the support of this $1 million National Leadership Grant, Poets House will partner with five zoos and four public libraries to create poetry installations and programs... …collaborating with wildlife biologists and exhibit designers to curate zoo installations with poems that celebrate the natural world and the connection between species.

I the GKC poem below would be a worthy entry that shows that species are only connected in the physical, like comparative religion. “.. it is so much a matter of degree and distance and difference that it is only comparatively successful when it tries to compare. When we come to look at it closely we find it comparing things that are really quite incomparable.”

Triolet Poem
G.K. Chesterton

I wish I were a jelly fish
That cannot fall downstairs;
Of all the things I wish to wish
I wish I were a jellyfish
That hasn't any cares
And doesn't even have to wish'
I wish I were a jellyfish
That cannot fall downstairs.'

Cheat the Prophet

Earth Day Predictions, 1970

"The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age."
Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

"We have about five more years at the outside to do something."
Kenneth Watt, ecologist

"Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind."
George Wald, Harvard Biologist

"We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation."
Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist

"Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction."
New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day

"Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years."
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

"By...[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s."
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

"It is already too late to avoid mass starvation."
Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

"Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions....By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine."
Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

"Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support...the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution...by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half...."
Life Magazine, January 1970

"At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it's only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable."
Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

"Air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone."
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

"By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate...that there won't be any more crude oil. You'll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill 'er up, buddy,' and he'll say, `I am very sorry, there isn't any.'"
Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

"Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct."
Sen. Gaylord Nelson

Tax Day - Oh Joy

"A citizen can hardly distinguish between a tax and a fine, except that the fine is generally much lighter." G.K.C.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
T. Coleman Andrews was an IRS Commissioner for 3 years. He had the following things to say about income taxes after resigning.
----------------------------------------------------------
"Congress went beyond merely enacting an income tax law and repealed Article IV of the Bill of Rights, by empowering the tax collector to do the very things from which that article says we were to be secure. It opened up our homes, our papers and our effects to the prying eyes of government agents and set the stage for searches of our books and vaults and for inquiries into our private affairs whenever the tax men might decide, even though there might not be any justification beyond mere cynical suspicion."

"The income tax is bad because it has robbed you and me of the guarantee of privacy and the respect for our property that were given to us in Article IV of the Bill of Rights. This invasion is absolute and complete as far as the amount of tax that can be assessed is concerned. Please remember that under the Sixteenth Amendment, Congress can take 100% of our income anytime it wants to. As a matter of fact, right now it is imposing a tax as high as 91%. This is downright confiscation and cannot be defended on any other grounds."

"The income tax is bad because it was conceived in class hatred, is an instrument of vengeance and plays right into the hands of the communists. It employs the vicious communist principle of taking from each according to his accumulation of the fruits of his labor and giving to others according to their needs, regardless of whether those needs are the result of indolence or lack of pride, self-respect, personal dignity or other attributes of men."

"The income tax is fulfilling the Marxist prophecy that the surest way to destroy a capitalist society is by steeply graduated taxes on income and heavy levies upon the estates of people when they die."

"As matters now stand, if our children make the most of their capabilities and training, they will have to give most of it to the tax collector and so become slaves of the government. People cannot pull themselves up by the bootstraps anymore because the tax collector gets the boots and the straps as well."

"The income tax is bad because it is oppressive to all and discriminates particularly against those people who prove themselves most adept at keeping the wheels of business turning and creating maximum employment and a high standard of living for their fellow men."
"I believe that a better way to raise revenue not only can be found but must be found because I am convinced that the present system is leading us right back to the very tyranny from which those, who established this land of freedom, risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to forever free themselves..."

When the culture of death meets “I don’t think so”.

Dr. Boris Veysman is my new hero.

"Life is precious and irreplaceable. Even severe incurable illness can often be temporarily fixed, moderated, or controlled, and most discomfort can be made tolerable or even pleasant with simple drugs. In chess, to resign is to give up the game with pieces and options remaining. My version of DNR is "Do Not Resign." Don’t give up on me if I can still think, communicate, create, and enjoy life. When taking care of me, take care of yourself as well, to make sure you don’t burn out by the time I need your optimism the most.

My DNI? It means "Do Not Ignore" early signs of trouble when my failing body and mind need support so I can continue to function in ways that matter. And Do Not Ignore my needs for companionship, stimulation, and purpose, as these, too, make life worth living. To leave me in the hospital bed alone staring at the TV is torture. (My overarching orders at all times: "Do Not Torture.") Surround me with people; bring the kids so I can teach and talk to them. Discuss the news with me. Let me use my e-mail. Treat my depression, dehydration, malnutrition, muscle wasting, and pain with potent pills, infusions, tubes, and hormones. I don’t aspire to play for the Yankees, so throw in some anabolic steroids if that might contribute to wellness. I choose high-quality life, and I agree to chance adverse effects in doing so. …

It’s so easy to let someone die, but it takes effort, determination, and stamina to help someone stay and feel alive. Only after you made every effort to let me be happy and human, ask me again if my life is worth living. Then, listen, and comply. At that point, if I wish to die, let me die. But until that happens, none of us realize what I can accomplish with another day, another week, another month. So do it all for me. Then ask someone to do it all for you."

Read entire essay here.