Stephen Murdoch Quotes
We didn’t execute people who were feeble-minded the way the Nazis did, but we did sexually sterilize them.
Stephen Murdoch, Psychological Test Investigator & Author, Lecture, Santa Barbara, California, Library, August 6, 2007
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Writing a majority opinion allowing forced sterilization of the mentally retarded: In the ultimate tragic irony, the legal opinion in the case never questioned the assumptions of the case—that Carrie Buck, her mother, and daughter were all mentally retarded. Later scientists established that two of the three were normal and there was no real evidence about Buck’s mother. It seems that sexual promiscuity of unmarried women was the evidence upon which mental retardation was reached.
400,000 Germans were forcibly sterilized for “mental illness”, “slow learning”. “poor posture”, and a number of other characteristics. Soon, sterilization would be replaced by murders and extermination. Ironically, Hitler and other Nazis would quote American advocates of eugenics to further justify their practice of forced sterilization. A number of American states actually sentenced “defective” people to forced sterization.
This book was the first popular attempt to spread the eugenics concept. Is was translated into German in 1925 and unfortunately read by Adolf Hitler who sent Grant a complimentary letter. See {603544}
Hitler’s Germany promptly passed the law which was the beginning of their program of human extermination and the Holocaust.
At the time there were some Americans who supported Hitler and Fascism. Even senior military men like Osborne.
At the time, the dependence on Saudi oil inhibited American criticism . This began to change in the 21st century.
Note that under the rubric of protecting children, this organization was advocating the forced sterilization of people who their primitive and unreliable instruments and biases determined were “feeble minded”. Although many states actually did this for a few decades with the conservative Supreme Court approval at the time, and the gross immorality, the method of forced sterilization is genetically flawed and did not even work to achieve their own objectives. Also not their “image” of the “feeble minded” that appeared on the cover of this report. Virginia did not repeal their law mandating forced sterilization until 1974.
There was a substantial movement to prevent mentally defective and people of low intelligence from being able to reproduce. Over 20 states, with the approval of the then Supreme Court performed forced state sterilizations. Of course the then definition of “degenerates” changed from state to state. A century later, American values changed so much that there is no state that would even consider involuntary sterilization and if they did, the Courts would hold it un-Constitutional.
Ala-al-Din Abu al-Hasan Ali Ibn Abi al-Hazm al-Qarshi al-Dimashqi. The Western Scientist first credited with describing the circulation of blood through the body and showing that Galen erred was William Harvey in 1628, almost 4 centuries later. One theory as to why it took the Christian world so long was that Galen was held in great reverence and Christianity discouraged original thinking and writing which could cost a scientist his life. At the time (the 13th century) the Islamic world was intellectually more liberal and there was no establishment or Islamic vested interest in Galen or his theories.
There had been vicious assaults on most of the Black workers, when a few Negro welders were hired. The “compromise” was that the Negro workers would be protected from harm but there would be no Blacks in skilled positions. This was despite a huge labor shortage and a critical national need for the ships in the midst of war. Patriotism and the national crisis could not overcome the racism and hatred that existed in America. Northern newspapers pointed out the irony that America was practicing and upholding the racial theories of Hitler and the Nazis.
Under torture many people will tell their interrogators what they want to hear --- accurate or not.
Gross committed suicide at the end of WWII as he was one of the worst Nazi War Criminal offenders so he was never tried in court. This quotation illustrates the “intellectual” basis for the German Nazi genocide of Jews and the extermination of Gypsies, mentally ill or retarded people. Individual rights in their warped logic had to give way to the benefit of all, including the right to live.
Kaltenbrunner was one of the major war criminals declared guilty at the Nuremberg Trials and hanged. In this message he reported that he personally saw to the murder of Italian Jews and political prisoners in custody. As his defense, he claimed that he was just following orders, and he personally did not kill anyone.
Stephen Murdoch is a New Zealand cricketer who has played for Wellington and Canterbury.
