> Eugenics is not about killing people. It's about ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed.
No, its not. Eugenics is about ensuring that only people with the "best possible" (from the point of view of its proponents, which is always subjective) genetic makeup live. Killing people with undesired genetic makeup, penalizing or preventing reproduction by those with undesired genetics, and promoting or compelling reproduction by those with desired genetics are among the means of eugenics.
"Ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed" is not eugenics.
> Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work in sterilizing drug addicts (voluntary sterilization in exchange for cash) to prevent children being born into misery.
Aside from discussion of whether that's a desirable policy, if it's really motivated by concern for childhood environment and not about eradicating drug addiction on the assumption that it is purely hereditary and preventing drug addicts from reproducing will prevent drug addiction, its not eugenics at all (as your wikipedia link correctly states, its been compared to eugenics, which is not the same thing as being eugenics.)
> We need to stop reeling off Godwin's law straw-man arguments against Eugenics and consider why a number of our national heroes (including the likes of Walt Disney) were proponents.
Just because someone is a "national hero" because they did (or are national mythology has attributed to them) something good in one domain doesn't stop them from holding reprehensible views in other domains. "National heroes" are not gods, and we are poorly served by treating virtue in one domain of life as granting special consideration in unrelated domains.
Eugenics range from encouraging some people to reproduce to genocide and includes everything in between: selective anti-conception, sterilization, and abortion. Reducing it to just genocide is dishonest.
And, if we're going to judge by modern standards, it's not even unpopular in our times. The word was dropped after the atrocities carried out by Germans but often the same people who express their horror at the idea laud and support Planned Parenthood despite its roots and policy.
No, its not. Eugenics is about ensuring that only people with the "best possible" (from the point of view of its proponents, which is always subjective) genetic makeup live. Killing people with undesired genetic makeup, penalizing or preventing reproduction by those with undesired genetics, and promoting or compelling reproduction by those with desired genetics are among the means of eugenics.
"Ensuring children are born into the best possible environment for them to succeed" is not eugenics.
> Left-wing metropolitan elites always seem to crush any debates around eugenics, but whilst we're not allowed to talk about it, it's happening here in 2014. Project Prevention are doing great work in sterilizing drug addicts (voluntary sterilization in exchange for cash) to prevent children being born into misery.
Aside from discussion of whether that's a desirable policy, if it's really motivated by concern for childhood environment and not about eradicating drug addiction on the assumption that it is purely hereditary and preventing drug addicts from reproducing will prevent drug addiction, its not eugenics at all (as your wikipedia link correctly states, its been compared to eugenics, which is not the same thing as being eugenics.)
> We need to stop reeling off Godwin's law straw-man arguments against Eugenics and consider why a number of our national heroes (including the likes of Walt Disney) were proponents.
Just because someone is a "national hero" because they did (or are national mythology has attributed to them) something good in one domain doesn't stop them from holding reprehensible views in other domains. "National heroes" are not gods, and we are poorly served by treating virtue in one domain of life as granting special consideration in unrelated domains.