"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt" (Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged)
During the 1930s and 1940s it was illegal for a person of Jewish descent to work or to be alive in Germany. And before this, it was illegal for Jews to work or live in Russia. And before that it was illegal for Catholics to participate in many aspects of life in England, such as politics or education. English Catholics paid higher taxes too for their "sin." And before that is was illegal in many places to be a Protestant in a Catholic country. And before that it was illegal to be a Jew or Christian in the Roman Empire.
And not so long ago it was illegal for a person with high melanin to eat, travel, live in many neighborhoods, own guns, or go to school in many areas of the United States of America. One religious leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is highly admired and celebrated for leading the battle to abolish the laws and sick mindset of those who fear those born with blessed bodies that produce more melanin.
It was believed, and still is by many highly "educated" people with academic degrees, that certain groups of people were a danger to society and would contaminate the health of all. These specially designated and despised groups were often forcefully sterilized for being poor, sickly, or unwed.
These laws of the past which made innocent people into guilty criminals to be hunted down and eradicated were not correct then, nor are they ever. Those who broke the law, those who ignored these heinous laws are heroes.
Will you break the law to defend the dignity of life?
image: Carrie Buck (Paul B. Popenoe, "The Progress of Eugenic Sterilization," Journal of Heredity,25:1 (1934), 23). In the 1924 case of Buck v. Bell the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that it was constitutionally and scientifically correct for the state of Virginia to forcefully sterilize those it hated, including three generations of Buck women.
Carrie's mother, Emma, was sterilized for the crime of being poor and abandoned by the father of her children. Carrie was placed in foster care, and raped at age 17 by the nephew of her foster parents, thus becoming pregnant. Accused of the crime of being a seductive and feeble-minded female it was decided that upon the birth of her child she be sterilized to protect society from the danger she posed to the health and safety of others.
The case of Buck v. Bell, which established the precedence of science's justness and love of life, helped to enforce sterilizations all across the U.S., and gave the the Nazis of Germany a foundation upon which to base their own laws. Buck v. Bell still stands and has NEVER been overturned, never been declared unconstitutional or unlawful by the lawmakers, BUT because it is considered illegal in the hearts and minds of the citizens it has not been observed.
Carrie Buck's daughter, Vivian, was adopted by Carrie's former foster parents and also sterilized. Vivian died at the age of eight. Carrie lived on and married. There was nothing feeble-minded about her. She was the victim of the feeble-minded and feeble-hearted.
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