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Attention Democrats: People Have Value. Even Poor Black People.
Over at National Review, Dominic Pino examines Janet Yellen’s rationalization of abortion from an economic perspective. Remarkably, Ms. Yellen said the following to Sen. Tim Scott:
…one aspect of a satisfying life is being able to feel that you have the financial resources to raise a child, that the children you bring into the world are wanted and that you have the ability to take care of them. In many cases abortions are of teenage women, particularly low-income and often black, who aren’t in a position to be able to care for children…
As you might imagine, Sen. Scott was unpersuaded by this argument: “I’ll just simply say that as a guy raised by a black woman in abject poverty, I’m thankful to be here as a United States Senator,” Scott told Yellen.
Mr. Pino goes on to eloquently explain the roots of this perspective of modern leftists:
More fundamentally, Yellen’s view of human beings is incorrect: She views them as macroeconomic liabilities rather than macroeconomic assets. In her view, they take up space, consume resources, and impose burdens on those who care for them. And of course, they do those things. But they don’t just do those things. They also come up with new ideas, produce resources, and care for other people. On balance, they are assets, not liabilities.
This is a point that progressives have failed to understand for years. From the eugenics proponents of the early 20th century to the environmentalists of today, progressives have never believed that human beings are, as economist Julian Simon called them, the ultimate resource. They’re forever stuck in the zero-sum world of Malthus, where people are problematic mouths to feed, instead of the positive-sum world we actually live in, where people are a creative force to invest in.
I often hear leftists rationalize their support of abortion by saying, “Look, I’m just being practical here. We’ve got to deal with realities, right?”
Mr. Pino explains why leftists’ economic arguments are even more absurd than their ethical rationalizations. No, killing babies does not make sense. Even if the mother is going through financial difficulties at the time of her pregnancy. Even if the mother is black. Even then, Ms. Yellen.
People have value. They have value from an ethical and spiritual perspective. We’re all God’s children, for Heaven’s sake.
But even if you don’t believe that, surely you can see that they also have economic value. Perhaps you might think they are limited economic value today. But what about some years from now? Could it be that they might improve themselves someday? People can do that, you know. Even if they are black and poor, Ms. Yellen. Even those people.
I’m struggling to get past the elitism and racism oozing from Ms. Yellen’s statement about poor black mothers like Sen. Scott’s Mom (pictured above). But even if I could get past that, I would point out to Ms. Yellen, “People have value, you idiot. Even poor black people, you racist snob. Who on earth are YOU to suggest that some people should be killed because they are currently of insufficient economic value? You’re a government bureaucrat, for Pete’s sake. What is your economic value to society? Should we vote you out of office, or take you out back and shoot you? Are you listening to what you’re saying? Do you want ME deciding if your life is worth living? Do you want anybody deciding that, other than yourself? Do your words make sense to you? Honestly?“
Every rationalization for abortion sounds absurd to me.
But some of them sound like pure evil.
I can’t believe Democrats are saying stuff like this out loud. To a black man, no less. In public. On national TV. Oh my God.
They can’t recognize evil, even when they say it themselves.
But at least they are helping others recognize evil. Make evil this obvious, and anyone can see it. Anyone who has eyes to see.
Just writing about Ms. Yellen’s statement makes me feel unclean. I feel like I need a long hot bath. And all I did was copy and paste it. She said it out loud. In public.
How do these people sleep at night?
Published in General
@henrycastaigne — “Were I the soul of the child conversing with the Angels\gods of birth in the emergency room. I would prefer to die rather than be born into the world with the genetic material of my biological originators.”
Because the mother is a shooting victim and the father, an adulterer? (I doubt either has much to do with genetics.)
Good thing most “souls” are not so picky, or the human race would have gone extinct a long, long time ago …
I think sodomy is more loving and happier than abstinence and chastity. So G-d makes everyone sexual and punishes us for it. Lucifer sounds nicer.
Well that’s true for everyone, always. You can “free will” yourself to the moon, but it won’t happen Because Gravity.
I’ve been busy working today and just now catching up on this thread. I think the embedded presupposition in this kind of comment is that sexual gratification is the sine qua non of happiness and love. But assuming it to be true doesn’t make it so. The American founders, when they talked about the “pursuit of happiness”, presupposed that happiness can only be acquired in virtue – that we are made for living virtuous lives and notwithstanding our passions it is only in living out our purpose that happiness can be found.
