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MontEcola t1_jdxq4g0 wrote

Reply to comment by drinkingchartreuse in Former governor Jim Douglas sues Middlebury College over chapel name removal by flounder19

I think you did not read the article.

It says Mead mentioned a new operation called a vasectomy. And that it would be a favorable advance in medicine, or words to that effect. The vasectomy was performed 30 years later, by people not known to Mead when he made his comments. Douglas said, to connect those two is simply not logical or fair, or words to that effect.

I had a vasectomy. Are you saying I support eugenics? I really don't think you are saying that. I think you did not read the article.

I am not one to defend republicans very often. This would be the time.

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Human802 t1_jdxwwo2 wrote

Well that is a massive misunderstanding of the history. Mead was a clear, active, vocal leader in the eugenics movement. He was very clear about his beliefs on forced sterilizations and segregation. He used his political power to bring eugenics to Vermont law.

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MontEcola t1_jdy8max wrote

I read the article. My comments are a mix between what is in the article and the comment.

If you have different information, it should be included in your comment. To have information and not include it in your comment is not really fair. Others have posted new to me information. I will read that later today.

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ClarenceWith2Parents t1_jdydhlv wrote

If a google of "mead eugenics involvement" immediately pulls up this asshat's outspoken question of "Segregation or Sterilization" in 1912 - I implore you to stop fooling yourself into thinking you are trying. With all that, I warn you that the devil's advocate act makes you look like a walking cock-sock. Be better, fucking christ.

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IAndLoveAndYouToo t1_jdxw91t wrote

https://vermonthistory.org/journal/87/VH8701SegregationOrSterilization.pdf

There is much more to the story than just the idea that Mead supported vasectomies…

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MontEcola t1_jdy82u3 wrote

That was not included in your comment. I read the article posted by OP, and replied based on the article.

When you don't include your source of information, it is fair to criticize the information given.

I will read up on this article later on today.

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Mission_Phrase_5133 t1_jdy3fxm wrote

Well, the article says exactly what Jim Douglas told the Bennington Banner, so yeah, reading the article would have given you the impression that this was no biggie, bruh. Have you read the full address though? https://sos.vermont.gov/media/y4wfu1lu/mead1912.pdf

"The heads of our criminal institutions tell us that among the inmates there is always a considerable class that are termed “degenerates” or “defectives,” by which is meant a class of individuals in whose mental or nervous construction there is something lacking. Alienists, criminalogists and physicians tell us that individuals of this unfortunate class tend to marry those cursed with similar defects, and that this class is increasing out of all proportion to the normal growth of the population, and that most of the insane, the epileptics, the imbeciles, the idiots, the sexual perverts, together with many of the confirmed inebriates, prostitutes, tramps and criminals that fill our penitentiaries, jails, asylums and poor farms are the results of these intermarriages or the natural offspring of defective parents. In the cases of these unfortunates there is little or no hope of permanent recovery, and the great question that is now being considered by the lawmakers in many of our states is how best to restrain this defective class and how best to restrict the propagation of defective children."

Mead decides that "segregation of defectives" would be too drastic a method because, in his exact words, it might "result in life-imprisonment of unfortunates" who "might, in some small way, be of some use in the world."

He proposes the more, um, humanitarian (?) options of forcible vasectomies for people with "hereditary taints and diseases" and also legislature restricting marriage licenses for people convicted of certain crimes as well as people with various physical and mental health conditions.

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