Fantasies of Social Darwinism

Weekly Standard ^ | 23 Apr 2012 | JONAH GOLDBERG

[shove_it]

Three generations of this imbecilic progressive talking point are enough.

Social Darwinism, a popular topic in the 19th and early 20th centuries,” reported the Associated Press on April 5, “is making its way into modern American politics.” The news peg for the story was President Obama’s claim that the House Republican budget is nothing but “thinly veiled Social Darwinism.” It is, he added, a “Trojan Horse,” hiding within in it “a radical vision” that is “antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity.”

To the surprise of no one, the New York Times hailed the “thunderclap of a speech” in an editorial titled “Calling Radicalism by Its Name.” But Social Darwinism has been thick in the air of late (according to Lexis-Nexis, over 100 articles used the term in the 90 days prior to Obama’s speech). Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich had days before already denounced the GOP budget as not merely Social Darwinism but “radical Social Darwinism.”

[...]

[Red Badger]

But the liberals love Darwin!......

[pepsionice]

It’s kinda funny. If you go back...to the 1880s when this was coined...it was frequently used in the British press. Then over twenty years, it kind of disappeared...reappearing in the 1930s for a while. And I doubt if it’s been used in the US press since the 1950s. Some intellectual probably drifted upon in the last three years and figured they could re-use the phrase yet again.

The sad thing...if you asked ten thousand journalists across America to define the phrase and explain in 100 words or less....I don’t think you’d find more than twelve who could do it. That says alot about the phrase, and just useless it really is to the public. And if you need some intellectual to come on TV to explain his fancy words....that’s a pretty good indication of the usefulness of the term.

[shove_it]

Survival of the flakiest?

[Cincinnatus]

Says Calvin Coolidge:

The law of progress and civilization is not the law of the jungle. It is not an earthly law, it is a divine law. It does not mean the survival of the fittest, it means the sacrifice of the fittest. Any mother will give her life for her child. Men put the women and children in the lifeboats before they themselves will leave the sinking ship.

Adequate Brevity p. 21

Quoted in Silent Cal's Almanack, edited by David Pietrusza

[CaspersGh0sts]

Any mother will give her life for her child. Men put the women and children in the lifeboats before they themselves will leave the sinking ship.

Of course, any evolutionary biologist will tell you that this makes perfect sense, as the mother and father are putting the genes of the child first, who will produce offspring in the future. More often than not, the continuation of those genes is more likely if the offspring survives than if the older parent does.

[CaspersGh0sts]

Part of this viewpoint espoused by liberals is the entrenched backwards belief that the government must purvey all good to its citizens. In no way, form or fashion is the notion of Christian charity and benevolence a part of the vocabulary of men like Barack Obama.

No, they would rather to continue to burrow ahead, creating an unpayable debt in the name of caring for others as opposed to relying on the potential goodwill and charity of man. He would prefer to tax that ability and willingness right out of him as opposed to appealing to man’s more noble aspects.

This is yet another example of how Barack Obama is an abject failure and a narcissist laden with deep-seated fears of inferiority and self-doubt.

[BitWielder1]

Radicals calling conservatives radical, for not being radical enough?
What's wrong with this picture?

[MasterGunner01]

See Nazi Germany’s “Final Solution” for THE definitive word on Social Darwinism writ large. Twelve million victims cannot be wrong.