The question is whether or not sexuality is directed toward an end and, if so, whether human beings have any hope of finding fulfillment in sexuality if they distort the ends toward which sexuality has been directed.
So either there’s a design for sexuality or there is not. If there is, then saying “sodomy is more loving than abstinence” is akin to saying something like “automobiles work better when the engine is full of sand”. We can say whatever we like. But automobile engines and sand are unhappy cohabitants no matter how much someone thinks it is more loving to put sand in the crank case. Reality bites. It isn’t a matter of how we feel about it, or how much physical gratification we derive.
So the Judeo-Christian view is not that God is a big spoil sport bossy pants in the sky, but that as the creator of life, He necessarily put in place a design with a purpose (and has that prerogative since He is the origin of all things). Any possibility of “loving” or “happiness” can only exist within the parameters that God himself has set.
Lucifer’s first lie was that the design doesn’t matter and we can set our life’s parameters for ourselves. He’s still telling that lie with some success in the 21st century. But as someone said, “I Did It My Way”, that old Frank Sinatra song, is actually the national anthem of hell.
Three Persons.
William Rowe stuff:
https://ricochet.com/1051019/1-some-other-youtube-rumble-philosophy-stuff/
Linus Pauling, who discovered the molecular defect causing sickle cell disease proposed his ‘yellow star’ program to prevent it, eg, put a visible permanent physical brand on everyone with sickle cell trait so they won’t intermarry and create a 25% risk of offspring with sickle cell disease. His back up was aborting affected fetuses to prevent suffering. That was a generation after the Nuremberg trials. He proposed that in a preface to a 1968 issue of the UCLA Law Review. UCLA is my medical alma mater. You can celebrate him as a great humanitarian. I consider him a monster.
Unfortunately it’s all too easy to, uh, Imagine…
Cite it or I won’t believe you because you were mean to Dr. Bastiat.
I stand corrected. Again.
P.S.: “the opportunity to create dozens of human embryos with CRSPR technology”. I think you meant to say, create dozens of human embryos and then use CRISPR on them. CRISPR doesn’t create embryos, just mutations in existing cells.
Evolutionary psychology is way better than Christianity in describing the is and why of human sexuality but not the should. Human males are made to breed as much as possible in order to spread their DNA. Women are designed to make some children and keep them alive. Human sexuality is not directed towards love and decency. So the homosexuality and sodomy thing doesn’t bother me.
Because the state of nature (Nature?) is preferable to Christian virtue?
You are in a mood today, Henry.
Most people who think they would do better in the “state of nature” need to have their thinkers examined.
No I am pretty good today. I just like arguing.
Actually the advance that the Oregon researcher discovered was that he had to inject the CRSPR material into the egg simultaneously with fertilization by the affected individual’s sperm. Only then would the CRSPR cassette correct the gene defect. So in a sense he was “creating” embryos with CRSPR + sperm simultaneously entering the egg. The surprise, which the researcher was not able to explain, was that the CRSPR material copied the normal gene from the sperm, not the normal gene inserted as a template with the CRSPR material. That was ascertained by using single nucleotide differences in the genetic sequence that coded for the same amino acid in the expressed gene, so they could tell what CRSPR was using to correct the abnormal gene. So, in essence, an embryo was created without the abnormal gene with the use of CRSPR material plus the sperm with the defective gene. So, it is kind of a semantic difference in my view.
Or to quote from an old episode of LA Law, a seminal difference?
“Reflections on the New Biology: Foreword.” Feb 1968.
UCLA Law Rev. 15, no. 2 (February 1968): 267-272
@mimac In stating that Eugenics wasn’t a major basis for the research leading to the discovery of DNA you are historically incorrect. I would suggest you read the book The Molecular Vision of Life by Lily Kay. This is an extensive description of the underlying Eugenics agenda, funded mostly by the Rockefeller Foundation, and mostly at Cal Tech, that led to the discovery of the structure of DNA. It is a horrendous history. The kind of misconception among physicians and medical researchers that you demonstrate is the result of an intentional white-washing of history. Just as Richard Hofstadter in his magisterial book, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life has a field day discussing the Scopes Trial, but completely ignores the almost contemporaneous and very odious Buck v. Bell case that opened the floodgates of forced sterilization perpetrated by the nation’s elites.
When I was an undergraduate taking Genetics, the contributions of the polymath R. A. Fisher (including his supposed demonstration that Mendel fudged his data, which, fortunately I had the mathematical skills to recognize that the Geneticist teaching the course didn’t know what he was talking about, just parroting the standard line–and that claim was later debunked) were idolized, but it was never mentioned that Fisher was a truly vile Eugenicist.
When I was in Med School (basic science years) we were of course taught of Pauling’s discovery of the hemoglobin chain alpha helical structure, and his discovery of the molecular defect causing sickle trait and sickle cell disease. But his “yellow star” proposal was never discussed nor were his vile Eugenicist attitudes. He communicated those same attitudes to James Watson, his acolyte, whom he sent to England to work on Nucleic acids. Watson continued to voice those eugenics perspectives throughout his career, until, as director of the infamous Cold Spring Harbor lab, the institute that housed the Eugenics Records Office under Harry Laughlin, those statements became too numerous and vile that even his like minded colleagues couldn’t let them continue and he was retired.
No one ever mentioned during the Human Genome Project, that the second in command, Alan Guttmacher, was an avid Eugenicist and an admirer of Francis Galton (His book, Hereditary Genius, a completely racist tract, originated the Eugenics movement). I sat through a lecture, a plenary session lecture, no less, that Alan Guttmacher gave to the Endocrine Society in 2012, wherein he flashed a first slide paying homage to Francis Galton to a Houston Convention Center ballroom audience of pre-eminent scientists and physicians from around the world. There was nary a stir from that august assembly. Sort of like an approving attention at a pain management conference featuring the great contributions of Dr. Mengele. That experience was a gut=punch to me. I about fell off my chair. An Endocrinologist under whom I trained, and next to whom I was sitting, told me to shut up when I asked her if she recognized the name of Francis Galton.
One additional point regarding Economists and Eugenics. John Maynard Keynes was the director of the London Eugenics Society, 1937-1944, pretty much during the lead up to and during the Holocaust. He gave the Galton Lecture in 1937. He never renounced his Eugenics ideas, even after the Holocaust, seeing Eugenics as the leading Social Science. Keynes was also a Fabian Socialist throughout his life. Of course an Economist as prominent as Janet Yellen is going to be a Eugenicist.
Contra Keynes, I would say that Eugenics is the most vile of the pseudo-sciences. It was the foremost agenda issue of the Progressives in the Progressive era, and remains so today. Notwithstanding the contrary views of some of the Ricochetti posting here.
In Dr. Alex Comfort’s science fiction novel, Come Out to Play (1961), his protagonist has a conversation with an Anglican minister and his wife, who believe the purpose of sexual intercourse is procreation. (This is from memory.)
“How many children do you have?” A: three.
“How many times have you had sex since you’ve been married?” A: about 1400.
“And how many children do you have?”
In some species, the purpose of sexual intercourse is procreation. In humans, however, the primary purpose is pair bonding; a.k.a., love.
The offspring of men who didn’t stick around tended not to live to maturity; so we are mostly descended from the men who did stick around. And from the women who were good at getting men to stick around.
Humans seem to lack a drive to reproduce, per se. Evolving in an environment without contraception, they didn’t need it. They just needed to a) enjoy having sex; and b) enjoy babies once they arrived.
Yes, a) and b). But, b) is still the impetus behind the evolutionary development of a), from a purely materialist pov. That is, the point of sex evolutionarily is still the propagation of the species. That nature needed men to stick around to ensure the survival of the species is a second, though equally important evolutionary outcome.
Or, as the Church would say, the purpose of human sexuality is both unitive and procreative. Because She’s clever that way.
You are aware that many people find your beliefs perverse and unnatural. That isn’t going to go away. If you want to end abortion you will need other options than forced marriage under a theocratic state.
Did I miss the post where someone was arguing in favor of a theocratic state that forced people to marry?
I use slight exaggeration to make fun of Western Chauvinist. Or maybe she approaches of a theocratic Catholic state. I can’t remember. The more relevant point is that many people won’t live lives of celibacy or chastity.
…until they get married…
This is why I think that people like you who are genetically superior should have two wives. The inferior should be given sex robots.
I thought you did it to make me LOL.
They pretty much used to, before the Pill and abortion.
To be precise, sexual reproduction exists for the biological purpose of reshuffling the genes. Otherwise it would be more efficient simply to reproduce by cloning oneself.
The downside of the latter, apparently, is that a uniform and unchanging species eventually falls victim to a pathogen or parasite and, lacking biological variability, goes extinct.